Zionruts Family is a Roots Reggae Band that was formerly founded by two of its lead singers – RUTSMAN SPICE and ZIONDAWTA in 2014 when Rutsman was coming from his African Tour. Ziondawta was doing her jazz projects but after the two met they formed Zionruts family giving life to reggae music where most of the people didn’t understand and appreciate that kind of music. The name Zionruts came up by combining the first four letters from both the lead singer’s names.
The band consists of six members which brings the Roots Reggae Sound to life namely Blessing Shamu our bass player, Mthakazelwa Nyathi the rhythm guitarist, Kenny Davies the guitarist who jammed with Transit Crew a band formed by Misty in Roots drummer Munya Brown which also used to be Rutsman Spice band back in the days, Ras Talkmore Mandimika the drummer who used to jam with Reggae Revealers.
Through the inspiration of Reggae Musicians like: Bob Marley, Roots Radics, Twinkle Brothers, Third World, Misty in Roots, Marcia Griffiths, Rita Marley to mention just a few, Zionruts family managed to create their own sound of reggae music which is within the international vicinity. Zionruts music is mainly centered on the day to day situations that we face in our daily lives.
After 2 years of hard work, sleepless nights in studio and endless rehearsals we eventually released our debut album entitled “Kip On Surviving” which consists of fifteen songs of which 3 songs are in vernacular (Shona Language) namely Ngoma (African drum),Musango (Wilderness or Bush), Mutinhimira (Sound in this song our sound). This album like the title express it’s all about motivation, upliftment and focusing in life knowing Jah Heal in all situations. The album carries all situations, joy, upliftment, hope, love. “Kip On Surviving” album was launched in Brynston, Randburg Gauteng on the 27th of May 2016 at Katjushas a Russian owned restaurant. The response from the crowd that managed to come through was marvelous. It made us think of expanding the launch into a tour instead of just ending the launch there.
On that album we worked with a Spanish Producer in Katalunya Barcelona Spain on three of our songs the other three with Jamaican Producers with the others concluding from Africa namely Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. Working with all these producers we were trying to come up with the perfect sound that we all were in love with, a sound that could please our fans as well.
On achievements Zionruts have shared a stage with Sizzla and the Lucky Dube band at the Reggae Spring Festival in South Africa, performed at the Chronixx Jamaican event, performed at Pretoria State Theatre launching our album, performed at the Market @ the sheds a Pretoria festival, performing at the Africa Unite Reggae Concert. Also recorded a Xenophobia Song with Sizzla a Jamaican International recording reggae artist and eight other South African artists yet to be released. One of our songs on our newly released album “To Selassie l” once sat on number 2 on Reverbnation charts. “To Zion” from our previous singles is number 5 on Mzansi reggae.
Currently we are performing each and every Thursday at Manhattan hotel in Pretoria at the reggae acoustic night from 6pm till 10pm.
In Kempton Park we did a launch also on the 30th of July and the appreciation was just too much the way the people responded to our music really surprised us. We continued our launch tour on the 16thof August in Bronkospruit and we were asked by the fans that side to come back again on 25 October, 20thof August we performed at a festival in Pretoria Burgers Park, the Feast of Clowns Festival. We also performed at the Africa Unite Reggae Concert which was held on the 8th of October in Rusternburg. On 16 October we performed in Centurion at the Railway Café and on the 14th of December we were called again by Sinkshack in Bronkhorstspruit. On the 29th of December Zionruts family we performed at SMOKING DRAGON which was a 3 day festival from 29 till 31 December with more than 40 acts from all over the world and 4 stages in Drakensburg Durban South Africa. In the Corporate World we have performed at the UNITED NATIONS year end parties for the past 2 years in their different departments e.g. WFP, UNHOCR, WHO. We are still working on performing in other parts of the country so that our music reaches nationwide and also expanding it to the world.
We are currently organizing a one week tour in February 2017 which will include places like Joburg, Pretoria, Nelspruit, Bronkorstspruit along with Limpopo and FreeState
Zionruts family have been acknowledged by the VEGAN FESTIVAL in Bristol UK on their 2017 lineup in May 20th until 21st.They have been following our musical journey and eventually they invited us to their festival. Unfortunately all the newcomers to their festival have to sponsor themselves in terms of transportation, so we are looking for sponsors to cover our travel expenses (going and coming back) as they cannot manage to cater for us.
Zionruts family album “Kip On Surviving” has also been have been shortlisted amongst 10 reggae Mzansi albums for the 2017 SAMA23 Awards.
Our music is all about elevating people in a dimension where there is peace, love and unity in harmony. We hope to distribute the message inour music to all corners of the world to give people who are giving up on life hope as it is all that we have (life).
Zionruts family is welcoming all means of promotion,sponsorship or assistance to help elevate our band and message in our music where it truly belongs, to its rightful people.
You can listen to Zionruts songs on youtube, soundcloud, reverbnation and hocty.com.
On press release you can see our press release under Kempton express.
You can also follow us on twitter, facebook, myspace.
SUBSCRIBE TO US ALSO ON TRADIIO https://tradiio.com/zionruts-family
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