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Music

Mzwètwo's Message For 2017 and Beyond is Freedom

Listen to the long-awaited second EP from the Zimbabwean-born artist.

Three years ago Mzwètwo released his debut EP Gallantino. A whole lot of life experience -including a US publishing deal - later, he follows up with Gallantino II, a three track EP that blends multiple styles including hip-hop, rock and soul.

The young Zimbabwean-born New Zealander's message is freedom and delivers it both lyrically and stylistically. Throughout the EP he takes soft melodies and soul influences and then mixes them with moments of hard rap.

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Collaborating with fellow New Zealand creatives Young Tapz and Otis, he's crafted songs that are both intimate and raw.

Listen to Gallantino II below and read the young stars thoughts on freedom, racial prejudice and his year in music.

Noisey: Freedom is a recurrent theme throughout the EP.
Mzwètwo: Yes, it was inspired by a poem I wrote where one of the lines is 'I could be many things but I just want to be free'. We get caught up in ambition and chasing all of these things, but the most important thing that I could ask for is freedom. Freedom to be treated the same as someone as a different skin tone than me, freedom from my own insecurities and freedom to love who I want to love.

Where do you stand on everything that's happening politically right now?
I don't really know too much about politics but I know how I feel. This whole year has been crazy, especially being a black person. I went to the States and experienced racism and what the black experience means in a different context. So when I came home, I carried a lot of those emotions with me alongside the feeling of imprisonment as an artist.

When did you start sitting down and creating music?
In school, I was very privileged to take music. I didn't realise that being able to play an instrument was a privilege until I started being around other rappers. Most people in hip-hop can't play instruments. I write a lot of my songs on piano and it gives me an insight into how melody and tone works with the voice.

What attracted you to hip-hop?
Living in New Zealand and being black offers you a very different worldview than black people in other countries. No one looks like you and no one shares your culture. Growing up around white modern culture, I never listened to rap music, I only listen to Green Day, Slipknot and all those bands. It wasn't until I started watching TV that I saw rappers and people that looked like me. That was the first moment I realised that being black was cool.

In "God Told Me" you say, "I'm a one of one, God told me to stunt". What makes you special and unique?
What makes me unique is all the things that I'm not. You know that line that's like "everything I'm not makes me everything I am?" I really believe that's true. I'm not a competitive person, if someone can do something better than me I let them do it. That nature comes from a softer side of my personally, derived from being raised by women. It drives me to only create music that only I can. There has been all these decades of music but I'm still able to make something that no one else has and that's a blessing. I'm grateful for that.

Image: Kat