By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
Zimbabwe’s award-winning gospel singer — Everton Mlalazi — has encouraged people to “walk with Jesus” as a principle of worship.
Known for his soulfulness in songs like Inyang’ Enkulu and Apo Mambo, Mlalazi took time to explain the essence of Ndofamba naJesu in a 10-minute video streaming on YouTube.
“The spirit behind Ndofamba Najesu which means, ‘I walk with Jesus’ is as simple as that never choose anybody else, I mean, you know there can be various methods that people can come to you and say ‘we know you’ve got this problem; we know you’re going through this.’
“‘You could go to so-and-so, you could do it this way’ I would encourage someone, as I say on the song, “I choose to walk with Jesus” I encourage that you also choose to walk with Jesus,” Mlalazi said.
Drawing inspiration from the experience David and Goliath, Mlalazi said the son conveyed the message of hope and faith in Jesus.
“The most important thing is what David says because he says ‘I come to you not with the sword not with the javelin, not with the spear, but I come to you in the name of God’ and with that he understood the principle of Worship, the principle of war when you are fighting the enemy and he understood that.
“And I want to say to somebody, when you want to fight the enemy just know that: keep walking with Him choose Him, don’t pick all these other things, just choose Him and walk with Him that’s the message,” Mlalazi explained.
He explained further on how he got to be part of the Spirit of Praise 10 project saying he was invited to provide two songs.
“My journey with Spirit of Praise obviously begins with the Spirit of Praise getting touch to say they want to tour Harare, last year then I was like ‘yeah, I mean, why not?’
“We worked together and they made me a guest artist on that particular project and I can tell you the rest is history because after that I then got a call: ‘Everton please send us two songs, we’re doing Spirit of Praise 10, and we would want you to be part of it’” he said.
When Mlalazi performed the song, he was thrilled with the response at the Sun BET arena with Spirit of Praise describing it as “mind blowing”.
“It’s surprising I see people singing along, I see people dancing along like do they actually know what it’s saying but then again Ndiye Jesu, this is a Bantu language I suppose they understand . . . you know the crowd in Joburg would not connect, they would not understand the song but I mean they came along and sang the song with me . . . this is amazing my goodness. I see the crowd was already buzzing And I was thinking “This is a Shona song how is it going to do here?”
He confirmed that Spirit of Praise’s popularity in Zimbabwe was growing in leaps and bounds stealing the hearts of many.
Mlalazi and Spirit of Praise are billed to perform this weekend in Harare and Bulawayo in a not to missed concerts.
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