The prodigious son returns

Lumanyano Mzi comes home to share the musical flair that carried him to global stages

- Kibo Ngowi

Lumanyano Mzi's life in music started almost as soon as he could hold a drumstick. Born in Cape Town in 1995, he grew up in Nyanga East and later Delft, surrounded by rhythm and melody.

His father, a spaza shop owner by day and a founding member of the reggae band Mighty Ethiopians by night, established a template for communal music-making that would shape Mzi's life and career.

"My father's band ended up being one of those things where all my aunts would take all the kids to the band," Mzi recalls with a warm chuckle. "So, at some point, it became a family band.

"It was a really fun and incredible experience for us to actually be able to be under the leadership of my dad and learn so many things about music and performance."

Mzi was only six years old when he started playing drums in the Mighty Ethiopians. His first performance came at the Paarl Annual Reggae Festival, where he took the stage at the tender age of seven.

"I just remember that night I was sleepy and I had this one song to play. I couldn't reach the drum pedals," he says, laughing. "I hid behind different drums. But, you know, I made it work. It was really beautiful. I still remember that."

Those early experiences planted a seed that grew into a lifelong love affair with music.

"It's definitely something that developed later in life. So, I loved music for what it was to me," he says.

"Everything about it, you know, just brought me joy. I immersed myself fully in the art form of every music, despite what my parents were playing at home, which was either reggae or gospel."

Music was his ticket to the world. At 14, he joined the band Azania and had the opportunity to travel across Africa to perform in places such as Gambia, Senegal, Mauritius, Côte d'Ivoire and Réunion Island.