A continuation of the sonic story he first started on 2021’s Ghetto King, Afro-house producer Zakes Bantwini’s fourth album gets its title from a conversation about cars. “People who fall in love with a car always look forward to the new facelift,” he tells Apple Music. “And I think that's what happens with my music. I take time to give you a body of work. So when I give you the last album, you hold on to it until you get another one. When you really think about the sound that I'm doing right now and the approach and the things that I'm achieving, I feel like I'm indeed reborn in this music industry.”
The Star Is Reborn takes the futuristic Afro-house baton from Ghetto King and runs even further, yet this time around, the producer and DJ dares to venture into more personal subject matter. “I feel I'm still in the same world, but maybe exploring other avenues,” he explains. “Like when you're in the venue and you are told there is a VIP area. I feel like I'm still in that sound and just trying to explore it even more and to see what's going to happen with it.”
The two-year span in between projects wasn’t exactly intentional, however—it’s more a by-product of Bantwini’s perfectionism. “I just want you to feel like, ‘This guy has worked on this thing,’” he confesses. “People think that with dance music, people just don't work on it. For ‘iParty 2.0’, we had a 52-piece strings section. I want people to know that this is a true art and this guy really worked on this. It's an album where a young person and an older person, a learned one or even a music enthusiast and a non-music-enthusiast, will be able to fall in love with the craft.” Below, he talks us through key tracks from the album.
“Abasekho”
“‘Abasekho’ is a record that I did after my father passed in January [2023]. I think I did that record after my dad's funeral. It’s a very, very personal song—‘abasekho’ means ‘they're not around’. When my dad came to visit me in my house in Durban, he went home to say, ‘I’m coming back.’ It was the same thing with my mom when she went to the hospital. That, ‘My son, I'm going to come back.’ And then he never did.”
“Ugesi” [Zakes Bantwini & Skye Wanda]
“I wrote that record for Mafikizolo. I sent it to Theo, say, 'Hey, man. Do you like this record?' And it was unsolicited. So we did the song—I called Skye Wanda and Karyendasoul [as producer and co-writer]. And then I sent it to Theo [Kgosinkwe, one half of Mafikizolo] and he said, ‘Yo, man. I like it but we've just released and so I don't know what are we going to do with it, so it's probably going to be with us for a year or whatever.’ For me, it speaks about lovers having been in trouble around the issue of electricity. The other one talking about, ‘Yo, you couldn't get ahold of me because there was no electricity.’ It's very, very, very current and I think the subject matter is very South African—it really hits home. It's a play on words and it’s really a fun track.”
“Utshwala” (feat. Simmy) [Zakes Bantwini & Drega]
“This song is around the issue of alcohol and alcoholism, and a friend of yours saying, 'I'm never, ever going to drink alcohol again, I promise you.' Simmy and I are telling our different stories, because I touch on my friend abusing alcohol, and that he [owes] everybody now and he's always drunk, and then Simmy is talking about her friend, and she doesn't even know where she is now. She's always away and stuff. So the chorus culminates into this friend saying, 'I'm never, ever going to drink alcohol again.’”
“Dubai”
“This is a song that I worked on that song before, maybe 2000. It's an old record, but the lyrics were gibberish. The lyrics were the same as ‘Osama’; they did not make sense. So I felt like having a song which would be gibberish again. I was like, ‘Oh, man, what is it that people really love and then that they talk about the most?’ And the subject is Dubai. Everybody wants to go to Dubai. And so I was like, ‘Okay, let me just work on the song about going to Dubai,’ and that's what it is.”
“Love Again” (feat. Nana Atta) [Zakes Bantwini & Soulroots]
“This song is about still believing in love, even though you've been scarred by love. Everybody has been broken when it comes to the issue of love. But if I didn't believe in love, I wouldn't have had my wife or beautiful children and the life that I'm living right now, because I think it's brought by the fact that I still believed in love. In believing in love, I found a partner, and we managed to build a family based on that. It's basically a confessional thing: Even though I've been through a lot and even though I've been hurt, I'm still going to love again and I want to love again.”
“Ngin’mele Nonke” (feat. Drega)
“This one is for the street. I wanted just to do a song that would play at 3 am in the club. And it was meant to be an instrumental, but when we got into that break, I was like, man, I just need something here. I remembered hearing this clip somewhere. I was like, 'Actually there's this clip that I liked.' And then that made me laugh. It made me like, this guy, confessing like, 'Yo, I'm really representing all my boys, there's nobody who will love like I do.’”
“Mama Thula” (feat. SUFFOCATE SA) [Zakes Bantwini, Skye Wanda & Thakzin]
“This is a special record—another personal record. It is a song appreciating moms and the role that they've played in our lives. It's actually a prayer for them, because most of the time it's them praying for us, and it’s just appreciating them. I remember when we were playing it back. The guys [in the studio] were literally crying. I've seen so many people shedding a tear when that record comes on. There was a time when I got so emotional [playing it], because my mom is no more. I actually stopped singing for a while because I didn't want to cry in front of everybody. They wouldn't actually understand. It's one of the special records.”
“Iyangena Iyaphuma” [Zakes Bantwini & Kususa]
“This one is also for the streets. It was meant to be an instrumental, but later I was like, 'Man, this has to be something which is going to keep looping.' I was just looking for a word that would loop nicely on that record and keep repeating. So there's no thinking. I don't want to go like, 'Yeah...' and be philosophical about this thing. I just looked for a word that will just loop and worked, so ‘Iyangena Iyaphuma’ was the one that really worked, so we used it.”
“Abantu” (feat. Nana Atta) [Da Africa Deep Remix] [Zakes Bantwini, Karyendasoul & Da Africa Deep]
“There's a song of mine called ‘Amanga’—it’s a personal song, and ‘Abantu’ is actually a continuation of that song. You have to be careful of people who want to see you [go] down. It's really that song that says, 'You just need to be aware that there are people who sometimes will think about your life and how to just destroy it.’ And I think we all have had a fair share of that, but some people are lucky enough [to discern when] people are actively trying to destroy them. I know I've had a fair share of those. I've had to experience that over and over. At this level of my career, you still have people who actively want to destroy you. So let me just do a song—it’s the only way I know how to express myself. ‘Abantu’ is advising my fans or people who cared to listen to say, 'Just be careful of people like this. They do exist.' It is an original song on Ghetto King. I reached out to Da Africa Deep and say, ‘Remix the song, because it's special.’”#
Tracklist:
- Zakes Bantwini - Abasekho
- Zakes Bantwini & Skye Wanda - Ugesi
- Zakes Bantwini & Drega - Utshwala (feat. Simmy)
- Zakes Bantwini - Dubai
- Zakes Bantwini & Soulroots - Love Again (feat. Nana Atta)
- Zakes Bantwini - Ngin’mele Nonke (feat. Drega)
- Zakes Bantwini, Skye Wanda & Thakzin - Mama Thula (feat. Suffocate SA)
- Zakes Bantwini & Drega - iParty 2.0 (feat. Simmy)
- Zakes Bantwini & Kususa - Iyangena Iyaphuma
- Zakes Bantwini & Karyendasoul - Abantu (Da Africa Deep Remix) (feat. Nana Atta)
Stream the full Album below.
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