From the #Mulachallenge to the Brit Awards. S1mba is one artist who has had an interesting journey into the African and British music industries. Most of which stemmed from the song that boosted his career by miles, “Rover”. Come with me as we review the man behind the #Mulachallenege, Leonard Simbarashe Rowdzi, professionally known as S1mba.
Brief Biography of S1mba
S1mba is a British-Zimbabwean singer and songwriter who was born in Ruwa, Zimbabwe where his grandmother raised him. From a young age, S1mba was already music-inclined. He fell in love with playing the djembe and piano, going even as far as playing in a marimba band. This was chiefly just for the love of music at the time. Then, young S1mba didn’t know just how far his music was going to take him.
At the age of nine, he moved to Oxfordshire and found himself in white-dominated communities from primary to secondary to tertiary education. Instead of shying away, S1mba found himself falling more and more in love with music, grounding himself and finding his identity in it. His original plan was to study engineering. But after the first year, he changed his mind to study music production and technology in New College. After this, it wasn’t hard for S1mba to find his voice.
S1mba’s Music
One word, catchy. You listen to a S1mba song and you might not even be particularly interested in anything else. All you know is that you want to sing along again and again. I guess that was the bug that bit his entire audience worldwide when he released his hit song “Rover” featuring DTG. In the heat of the Covid 19 pandemic, S1mba gave us something to fully indulge in and keep us from going crazy in the lockdown.
Prior to this, S1mba was trying to make a name for himself. Long before “Rover”, he was playing around with the idea of releasing his own music. He had recorded “The plan”, letting his friends make Snapchat videos with teasers. When he saw how much reaction that got him, S1mba decided to release the song properly. The song had about 10,000 views in just one week. This gave him more confidence to boost his music, because his audience obviously loved his sound.
The #Mulachallenge was madness. Every Tik Toker out there wanted to dance to it, bringing the number of uses to over 200,000. Safe to say S1mba had created a pandemic of his own. This brought his numbers to over 230 million listens on Spotify and 30 million views on Youtube.
His recognition
His lucky song brought a lot of good things to his career. One such is a Brit Award nomination for Song of the Year. For a total newbie to climb up the ranks so quickly, even though he didn’t win the award, was huge. New College also recently recognized and invited him for a talk, being an ex-student of theirs. S1mba must’ve had nostalgic moments, going through the recording rooms he had used when he studied there. In fact, he had recorded his debut single “The Plan” right there. One important takeaway he told the music production students was about the importance of shameless self-promotion and adding personal experience to music.
So, as for where S1mba is now, he released a thirteen-track EP “Good time, long time” on which he featured artists like Yxng Bane and Tion Wayne. He also releases songs every now and then, collaborating with both musicians and producers. One of his most recent singles being “Grinding” in a collaboration with DJ Neptune.
I know we’ll be seeing much more of S1mba on our screens, and I know his fans are all eagerly waiting for his next project. An album perhaps? Guess we’ll have to wait to see what Zimbabwe’s S1mba has for us next.
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