On Friday, March 17, it felt like the whole country was listening to Amanda Black’s new single “Nguwe” at the same time.
Her name was all over social media, driving her to the top of the Twitter trends list, and fans embraced the catchphrase “Amanda BACK” in celebration of her first solo single in two years.
After a lengthy (by today’s standards) absence from the spotlight, the 29-year-old returned with a powerful message.
“‘Nguwe’ is about self-love, and for the past few years I’ve really been trying to figure out some patterns in my own personal life,” she explains.
“I did a lot of focusing on forgiving myself and really trying to figure out what the hell is happening in my own self now. I kind of saw that separating myself from (the artist and the person) was not working for me, because then I realised that I’m one person.
“So this song is inspired by that journey of going back to self, going back to uAmanda, and going back to the reason why I started doing music,” she says.
This process required Black to tap into the mindset of the little girl who used to love singing just for the sake of singing.
That reflection helped her realise that she needed to heal and let go of some childhood trauma and the decisions that she made along the way that she regretted.
“It all starts with me,” she adds. “Validation starts with me. The confidence that we outsource because we think things and other people will make us confident, that comes from me.
“That realisation was kind of then like, ‘Oh it’s me, I need to give myself my flowers’, and then ‘Nguwe’ came. ‘Nguwe’ is exactly that expression.”
On “Nguwe”, Black sings about self-love and the need to be gentle with oneself. If you aren’t where you thought you’d be, that’s okay, she tells us, just take it easy and be kind to yourself.
It’s a message that speaks to Black’s own journey in the industry. In an attempt to shun all the pressures and challenges that come with her fame and industry standards, she’s in the process of rediscovering and redefining what it means to be successful in her own right.
“If I win an award, that’s great. But if I don’t, is it going to destroy me? Those are the questions and standards and things that we’re all sort of taught to chase in this career, and I’ve just been trying to figure out which one works for me and what is it that I’m chasing.
“And I’m still answering that question,” she laughs. “So I’m not going to lie and say I’ve figured it out, I’m still figuring that out, but step by step,” she says.
Black has barely had a chance to figure things out since she burst onto the scene with her hugely successful, platinum-selling debut album, “Amazulu” back in 2016.
With “Amazulu” she won several awards and, within a year, she was a household name.
“It was exciting,” she recalls. “I didn’t know what to expect then. I didn’t know how things worked, I didn’t know what it meant, what things meant, what certain terms meant, but I just knew I wanted to make music and I wanted to perform.
“At that time I was still new so I was kinda more nervous about what are people gonna say and are people going to like what I’m gonna offer,” she says.
Ahead of the release of her sophomore album “Power” in 2019, the excitement of her debut was replaced by her anxiety to meet the moment – she wasn’t a newcomer anymore at this point, she was one of the biggest artists in the country.
But once she started to perform the project, she had an epiphany.
“That’s when I realised that I’m a healer,” she says. “That’s when I realised that I’m not just doing music because I can sing. That’s when I kind of realised that I’m really doing it.
“I know it was my second album but then I understood that I am a songwriter. I was like, ‘yes, I am. I’m good’.
“And then I was like, ‘I’m a healer, that’s why I’m doing this. Okay cool, I’m on the right path’. That’s when I knew that no one can deter me from this now,” Black says.
Armed with renewed confidence and self-awareness, Black is excitedly wrapping up her upcoming fourth studio album, which she tentatively says is roughly 80% done.
“It’s going to be soulful, it’s going to be uplifting, you’ll hear R&B of course,” she says.
“You’ll also hear hip hop. We love to fuse genres here and there just because my people are very multi-talented, so they do the things. So I’m working with Christer and Vogan as my main producers of course. And then we’ve got FD and Batundi there. So I’m really excited,” she shares.
In contrast to previous releases, Black is processing things differently now.
“The pressure is really different now because the pressure is not, ‘I need to get a number one’ or I need to do this or that. The pressure is, I need to get the music out, I need people to hear this,” she says.