“I can’t run from my village and the sounds I heard growing up. It’s like they silently haunt me and every time I pick up my guitar to write, I am reimagining and recreating those worlds. Folklore is about identity and since my songs are mostly about stories that involve people, both alive and dead, I believe it shows up… in the melodies, in the history.”
Born in 1995 in Tshilapfene, a small village outside of Thohoyandou, and raised by his grandmother, Muneyi only picked up a guitar for the first time in 2014. In these lilting, acoustic strings, he immediately found a home for his stories and his thoughts on life, expressed in his mother-tongue Tshivenda.
“My childhood felt simple and complete,” Muneyi tells me. “It was mostly me and my grandmother. She was always humming something, something poetic at that. There’s a way in which Venda people live that city people can’t quite understand, and only after I left did I realise that I wanted to write about the village… about its way of doing things, about the in between.”
Muneyi’s songs are deeply spiritual, tinged by a reflective tone that commands absolute vulnerability. He sings about the nature of love and loss and life, through the lens of personal reflection, and the result is graceful.
Graceful is perhaps the best word to use when speaking about Muneyi. Grace in both the divine sense of the word, and also in the elegance, the poise, with which he writes.
His 2021 debut album – Makhulu – is a collision of worlds. Melodies are simple and honest, no doubt a quality taken from the sounds of traditional folk, yet compositions are also complex and colourful, tinged at times by loud, exuberant instrumentation.
In his follow up EP, for the boys I like, there are tones of jazz and soul, even subtle hints of old-school R&B, bringing with them a contemporary proclivity.
“Currently I take great inspiration from Lwei Netshivhale, Thandiswa Mazwai, Msaki, Ganavya, and most recently, the Zawose Queens,” Muneyi says. “I also truly love Searrows and his songwriting style, it’s so haunting. Zoe’s pen and singing game is also unmatched.”
“I love a good story,” he continues. “I love listening to long conversations and then putting myself in that situation and writing from that point of view.”
Diving into the farthest reaches of his imagination, Muneyi’s creative faculties are brilliant. He’s a natural-born storyteller, a talent certainly taken from his upbringing.
“It’s not all rosy growing up in a small village,” he tells me. “I believe if I hadn’t been in the village, I would have had more access to music and language and training, but I also wonder if I would have had the same stories I know now… if I would have been this me that I am right now. There’s lots to think about, but everything that has happened has led to this Muneyi.”
His latest song “Manhā De Luto (For Fidel)” is perhaps Muneyi at his most vulnerable, his most devastating, written for a dear friend who tragically passed away in a motorcycle accident.
“Fidel was the closest thing to my heart and I had never anticipated losing him, at least not this early,” he tells me. “Manha de luto means ‘Morning of mourning’ or ‘Morning of loss’ and it’s about the day I found out he had passed. It’s written in a very Portuguese style… we both loved Mozambique, and we were learning Portuguese, and in the intro there’s a voice note of him asking me to bring his father some Mozambican beer.”
“The song is about me feeling abandoned, left behind in a world where I am unable to move on,” Muneyi continues. “It speaks to the harshness of grief, and how it never seems to answer our questions and the longing we feel. It’s also my way of honouring the beautiful time we spent together, wanting to remember this human being, that was the best friend anyone could have ever asked for.”
Being so open with listeners certainly takes an emotional toll, but it’s through this openness that Muneyi has found and will continue to find success.
2025 is filled with exciting new prospects. He has a new EP – There’s a burning sensation where my heart used to be – out next month, with another project slated for release later this year.
“I believe people know my grandmother, they know my love for boys (lol), and with this project they’re going to learn about my journey of self-forgiveness,” Muneyi tells me.
With a sophomore album looking likely for 2026, and a potential European tour in the works too, Muneyi’s path is promising. Trust us when we say that Muneyi is going to go far. Very, very far.
Make sure to stream Muneyi’s brand new single “Holu Lufuno” featuring NOGA, out tomorrow!
Images courtesy of Vaazi & Rosa Scipion.
