By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
Gospel queen Janet Manyowa has released a new single, Kare Kare, and it arrives less as a song than as a testimony.
Kare Kare centres on trusting the process — that much-quoted axiom — but Manyowa draws it from lived experience rather than cliché. Her subject is the familiar human habit of “worrying about a problem that did not exist.”
Kare Kare comes across as a testimony about something that actually happened to her, which is precisely why it resonates. At one time or another, everyone has lost sleep over a problem that turned out to be nothing.
The video, shot in Cape Town by KMane, is another deliberate investment in her craft. One of its visual highlights is the separation of light from darkness, with candlelight used thoughtfully throughout.
And coming in the build-up to her famed A Night of Thanksgiving 2027 (ANOT), Manyowa is already giving gospel music lovers something to look forward to.
Kare Kare is, above all, evidence of how good a songwriter she has become.
The story behind the song
Launching Kare Kare in Harare, Manyowa explained the real-life events that shaped it.
“About two or three years ago, me and my husband had a very interesting predicament,” Manyowa said.
“We needed something to happen, for something to happen, for something to happen. And the first part of the cycle was not happening.”
They spent days thinking about it, talking about it, running scenarios and asking themselves questions. Nothing moved. No solution emerged.
“Then a day before the D-Day of what we needed to happen, we had a meeting that happened,” she said.
“This meeting had been set before this issue started.”
The meeting went well. And afterwards, their host delivered the news that everything was already sorted.
“You should have seen our faces,” Manyowa said.
“That moment really proved that for the past two weeks, we were worrying about a problem that did not exist.”
“God had it sorted already”
She drew the lesson plainly.
“How many times do we fail to sleep, thinking, ‘Ah, then I should do this, then I shall do this’? But God had it sorted already.”
“So this song is about trusting the process. Trusting who’s behind the curtain.”
She described it as letting go of the need to control reality — “not wanting to be in control of the reality of ourselves and the situation, but knowing that God is watching.”
For Manyowa, the deeper point is about prayer itself. “The prayer really opens to God,” she said.
A songwriter at her peak
Kare Kare lands as one of Manyowa’s most personal releases — and one of her most assured. It is a song built not on abstraction but on a specific memory, which is what gives it its emotional weight.
For fans counting down to A Night of Thanksgiving (ANOT) 2027, it is a promising first taste of what is to come.
For everyone else, it is a reminder of something worth remembering: sometimes the problem you cannot stop thinking about was never a problem at all.
Kare Kare is out now. The video was shot in Cape Town by KMane.
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