Albert Nyathi

Albert Nyathi is Zimbabwe’s premier performance dub poet. His performances are often backed by powerful music. At school performed traditional praise poetry and was inspired by the freedom struggle in Zimbabwe. He started to write plays and poems at secondary school. At university in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, he was so influential within the students representative body that he was invited to perform at every rally or meeting.

Albert then started fusing his written poetry with music so as to breathe life into them. In 1989, while at university studying arts, Albert was invited to play the leading role of Nelson Mandela in a play called 'The Spirit of No Surrender', produced by the community theatre company Zambuko/Izibuko, about a family's struggle in the townships during the period of Mandela's incarceration. 

Albert now performs with Imbongi, an 11-piece band that fuses words, music, dance and song into an exciting blend of traditional blues, jazz and contemporary Zimbabwean and South African rhythms. He has released three albums to date: 'Kuze Kube Nini?', 'Ngenkani?' and 'Welcome to Zimbabwe'.