When I listen to music, I approach artists, songs, and albums the way I approach books and films. Sometimes I am listening for the rhythm. Sometimes it is the story an artist is transmitting with their music. Sometimes it is not the artist at all but the producer, where my ear follows craft: the instrumentation, the arrangement, the way certain elements sit together in a track.

When I began exploring Mwendamberi’s music and putting together songs of his that I found interesting, something was different. You listen to enough of his catalogue and you begin to realise that beyond the obvious gift, this is an emotionally driven musician. And if you listen deeper, there is an entire spectrum of pure human emotion in his songs directed toward only one audience: his God.

If I had to define what he does, I would call him a psalmist. His songs move between lament and praise and thanksgiving, crying out in times of suffering and grief, magnifying God for His character, expressing gratitude for specific deliverance.

But you can tell this is not a musician looking for a stage in front of crowds in the way the music industry is defined. He seems like someone who would just be content singing alone. The thing with his music is that the crowds will join him anyway.

From what I’ve since learnt about him, and he probably wouldn’t want me to say this, Mwendamberi is most likely going to be one of the biggest musical artists to ever come out of Zimbabwe. His stage has already been set and just waiting for the right time. He knows it.

He is a storyteller, and I wanted to learn more about the stories underneath those songs. When I called him what I found on the other end of the line was a soft-spoken, humble young man who takes his time with words. We spoke about the music, his goals for it, and the ideas he carries around it.

As we were going back and forth texting and building up towards this, he suffered a loss and had to bury a loved one, so we hit pause. He said give me seven days.

I wasn’t sure he was ready when I sent him a greeting to check on him. He replied as soon as it double-ticked:

“Changamire, I’m ready… ngatiitei.” Let’s do this.

This is for anyone who has searched for purpose in this world, for who they truly are, where they are from, an identity. For those who wish to pursue a voice in their hearts and build something bigger than what the status quo presents to them.

Know that the path will never be clear, and you will not finish that journey with everyone you began it with.

But as Godfrey himself put it to me, “Sometimes you leave home thinking you are simply looking for something, an opportunity, a better life, greener pastures, only to discover that the journey itself was taking you to where you were meant to be.”

This is the story of how he found Mwendamberi.