South African-bred Zimbabwean artist FakeAno has returned to complete the African Boy Trilogy with the release of his long awaited EP, “African Boy 3”.
His musical journey started in high school when FakeAno and his friends started a hip hop band who went on to perform in more than 200 live shows on some of the biggest stages across South Africa.
FakeAno has since gone solo and is creating a name for himself, gaining popularity as an artist. Releasing a trilogy was something he planned from the get-go as a way to break out and stand out.
“Choosing to do music full-time is probably one of the most challenging things, as I had to sacrifice all the other stuff that I was pretty good at or were really paying me.
“I had to put it all back into the passion. You have to really give all of yourself to create a wonderful product.”
“African Boy 3” consists of seven tracks and features more great musicians, such as Sauwcy, 2woshort and Henwood. The project is in Shona and English, a depiction of where FakeAno places himself in the African diaspora.
“I’m a very passionate person, so I think the best part for me was coming up with every song, every single time. Most of the music is produced by myself and my team.
“That entire process of coming up with a brand-new idea and then testing if it works. You know, completely exposing yourself in the music.”
The project also pays tribute to the late musical giant Oliver Mtukudzi on the single “Mwari Anewe”, which comes as a tribute to the original version, “Neria.”
“I’m from Zim and I wanted to tribute easily the greatest Zimbabwean artist to walk the planet and I just thought of my favourite song of his, ‘Neria’, and in ‘African Boy 2’ I referenced one of his songs, but this time I didn’t want to just reference.
“The idea originally was to sample him, but then I found a version of ‘Neria’ that was sung on a BBC performance that was never released as a record on its own. So we sent it to his team and got permission to add it as a feature on the project.”
“Huyai Mose” is an encouragement for Africans to come together in order to overcome our differences and similarities and shows off 2woShort’s vocal abilities by singing Zulu-sounding melodies.
“African Boy 3” ends with a record titled “Home”, which features the Malawian platinum-selling artist and producer Henwood.
This song has both artists expressing how they dream of home since they live in the diaspora, with some extra vocals to help them out.
“African Boy 3” is set to cement FakeAno’s sound into the rest of Africa and the world as he’s set to be touring the continent and elsewhere soon.