Malawian South Africa-based musician Onesimus, real name Sopani Kalua, of Prophet Shepherd Bushiri’s Enlightened Christian Gathering (ECG) on Saturday night won the All Africa Music Award (Afrima) as the Best Male Artiste under the category of Inspirational Music category.
AFRIMA is an annual competition which aims to promote the unification of Africa through the celebration of its music, as well as the recognition of the best musical and creative talents in the continent.
It also focuses on honouring the various different African music traditions and shedding light on Africa’s amazing talents to the rest of the world. This year was the 6th edition of AFRIMA, and was hosted in Lagos, Nigeria. Onesmus won the award following the success of his recent album ‘Messenger.’
In his acceptance speech, Onesmus thanked Jesus Christ for the feat.
“I also thank my father, Major One Prophet Shepherd Bushiri,” he said.
The artist trekked to South Africa six years ago after attracting the interest of Prophet Bushiri. He then ditched secular music for gospel.
The 14-track Messenger album is a follow up to his debut gospel album Epikaizo, which he released soon after relocating to South Africa. And the artist believes his trade has improved tremendously since he moved to the rainbow nation.
Onesimus has worked with some established names in the game including producer DJ Megi and DJ Moruti. He has also hooked South Africa’s hotshot Babes Wondumo on a song which was produced by DJ Megi and Destruction Boys.
Apart from the title track itself, the album has other songs such as Overdue, Sound of Peace, Don’t Pass Me By, Die For You, He Will Never Fail, Major 1’s Prayer, Trending, Shekele, Superstar, Hossana among others. The album was done in Afro-pop genre.
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