Gospel music has been accepted by large communities in Zimbabwe. Different types of genres under the Gospel have come and gone. Others have coexisted over the years and some still do exist. This is what Lindiwe Machacha gives us as her first statement during her interview. Lindiwe Machacha is a gospel artist who goes by the name “The Psalmist”. One could readily think about the beautiful smoothening psalms from the bible.
Lindiwe Machacha is a powerful gospel artist who was born and bred in Matabeleland South in Plumtree.
“When I was at a very tender age, I used to listen to gospel artists though they were not as many in my country as now. I used to sit and listen to the words, and how they were carefully written. After that I would carefully follow the harmonies, and I would feel goosebumps all over my body, I was already born again by that time but when I was listening to the music it always felt as if I was being birthed anew every time”, she says. Lindiwe is currently based in South Africa in Johannesburg where she is actively participating in the gospel music industry but is deep-rooted in her home town, Beitbridge.
Growing up experiencing the life positives and negatives that people were facing in her community, Lindiwe could see some youth who were abusing drugs on a massive scale and in turn drugs abused them, not to mention the hunger that stroke other families and even theirs, The Psalmist also talks about the character of other community members she used to see. She says among all these negatives, she also got to be brought up in a well-loving community with a very rich language complexity. The place was dominated by isiNdebele, Sotho, and Venda. In times of funerals, weddings, and any other functions you would see the elderly, and young coming together and singing psalms with beautiful voices in support of the community. She says she ventured into gospel singing so that she could preach to her community and the world at large. She wanted to see the good qualities of the community and a change in all the problems they were facing.
“I wanted to also tap into that grace that used to give me goosebumps when I was young. I want to also partake in sharing the grace through song, you know music is a very powerful tool in the bible and in the world. We have seen in the bible God destroying Kingdoms using music, we saw God giving instruction to Joshua saying move around Jericho with good singing and great joy and the mighty walls of Jericho fell to rubble. There are many instances where they used music to scatter the armies. If we can all learn to sing from our hearts, with faith I believe we can destroy the walls of Jericho in our communities”, the Psalmist says.
Lindiwe is a member of the Zion church. She says she is a member of the Israel Christian church, a very prayerful church but one thing she has learnt is they always balance the preaching, the prayer and the worship in song. She is greatly indebted to her church pastor Mr Mazibuko who has helped her a lot in her music journey.
Lindiwe Machacha’s stage name, the Psalmist is a powerful name that was inspired to her by energetic and spirit-filled psalms that she sang. Lindiwe said she ventured into gospel in 2019 when she was recording her first-ever album. The story of her life is the foundation of her work. She joyfully says “I grew up in church, I was one of the most committed church members as I would attend almost all church services, I was interested in growing in the word of God and in spirit, what I felt moved to do was to preach the word, I loved singing a lot so then I decided to save God and preach his Gospel by singing”. Today Lindiwe has one album that consists of 13 songs. She also recorded four singles in 2022 namely: Ngezinsuku zonke; lizwi; Ngisimamise; and Silommeli.
She says these songs have been powerful psalms used by worshippers to walk through painful times and experiences. She also released one video for the song Ngisimamise which means “establish me oh Lord”. This was a song that she sang in times of hard times, there were snares set up on her by the devil and spiritually she was having challenges. She wrote the song “Ngisimamise”to say establish me oh Lord, make me stand through every problem that I am facing.
Lindiwe has also done some collaborations with other artists including Mr Mazibuko who is the one who offered her voice training and taught her a lot about music recording. Mr Mazibuko is a South African producer and director who owns Injali Recording Studio and is a pastor of Israel Christian Church. He is a musician of par excellence and is very good at grooming artists. “Some of the gospel artists who inspire me to do my work are Hlengiwe Mhlaba, and Mai Mwamuka. I love their music and I am inspired because these are women who have stood their ground in this gospel industry. I would like an opportunity to collaborate with them to spread the word of God in beautiful harmonies.
In terms of being inspired, I cannot say my family inspired me musically as there is no other musician in the family other than me, however my family has continued to inspire me by believing in me and supporting me in all of my songs. The psalmist says she has received some recognition for her great artistic work, such as the best female artist award from Amaqhawanentaba music awards. She says that such kind of honour shows that her future is bright and she is now strong-willed to continue as there are people and houses that show appreciation for her work in such an amazing way. She also received the best gospel song award from TESMA in 2022.
Lindiwe says the year 2022 has been a good year despite the financial challenges she faced. She says there is a gap in artist linkages and support systems.” if given an opportunity I would advise artists to be one, work together and always support others at all times for the betterment of the industry”, she says.
The talented gospel artist says her work is unique, she tries to be herself always and does not fake herself to be others. She is however open to more collaborations this year with people from different types of gospel music. She says there is a need for more big shows and concerts for gospel artists so that they are put out there to the people. She says sometimes the distribution of her work is affected by lack of finance and this would be avoided if she could get sponsors.
The Psalmist says when she started writing songs while in Beitbridge, she fell in love with the ChiVenda language and she did her first song in Venda titled Mudzimu Wanga, which means he is God who is able, the provider, the healer. Lindiwe says in working on Mudzimu Wanga, she met three different producers who did not finish mastering her song. She says one of them blocked her after she tried calling him several times and some made her sing Accapela without beats. She says these are some of the challenges that women face in the creative industry. They meet people who waste their time and some rob them of their money. She feels established studios should make things easy and affordable for artists to record so that they do not get conned by these inexperienced people. She says sometimes women’s lives are in danger as they would have to go to isolated or unsafe places just to record songs.
Lindiwe says despite these and other unfortunate incidents, she never gave up on her talent as she believes that the talent she has comes from the fire burning inside her. She is doing God’s work by ministering through gospel songs. “Writing a song comes from inspiration and it usually takes me 2-7 days to write a song.”
