With a number of successful singles, and opening the stage for rapper AKA, when he performed in Tsakane, Shaun “Shimi-boi” Malinga (22) has released his first mixtape.
Shimi-boi says it’s taken him two years to complete the tape, which he called Sleepless Nights, owing to the fact the he spent ‘many sleepless nights recording’.
He says he focused on promoting many of the singles featured in the tape, performing for paying and non-paying gigs.
The mixtape opens with, Type Eztshelayo, a song that will get you moving your body or involuntarily tapping your feet, and has good flowing rhythms.
Shimi-boi says the tape is produced so that it caters for everyone, and some of the songs confront tough social issues, like track number three, dealing with challenges facing communities, such as orphans, crime and transactional relationships between young girls and old men.
He says track number 10 is close to his heart, “Lost is a song dedicated to my late mother and the struggles I encountered, in my road to healing from that painful experience,” adds Shimi-boi.
House music is the path that drew Shimi-boi into the music industry, and he says it was in 2010 that he wrote and performed his first hip hop song, with three others, called Good Life.
“That song was distributed via Bluetooth and well received, that’s when I realised music was my calling, I diverted from the IT course I was doing to focus on my music career,” he adds.
