My History

WHO IS BLACK BIRD?

 

(2010) Photoshoot  for “The Rappertizer” album cover. Picture Credit: RUDO CHAKANYUKA

In the year 1983 Black Bird was born as the  last born, into a family of four. Her father was South African and went into exile during the 70’s and ended up in Zambia where he met and married her mother, an intelligent and beautiful Kaonde woman from the village of Solwezi in the North-West of Zambia. After Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 the couple left Zambia with their 3 children and decided to settle in Harare, where a few years later, Black Bird was born in 1983.

The Vundla family comfortably lived in the Harare suburb of Highlands right through the 80’s and 90’s. However shortly after Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1991, Black Bird’s  parents separated and she moved with her siblings to live with her father in the soon to be independent, South Africa. Sadly Black Bird’s mother passed away in 1995 and thereafter she found herself placed Harare Children’s Home for two years. Staying at a state run group home was probably one of the most intense identity moulding periods in Black Bird’s life.

(2010) Plot Mako wins a copy of Tha Rappertizer

Black Bird who is also known as the Bantu Queen is also inspired by women from various fields and it is these icons that give her the desire to excel. Black Bird’s main inspiration is her late mother who was a wife, a mother of 4, a full-time employee at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, and also a part-time student who continued to further her studies in the  banking industry despite her already jam-packed life.

When she completed high school in 2001 at Wendywood High in Sandton, Johannesburg, Black Bird believes that music and film are two arts that go hand in hand… hence the term audio-visual….. It was for this reason that she began studying film & TV production whilst continuing to rap too.

Black Bird’s first musical composition was at age 7 in the year 1990. For weeks on end she tormented her immediate family members with the infamous ballad, “Are You Lost Girly”.  Despite her committment to both the school and church choir during Black Bird’s high school years, her singing career was to be short-lived.

Growing up in Harare, Zimbabwe exposed Black Bird to a lot of 90’s  hip hop music and by the time she was 10years old Black Bird could recite the lyrics to the songs of all her favourite American  rappers. Hip-hop was also one of her older brother’s passions and as a result Black Bird was exposed to some of the most highly rated underground Hip-hop artists from the US.

In 1999 Black Bird was 15 years old and attending school at Gateway High School in Harare. At this point it became obvious that she would have a career in music. Before she even turned 16 Black Bird was being booked for rap performances at fashion shows, talent search competitions, school events, church camps and various youth concerts. To her surprise she received an overwhelming reception everywhere she went. It was at that point that she realized that Black Bird and the Music were meant to be….