VENDA indie-folk artist Muneyi – a recipient of the prestigious 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music – hosted a listening session of his upcoming album, Shumela Venda, at mining conglomerate Anglo American’s offices in the Joburg CBD on Thursday evening.
The Tshilapfene – a small village outside Thohoyandou – born artist known for his soulful, heritage-rooted soundscapes which masterfully blends childhood memories, folktales and contemporary textures into deeply personal storytelling, wowed an intimate gathering of fans, acquaintances and a select media corps, during an evening in which he offered snippets of his looming full-length release.
Five years after his last release, Shumela Venda – an inquisition into the idea of the nation-state and the myth-making that renders its existence possible – Across ten songs will retrace footsteps and reformulate the narrative, reinscribing Venda into the national conversation rather than leaving it at the margins, across ten songs.
An established storyteller raised by his grandmother who picked up the guitar for the first time after finishing school and found a home to express his own narrative in the language of Tshivenda – Muneyi shines a light on forgotten stories and sidelined histories while setting the personal record straight: remixing as he goes, taking liberties with form and shaping new imaginaries.
Expounding on the album’s title, the artist whose love of language first manifested itself in primary and secondary school through debate, public speaking, spelling bees and grammar lessons, averred: “For people who are not descendants of those who were forcibly moved to live on the outskirts of the city, we have different sentiments about the Bantustans.
Pretoria’s mandate toward the Bantustans and its strategy were different, because those differences add to the greater narrative.”
“The moment you choose to reflect on the dark times as a South African creator of art, there’s this unspoken obligation to speak about the struggle in a certain way,” says the artist. “I wanted to showcase TshiVenda and VhaVenda in the same way other people showcase themselves, and to show that a language that’s marginalised, seen as difficult, and underrepresented can exist in the same world as, say, Nguni languages,” continued Muneyi.
Muneyi’s expedition is not a historical study, but a personal reflection grounded in the reality of someone who experienced post-Bantustan, post-apartheid Venda – someone constructing an alternative sonic tradition.
“I am not trying to manipulate anyone’s feelings, I don’t know how that works, I merely just sing and write from an honest place,” he stated.
Explaining the upcoming album’s cover, Muneyi said: “we had an entire coat of arms made from scratch, the Venda flag made from scratch. There are enough people who lived through that period, who know what it was like. I can only make art based on what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen. So I remade not just the music, but the visual world of what my Venda is like.”
“It also mirrors how things worked then: Venda, as a Bantustan, existed through funding from Pretoria. I’m doing something similar, but without the negative repercussions — apartheid was terrible,” added the creative who has shared stages with some of South Africa’s prominent musicians such as Sho Madjozi, Msaki, Nduduzo Makhathini, to name a few.
“I want people to look at the flag that I raise at my shows and think, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen this flag before,’ and then, when they search ‘Republic of Venda,’ a different flag comes up, the original Bantustan flag. I want them to ask themselves: what does Shumela Venda mean? And when they search it, they’ll discover that it was the slogan of the Republic of Venda,” he emphasised.
The progression from Muneyi’s debut effort, Makhulu (2021), gave birth to the lush soundscapes contouring the new album produced by Tendai Shoxx Shoko. Shumela Venda is Muneyi’s most ambitious work to date, tackling subject matter that is at once divisive and deeply personal — intricately woven into the fabric of South Africa, yet deliberately silenced and pushed to the fringes of popular culture.
Standard Bank’s Group Head of Sponsorships Bonga Sebesho said: “We are delighted that our support has made it possible for Muneyi to record and release an album. As champions of the growth of value over time, we are confident that this project is more than a celebration of music in the present, it is a treasure preserved for posterity and will be enjoyed now and by many generations to come.”
Image Jacob MAWELA (Muneyi limned during a listening session of his upcoming music album Shumela Venda, at the Anglo American offices in the Johannesburg CBD.)
