Thando Zide

Thandokazi Phanyaphanya ‘Thando Zide’, whose musical journey begins, as she puts it, “before birth” as she was born into musical families, with chorister parents, is a 23 year old born and raised in Soweto, Johannesburg. Constantly surrounded by music and a music loving family, she quickly assimilated into such a life, exposed to her parents’ choir rehearsals and sonic family gatherings, Zide’s love for music was inevitable. She attended the National School of the Arts in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, which she describes to be a place where the world of music opened up to her and her love for it was nurtured into a passion. She joined the school’s orchestra, choir, and later formed an acapella group together with friends, performing at community concerts and at the Joburg Theatre at the school’s annual festivals for the duration of her high school career. Although Zide went onto major in Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand in 2018, she continued pursuing music. In 2019, she was a finalist in the Emirates Pursuit of Jazz competition, where her identity as an artist began to take shape. From this experience, she got emersed into the jazz world and acquainted herself. Since then, she has worked with talented and award-winning artists such as Tshepo Tsotetsi, Ayanda Jiya, Ndabo Zulu, Manana and Sun-EL Musician. Zide incorporates jazz and contemporary sounds in indigenous African sound, through this she aims to keep the African rhythm beating.