BBC News Entertainment & Arts

Sha ShaCopyright: Sha Sha

Her voice has graced some of the biggest Amapiano hits – I’m talking about hypnotic and moody tracks like Woza and Tender Love.

She has a voice to melt the hardest heart.

I read one fan post that went like this: “Sha Sha can literally cry and it will sound beautiful.”

She also had an amazing stroke of luck in being introduced to the crème de la crème of South African producers ,DJ Maphorisa.

Sha Sha had relocated from her native Zimbabwe to Johannesburg in order to progress her music career (much against her parents’ wishes) and she was being driven around town by a taxi driver who literally put two and two together.

He asked her why she was always out so late, she told him she was a singer, and he asked her if she’d like to meet another of his customers, DJ Maphorisa.

“I was like: 'wait, what? You know DJ Maphorisa!' He was like: 'yeh, yeh, I drive him sometimes.'

"So we went there one Saturday evening and I played Maphorisa, one of my ballads, and he was blown away. The rest is history.”

Sha Sha has also worked with other Amapiano legends like Kabza de Small and Samthing Soweto.

But she has very much been recognised as a talent in her own right, being nominated for numerous awards, and winning best new international act at the BETs in 2020.

For the last year she’s been working on an album. It’s taking a while, both because of the people she’s collaborating with but also, Sha Sha says, because she is a very spiritual person and she wanted to dig deep for this music:

“I felt like I had to take a step back and really find my core, and I feel like 2020 gave me a different baseline for what is important to me. If I’m a better version of myself, the work I end up doing is going to be beautiful you know.”

I have every reason to believe it will be.

You can hear DJ Edu’s conversation with Sha Sha on This is Africa this Saturday, on BBC World Service radio and partner stations across Africa, as well as online here.