Africa-Press – Eswatini. Artists Qibho Intalektual and Hannah ‘Hanwah’ Johnson excited the Eswatini music industry with an announcement they made at the Green Lifestyle Festival this past weekend.
The pair announced that they had signed a recording deal with a German-based international record label, Paradise Sound System. The signing was facilitated by the Africa Rising Music Conference (AMRC), MTN BushFire and the FNB Arts Round Table after agents from Paradise Worldwide and AMRC saw them perform.
“Shortly after watching us perform at the AMRC event during MTN BushFire 2022, agents SJ Nicholson and Mike Kelly began discussions about bringing us on board as their artists,” said Qibho. Qibho and Hanwah penned the deal and joined the Paradise Sound System music label.
“We will be releasing an EP under the label and from the close of MTN BushFire in June, we have been working on the EP,” he said. When Qibho was quizzed on how he and Hanwah met, he said he did not recall, but remembered it was five years ago and they only started collaborating in 2020.
“Several reasons influenced the decision to work on an EP but the main reasons were the amount of work we were receiving from House on Fire so we had to generate sufficient content to handle the amount of work we had coming our way,” Qibho explained.
Encouraged
He also cited that the deal with Paradise Sound System encouraged them to make more music as their creative content now had an outlet and it was only right that they collated the music into an organised body of work.
Two weeks ago, the duo released their first single titled ‘Embili’, hardly half a year after signing with Paradise Sound System. Qibho also commended the record turnaround time associated with working with an international label and said they looked forward to exporting their craft to a global audience.
“As artists I believe me and Hanwah have been given the opportunity to hone our administrative proficiency through working with Cairo Pamute from Paradise Sound. He has been very supportive, professional and hands-on throughout the production of our EP,” Qibho explained.
The full-length ‘Embili EP’ will be released on January 13, 2023 and the veteran poet expressed his excitement with having their music reach previously untapped international markets. The EP will consist of four songs and the duo mostly collaborated with local session musicians and producers like Jabu Notier, Wigo, Rendition and Gatji.
Contained in a document released by the Berlin-based independent record label is a statement by Hanwah on the joint project which reads, “I would say that the overarching themes of everything Qibho and I produce are authenticity, vulnerability and honouring truth. We are not here to fight or force our opinions on to another, we are here to speak our truth and let ourselves be felt.”
Paradise Sound System is a German-based (Berlin) independent record label that had the opportunity to attend the MTN BushFire Festival 2022 following the Africa Rising Music Conference in 2021.
During this visit, agents from Paradise Sound were treated first hand to Eswatini’s creativity, artistry and talent and in alignment with their theme of building bridges to the world, the label decided to highlight and work with artists Hanwah and Qibho Intalektual.
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