Transkei moon thandiswa mazwai biography

South African musician

Musical artist

Thandiswa Nyameka Mazwai (born 31 March 1976)^[2] is a South Africanmusician, and is also the lead vocalist and songwriter of Bongo Maffin.

She is also known as King Tha.^[3]

Her debut album Zabalaza (released in 2004), which attained double platinum status and her album also got nominated for Planet Awards on BBC Radio 3.^[4] Also in 2004, she won Best Female Artist at the Metro FM Music Awards.^[5]

Her second album, Ibokwe, released in 2009, was certified gold status within a few weeks after its release.^[4]

Early life

Thandiswa Mazwai was born in Eastern Cape in 1976 – the year of the Soweto Uprising – and grew up almost entirely in Soweto, Johannesburg, amidst the heavy apartheid township violence of the 1980s.

Both her parents, Belede and Thami Mazwai,^[6] were journalists and anti-apartheid political activists, and she recollects that her home w