Muneyi Returns With Shumela Venda, A Powerful Exploration of Identity, History and Memory
What Is Shumela Venda About?
Five years after his last full-length release, award-winning musician Muneyi returns with Shumela Venda, an inquisition into the idea of the nation-state and the myth-making that renders its existence possible. Across ten songs, he retraces footsteps and reformulates the narrative, reinscribing Venda into the national conversation rather than leaving it at the margins. He shines a light on forgotten stories and sidelined histories while setting the personal record straight: remixing as he goes, taking liberties with form and shaping new imaginaries.
“[T]he moment you choose to reflect on the dark times as a South African creator of art, there’s this unspoken obligation to speak about the struggle in a certain way,” says the artist. “For people who are not descendants of those who were forcibly moved to live on the outskirts of the city, we have different sentiments about the Bantustans. Pretoria’s mandate toward the Bantustans and its strategy were different, because those differences add to the greater narrative.”
Muneyi Reclaims Venda’s Place in South Africa’s Cultural Narrative
The progression from his first effort, Makhulu (2021), through to the EPs for the boys i like (2023) and there’s a burning sensation where my heart used to be (2025), has felt steady and deliberate, like having your hand held as the artist gently reveals layer after layer of his work. It’s this un-layering, this peeling back, that gives birth to the lush soundscapes contouring the album. Produced by Tendai Shoxx Shoko, who also produced Thandiswa Mazwai’s 2024 magnum opus, Sankofa, Shumela Venda is Muneyi’s most ambitious work to date, tackling subject matter that is at once divisive and deeply personal — intricately woven into the fabric of South Africa, yet deliberately silenced and pushed to the fringes of popular culture.
“I wanted to showcase TshiVenda and VhaVenda in the same way other people showcase themselves, and to show that a language that’s marginalised, seen as difficult, othered, and underrepresented can exist in the same world as, say, Nguni languages, and can be on the same line-up as everyone else,” says the 2025 Standard Bank Young Artist for music.
A Personal Reflection
Muneyi’s expedition is not a historical study, but a personal reflection grounded in the reality of someone who experienced post-Bantustan, post-apartheid Venda; someone constructing an alternative sonic tradition, one wall of sound layered atop another.
“To aid that, we had an entire coat of arms made from scratch, the Venda flag made from scratch. There are enough people who made art during that period, who lived through that period, who know what it was like. I don’t know what it tasted like, I don’t know what it smelled like, so I can’t really make music from that time. I can only make art based on what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen, which is very little. So I remade not just the music, but the visual world of what my Venda is like. It’s inspired by that world, but it’s its own world — an imaginary world inspired by real events.”
“My biggest desired outcome from this is people asking questions, and those who have answers responding to them. I want people to look at the flag that I raise at my shows and think, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen this flag before,’ and then, when they search ‘Republic of Venda,’ a different flag comes up, the original Bantustan flag. I want them to hear the title track and ask themselves: what does Shumela Venda mean? And when they search it, they’ll discover that [it] was the slogan of the Republic of Venda. Instead of making myself a scholar, a place where people get the truth, I want this project to inspire people to go looking for the truth themselves,” he emphasises.
The Standard Bank Young Artist Awards nod has given him greater room to explore existing ideas and widened the scope of what is possible as an independent artist.
“If I was doing this alone, it would’ve been harder, because it’s a huge financial burden to put out a work of this magnitude and then communicate it effectively. Then there’s the co-sign of a larger institution saying, ‘This is what we made together.’ It also mirrors how things worked then: Venda, as a Bantustan, existed through funding from Pretoria. I’m doing something similar, but without the negative repercussions — apartheid was terrible, and the funders were terrible. I think it also speaks to reimagining what agency and support can do in the arts. I’m able to tell my story through this institution, and together we’re able to contribute to a stronger South African historical archive,” he concludes.
Says Group Head of Sponsorships at Standard Bank, Bonga Sebesho, “We are delighted that our support has made it possible for Muneyi to record and release an album. As champions of the growth of value over time, we are confident that this project is more than a celebration of music in the present, it is a treasure preserved for posterity and will be enjoyed now and by many generations to come.”
Shumela Venda is available on all streaming platforms from 29 May.
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