'I want people to find me within my music'

Singer and songwriter Zonke Dikana does not do a lot of interviews. In fact, Dikana revealed that apart from the two she just did in the last two weeks, her last engagement with journalists was about four years ago.  

So you can imagine the excitement of being invited to a media speed-dating with the singer. One would never know what to expect from such a private person.  

Minutes later, in walked the sultry-looking Dikana with a huge smile plastered on her face. Calm immediately befell me and I instantly had to ask: "Why don't you do interviews?" 

“It's nothing personal to the media because I've never had a bad experience or anything. For me if I have nothing to say, I won’t say anything and that affords me more time to focus on the music,” she said. 

After politely greeting people around the restaurant, the singer sat down with her cappuccino, with extra milk, revealing that as much as milk is not the best food for her voice, “I’m a cat. I drink milk as much as my father did,” she said laughing. 

Dikana only releases music within a four-year cycle, making 2022 the year her fans will be adorned with an album. But first she will be releasing an EP at the end of May titled Enigma “as a starter because I take a long time to release music” and then a full offering that is ready for consumption. 

The title Enigma, she says, speaks to who she is. Mysterious and hard to understand. 

I want people to find me within my music

“The kind of music that I do is music that has to grow on you. I don’t write hits, I write long-lasting songs that every time you go back to it, I believe, you'll discover something that you didn’t discover in the first six months or within the first year of listening. It’s not something I got out of my way to do but I have found people say that about my music. So, four years is enough to sit and marinate within the music."

The standard that she promises to keep with her upcoming projects, she said. 

“I want people to find me within my music. Although I don’t only write about my personal experiences, you will get to know what I was thinking at a particular time. I think that’s more powerful than talking because you get to create a character of who this particular singer is, just like I have done with Sade for many years.”

An obvious inspiration of hers. 

Dikana also explained that she is not private on purpose but that is how she grew up.  “I don’t have a choice because I have always been that way. I never really had friends because we were four girls and my grandmother and dad used to remind us of that, 'those are your friends'.

"It’s something that I carried with since I was young and it has helped me a lot. I don’t go around looking for friends. I am busy with my work, I have kids and plus I am older now. There’s no trouble there," she said.

With no set writing process in place, Dikana says although she is always writing involuntarily, that music has never made it onto any of albums but instead is always pushed to write new music. 

“When I am in the studio I feel like a different person and whatever I had written in those four years no longer applies to me at that present time. So, I write new music on the spot, new music and that means I have a vault full of music. I just never go back,” she said. 

Her latest single off the EP, OKO, is a dedication to God, a tradition she has kept up with since her first album – expressing that relationship through music. The topic about God immediately makes Dikana visibly beam with glee, aside from talking about her children.  

“My sister Lulu introduced me to God in that way that one doesn’t have to be extra spiritual and boring, but she made it so cool to me. That it can be a beautiful casual relationship, hence I found ways to write about Him, something I learnt from her because in her songs you couldn’t tell that they were gospel but would assume are just general RnB songs. I am so thankful to God. I see the impact, the protection, the love and the blessings that He has bestowed to me,” she said.  

Coming from a family of musicians, Dikana said the responsibility now lies with her to carrying the baton forward, a baton that her father left when he passed on and also one that he sister Lulu left. Lulu died of natural causes in 2014. 

“It’s a family business; not in the sense of money but as a family legacy. Music is a release, as a third-born child you would always feel heard. So, I express myself through music, something I still do to date,” she said.

Dikana also revealed that in the last four years, she has been studying Aviation and between music and school, has a couple of more hours to achieve it.  “I’m a student pilot and it’s so exciting. My 10-year-old son thinks it’s the most amazing thing ever,” she said laughing. 

“I’ve always been interested in being a pilot but it was too far-fetched that it couldn’t be a dream. You dream of things that could possibly be within your reach but being a pilot has never ever been one. Until now, lockdown had its negatives but also positives because now I get to fulfill a childhood desire,” she said. 

Fun Fact 

Favourite food – Umpokoqo

Favourite song – The Secret Garden by Quincy Jones

Favourite actor – Cate Blanchett

One thing people don’t know about you – I’m a clean, neat freak. I think I have OCD

Favourite emoji – the red flower. I use it all the time 🌹