With a rich music catalogue yielding songs such as Judas, Glory, Holy Matrimony, Heavens Gate, Sunday, and The Lord’s Prayer, the artistic path of Lordkez is bursting with biblical metaphors, Christian tropes, spiritual overtones, and devotional undertones.
The artwork for her debut album Testament includes themes of religious iconography, with a crown of thorns, a cross necklace, and a wimple covering her head.
The 25-year-old singer’s genre-fluid and distinct sound fusing R&B, neo-soul, and hip hop makes her one of the most exciting names to watch, and she won her first SA Music Award (Sama) four days before her SMag cover shoot.
Real name Keziah Zoë Meyers, she was born in Kimberley in the Northern Cape, where she was raised in a church. One of her biggest influences is her grandfather, a priest. Her mother and father played the pipe organ, later teaching her when she was in the church choir.
“I fell in love with music then. My mom listened to a lot of India Arie and Whitney Houston — that’s where my love for R&B came from. My dad listened to a lot of heavy rap, from Tupac Shakur to Nas, Jay-Z, and The Notorious B.I.G., which is where all the rap influence comes from.”
In grade 9 she relocated to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and that’s where her musical ear became pitch perfect. “It was a huge culture shock, coming from a small town and seeing the world for what it is, experiencing different cultures and people. That’s when I realised that I could also follow my dreams, like my mother,” she recalls.
At about the same time she learnt how to play guitar and started posting music covers online. Later, when she was about 17, she recorded her first original song with a friend. Although she would rather forget that period, I do manage to get the name of the song out of her. It was called Hold You Down and was uploaded onto SoundCloud. “It was terrible. It was inspired by Amy Winehouse. It was very raw and cringe. My family was very supportive and shared the song,” she laughs.
She also released her first EP, which she has since taken down on all digital music platforms. “It was also very experimental with a lot of house influence. Nobody will ever get to hear it again — it was embarrassing,” she says.
Around 2018, she moved back to SA, leaving her mother behind. As she was home-schooled, she went back to Kimberley, writing her matric finals in church. Then she moved to Cape Town to study sound engineering but dropped out. “It was too much for me — there was a lot of physics and instruction manuals. I just wanted to sing,” she says.
After joining independent record label Stay Low (then called Co4lition), she released her six-track EP Revenge Season, which caught the attention of Apple Music after it backed her on the coveted New Artist Spotlight in June 2019. But, if she was going to achieve all her dreams, like her mother, she had to move to the City of Gold. “I was a very repressed and angry teenager,” she admits. “I felt that a lot of people didn’t believe in me, not my family, but friends and boyfriends. I was driving with this boy who I used to date and I was excited, hyping up the project and playing it for him. But he turned it down. I thought to myself, ‘I have to release it now, you are making me angry.’ I don’t know where he is now — but who cares, look where I am.”
Her nine-track EP Charcotta, featuring Rain and Warrior Daydream and a guest appearance by fellow Sama winner Priddy Ugly on the song Sunday, followed in 2020. “We also collaborated with local artist Mduza [real name Mduduzi Ndlovu], rest in peace, because he passed on. He did artwork for each of the songs. Charcotta is the name I gave to myself because I used to write poetry and that was my alter ego. I wrote a cute poetry book,” she explains.
In 2021 she released Juicebox, a four-track EP, followed the same year by the seven-track EP Midsummer, which was groovier than her previous work. She scored some huge guest appearances on the offering with rapper Maglera Doe Boy jumping on the song Glory, chanteuse Shekhinah on Belladonna, and songbird Nanette on Handmedowns. In order to release a full-length album, Lordkez took a year off afterwards and her 12-track project Testament was born in June 2023.
“I needed to experience things — you can’t be in the studio every day of your life or you are going to run out of things to say,” she says. “I took some time off to figure out, ‘What do I want to say? Is the world still going to be the same if I do the project or not? Is it going to help people or trigger them? Is it going to make them happy or sad? Is it going to make them fall in love?’ Because that is what music is to me. Testament is also an accumulation of lessons. Learning so much about myself and who I want to be. And it’s a testament to every young Coloured girl. I wanted to pay homage to how much my religion has played a role in who I am.”
Testament has become her most commercially successful work to date, earning her a nomination for Female Artist of the Year at the Samas and winning Best R&B/Soul Album.
“I hoped and prayed, every night after I found out about the two nominations. I said, ‘God, two is asking for a lot, just give me one,’” she says. “It feels like my hard work paid off. I put my everything into this album. It talks about fearlessness and you can’t be fearless without being vulnerable. For the first time, I was absolutely vulnerable in my music. This album changed my life.”
Next, she hopes to tour the world once again, having performed in Barcelona, Paris, London, Dublin, and Glasgow earlier this year.
