Gospel star Zaza Mokhethi releases song with 40 other artists to fight xenophobia

Zaza has signed with Gallo Records.
Image: Kyle Zeeman

Gospel artist Zaza Mokhethi watched in horror as alleged xenophobic attacks gripped the nation earlier this month, and so decided to call up a few friends to record a song about unity.

The result was a collaboration between 40 artists from across the continent, including Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mozambique and Swaziland.

The song was recorded in two days.

“Song often speaks louder than words. Song soothes your spirit when it is sore,” she added.

She said that gospel musicians had a role to play in healing the nation.

“We need God more than anything. If your faith is not in God then I don’t know where your trust is in. As a country and a continent, we are struggling and we need each other, not fight each other. We need to preach love. We need to preach God, because he is love.”

She acknowledged that some foreigners committed crimes using religion and said that the practice needed to stop.

“Churches are using God’s name but are doing their own thing, so that people can be comfortable. Underneath they are doing the wrong thing and we need to stop that. At some point it will catch up with them.”

Zaza partnered with Gallo Records and recently signed a licensing deal with the company.

The deal will see her retain ownership of her music and masters, with Gallo administering publishing and marketing.

“It is exciting to finally be a signed artist at Gallo Records. We have been doing things on our own as Zahza Holdings but we are a small company and we had been praying for a partnership with a big company. We made gold on our own, I want that triple-platinum,” she said.