One of Riky Rick’s last singles ‘Sondela’ certified gold

Rikhado ‘Riky Rick’s Makhado’s legacy is indeed being continued to be remembered after a song he was featured in was certified gold. 

Venom and Shishiliza’s released their hit single Sondela about three weeks ago, featuring Riky Rick, Yumbs, Raspy, Blxckie and Tshego.

The rapper passed away on 23 February after taking his own life.

This song was released a week prior to his death and Sondela has climbed the charts ever since. 

The single is currently number one on Apple Music’s chart, number two on Spotify local charts, has over one million streams in less than a month and over one million plays on YouTube. 

The single received over 400 000 streams in its first week of release and currently stands at 1.4 million streams.

The success of Sondela is the creation of Shishiliza a songwriter, artist manager, producer and DJ Venom who said the moment is bittersweet.

Venom said: “Sondela is very bittersweet. Bitter in the sense that we lost Ricky and sweet because it’s doing everything we had imagined it for it to do. It’s crazy because we fought over the song so many times in the weeks prior to its drop and here we are with this number one but one of us is missing.

“It’s a very bittersweet feeling but we thank God nonetheless.” 

Shishiliza is also known as BashVision and as the manager for Boity Thulo. He hopes the song will continue its rise in local and African charts.

“I am very happy and blessed with the success of Sondela; it’s a song that we have been working on since June last year. There have been a lot of back and forth trying to perfect the song and the success means all the time we put into it was worth it,” he added.  

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Compiled Sandisiwe Mbhele