Anelamadodana Mbatha
Anele & The Melody Makers is a roots/soul reggae band that is under the Rainbow Records SA that is based in Heidelberg Gauteng in South Africa, this band was formed in 2012, by Anelamadodana Mbatha who had this burning love for reggae music since he was 12. He was greatly inspired by the late reggae legends which are, Lucky Dube, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and Joseph Hill A.K.A Culture. He then wrote songs out of what he saw going on this world, and then the band was formed which has 11 band members including Anele. These songs that are written by Anele are more about love, care, poverty, peace and war that has left many people dead and homeless.
This reggae band is unique; it has this African Jazz taste and more soul and the Nyabinghi drum in it which makes it unique and different from other reggae bands and artists. Its members have this unique talent of being able to blend the sounds of different musical instruments to give you this African feeling of drums beating and the narration of the songs is very remarkable. Young and old get entertained by this band because it has the African beat in it, which attracts every ear to listen. This band has released three albums since it was formed. The first album titled I am going home with 13 tracks and a bonus dub version, was released in 2014 which made this band to be nominated for the Radio Ultimate Music Awards in Lesotho in November 2014.
This band also toured Lesotho and South Africa promoting this album. The second album titled The World Should Know together with a bonus dub version was released in 2015 and one of the songs found on that album titled break dem chains is distributed online and it is found on Spotify, Amazon & iTunes. This album also attracted the ear of Phyreah Phyreah Records a music company based in the US that took this band and put it under its wing. In September 2016 the third album with 11 tracks titled Humble African with a bonus dub version album was released and the band founder Anele Mbatha is busy promoting it in radio stations. In 2017 Anele& The Melody Makers is to tour Brazil, Jamaica, USA, and Africa to perform in festivals organised by Phyreah Phyreah Records.
On the 27th of October 2016 Anele the band founder appeared on SABC 1 SHIFT program where he was talking about African music because he also focuses on developing the youth that loves the Traditional acapella music genre Isicathamiya, and his recording company Rainbow Records SA worked with a company called Saziso Infortainment to host talent search competition shows that are focusing on traditional music.