{"id":2423164,"date":"2026-05-19T11:26:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:26:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2423164"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:26:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T11:26:51","slug":"zolani-mahola-signs-inks-virgin-music-group-deal-announces-new-single","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/zolani-mahola-signs-inks-virgin-music-group-deal-announces-new-single\/","title":{"rendered":"Zolani Mahola signs inks Virgin Music Group deal, announces new single"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The agreement comes as Mahola prepares to release her first project under the partnership, a single titled \u2018XhosaNostra\u2019, which is scheduled for release on 4 June.<\/p>\n<p>Mahola is widely known as the former lead vocalist of Freshlyground, a role she held for 17 years. During her time with the group, she toured internationally and collaborated with artists including Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, Msaki and Yvonne Chaka Chaka. She also contributed to \u2018Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)\u2019 by Shakira.<\/p>\n<p>Since launching her solo career, Mahola&#8217;s work has expanded into theatre, film and other creative projects. Her achievements include performances at Carnegie Hall, a Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards award for Best Actress and a South African Music Awards award for Best Produced Album for her solo release \u2018Thetha Mama\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Mahola is also an ambassador for Sea Change Project and co-created the podcast Back To The Water with Pippa Ehrlich, known for directing the documentary <em>My Octopus Teacher<\/em>. The pair also collaborated on the soundtrack for <em>Pangolin: Kulu\u2019s Journey<\/em> and are currently working on a feature-length documentary centred on Mahola&#8217;s life and music.<\/p>\n<p>Her forthcoming single \u2018XhosaNostra\u2019 features the late Bravo Le Roux in one of his final recordings and was produced by Hannah V.<\/p>\n<p>The release will serve as the lead single from Mahola\u2019s forthcoming album, <em>People Power<\/em>, which is expected to explore a range of musical styles while drawing on themes of identity and storytelling.<\/p>\n<p>The signing with Virgin Music Group represents a new commercial and creative partnership as Mahola prepares to release new material to international audiences.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jeg_video_container jeg_video_content\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Thetha Mama\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MuqK4-zmbG0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.musicinafrica.net \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The agreement comes as Mahola prepares to release her first project under the partnership, a single titled \u2018XhosaNostra\u2019, which is scheduled for release on 4 June. Mahola is widely known as the former lead vocalist of Freshlyground, a role she held for 17 years. During her time with the group, she toured internationally and collaborated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2423165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2423164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Zolani-Mahola-signs-inks-Virgin-Music-Group-deal-announces-new.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2423164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2423166,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2423164\/revisions\/2423166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2423165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2423164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2423164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2423164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}