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By Bonginkosi Tiwane

Digital Journalist


WATCH: South African singer Motswedi Modiba melts Asian hearts on Sing! China

The South African has built a cult-following in Asia, with her TikTok account amassing over 40 million vies in just a few months.


South African singer Motswedi Modiba became the first African and black person to compete in Chinese singing competition, Sing! China.

Watch Motswedi Modiba on Sing! China:

“I took a huge leap of faith and joined one of China‘s biggest singing competitions, Sing! China. It is a competition that is loved and watched around Asia… by hundreds of millions of people. And this is the first season a black & African has graced this legendary stage. The reception since the show aired a few hours ago has been overwhelming,” shared Modiba on Instagram.

Sing! China is a singing competition where vocalists face each other to impress the panel of judges and get the chance to pick one of the judges as their vocal coach for the rest of the season.

“This is a historic moment, for me, for China, for South Africa, for the world. And it’s one I’m so honoured to be a part of. Thank you to my team here in China of over 20 people who work so hard to make sure I succeed,” said Modiba.

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The South African, who is known as Moe by her fans, is an award winning artist after walking away with the Best New Age R&B Artist at the Metro FM Awards in May.

Last month she was elected Regional Representative for Africa at International House, where she was in charge of over 50 individuals from over 35 African countries. The main functions of the Regional Committee include formulating policies and supervising the regional office as set out in Article 50 of the WHO constitution.

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Internet sensation

According to the songstress, she opened a Chinese TikTok account a few months ago. “I speak Mandarin and lived in China for a bit so figured it would be a cool way to stay up to date with the trends and post now and then for fun,” she said on Instagram.

But shortly after that the account blew up after she posted a video of herself singing. “We have over 40 million views in less than 20 videos with 167k followers with about 2.3 million likes.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Motswedi Modiba (@moeismusic)

“I feel the impact so much more now that I’ve come to China for a bit. People even recognise me in the street and stores lol. I can’t explain how wild it is lol. This experience is one that I definitely didn’t see coming but I’m SO grateful for.”

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