Who is Black Bird?

 

Black Bird is a 28 year old, South African hip-hop artist who was born to exiled parents who were living in Harare during the 80’s. After being based in Johannesburg for the past few years she returned to Harare in July 2009. Apart from doing freelance voice-over jobs for ZBC clients, Pannar Seed and Showman Tours (she does voice-overs on their weekly ZBC TV show); she also has a very promising career as hip-hop artist. During the second half of 2009 Black Bird performed at various fashion shows including Miss Stars 2009 and The Fashion Extravaganza at The Chapman Golf Club in November 2009. She has also graced stage at Alliance Francaise, The Book Cafe, The Mannenburg and Stars Night-club on several occasions. She recently performed alongside Swazi hip-hop/reggae artist Jazz P, as well as with Zimbabwean reggae singer Thanda in a powerful collaboration of female artists hosted at The Mannenburg.

Black Bird is a trained media practitioner (she has a diploma Film-making and Broadcasting from Allenby Campus, Johannesburg) with almost 8 years experience in scriptwriting, film & television production and new media (website content management). During 2008 she worked as the website editor and senior writer for MNet’s Channel O and Africa Magic websites. Black Bird has been in the performing arts for almost 20 years and she is a well-seasoned and highly professional performer and voice-over artist. She performed in several Allied Arts competitions from when she was as young as 6 years old, giving eloquent poetry recitals to packed audiences and distinguished adjudicators. Throughout primary and high school she appeared in several stage productions, including a grade one rendition of “The Ginger Bread Man” in a production of “Chicago” whilst she was at Wendywood High in Sandton, Johannesburg. 

As a musician Black Bird commands a strong following and her online campaign through MySpace, Facebook (950 friends on her Black bird profile) and her official blog (www.iiamblackbird.wordpress.com), have all given her mileage within the Zimbabwean and international music scenes. Before her return to Harare in July 2009, Black Bird was blazing a trail in the South African hip-hop industry with regular performances at various Johannesburg night-clubs and on campuses nationwide. These were done in conjunction with 8 other rappers as part of the Hip-Hop Intellectuals Sessions held at universities across South Africa. Some of the other Hip hop Intellectuals included Hoodlum, Reason, Rashid, Renegade, One2 , Relic, K-Method and Mathematix. The Hip-hop Intellectuals worked alongside Rzarecters.com’s Brian Mokoena who steered the managerial side of the tour.During this time Black Bird also worked with Sesotho crew Baleloko (they received Hype Awards nomination in 2009) and she recorded a collaboration with Mathematix, K-Method and the Vaal based Baleloko producer, Shem

This year alone, Black Bird has been featured on 4 hip-hop mix-tapes/compilations, which have all been released within the first half of 2010. Her work on all of these mixtapes is outstanding and each of the tracks has being rated as one of the best on each project. Three of these mix-tapes are Zimbabwean releases (The Platform, Zim Imagination and The Skitzo Mixtapes) and the third one, Harare Hustler, is a project that was been released in the by UK-based Zimbabweans who are active in the international fashion and music industries.

In the past Black Bird has worked with the likes of legendary Zimbabwean guitarist, Andy Brown and she has been produced by well recognized Zimbabwean producers Shayzar (of Tha Mix Masterz), On Point & Cheeks, Jay Brown, The Monkeynuts and Tagz. Black Bird also worked on a vernacular piece with Take 5 (of Chamhembe fame) and she displayed her Pan-African language skills by rapping in 4 African laungages (Zulu, Sotho, Shona & Bemba) on the song. She has also worked with prominent South African hip-hop producer, Hoodlum. Black Bird has been featured in M&M Stars (A British based arts magazine), she has been on Zimbojam.com (a showbiz & arts website) on 3 occasions. She has been featured on ZBC’s Youth.Com program twice and she has also been interviewed by Chucky on the popular music TV Show, Heart of the Rhythm. 

Several Black Bird tracks are currently receiving airplay on Power FM, Zimbabwe’s youth radio station. Last year Black Bird maintained the number one position on the Zimbabwean Hip-Hop Charts and she remianed uncontested for more than 4 weeks. Her two tracks, “Oooh” and “Dollar Rand Naira” (which are both from her debut album “Tha Rappetizer”) were the two Black Bird songs that took turns at being number one.