Sino Msolo Reacts To Claims That He Can’t Sing.Sino Msolo was inescapable in 2021. After making the decision to move to Johannesburg from Durban where he grew up, the singer-songwriter set off on a scorching feature run that saw him quickly rise into the most in-demand vocalist in the Amapiano scene.
Whenever he got the opportunity to get in front of the mic, Msolo would consistently deliver quality output. He became a frequent visitor at recording studios of the country’s biggest Amapiano DJs and producers.“When the year started, I had already released an album before, so it was a thing of let me not rush myself to release another one, let me just grow my brand then once more people know my name I’ll actually release my own project,” he says, his voice husky from a gruelling festive season. “At the beginning of the year (2021) I said let me collaborate with bigger artists. How am I gonna meet them or manage to get to them? That’s up to God, but I’m gonna do it.” And so he did.
Last year, popular podcaster MacG hosted amapiano unwrapped where multiple opinions were shared about amapiano artists. One guy made claims that Sino makes hits but he can’t sing. Reacting to this, Sino said he has gotten to a point were people’s opinions don’t matter to him anymore. “Such opinions don’t bother me anymore, I’m just doing me and doing what I know I do best,” he told MacG.
Amapiano leaks have been a hot topic over the past year. At times, these leaks are merely a ploy by artists to gauge whether their music will resonate with audiences, while in other instances they happen inadvertently as a result of songs being loosely shared on WhatsApp.“At times, it kind of helps because you can tell if a song is gonna be a hit or […] not […],” says Sino. “But at the same time, it’s a disadvantage to unknown artists because even if your name is there, people won’t [notice] that you are featured; they’ll just focus on the person they know, which in my case was De Mthuda.
“Everyone was talking about De Mthuda and not me, which was unfortunate for me. I was like, ‘How am I gonna make it to these people so they can see that it’s me?’” In his quest to attach himself to the song’s success, Sino’s strategy was to post videos of himself singing it, a tactic that gradually helped increase his visibility. With ‘Jola’ blazing a trail, Sino went on to form a major part of De Mthuda’s album, The Landlord, which was arguably the standout Amapiano project of 2021. Apart from ‘Jola’, Sino was also featured on project highlights ‘Mhlaba Wonke’ and ‘Double Double’.
Sino then locked in with a producer and DJ – Slade – to create the slow burning Amapiano ballad ‘Wamuhle’. He also linked up with Musa Keys, for whom he delivered brilliant cameo appearances on his Tayo album standouts ‘Wena’ and ‘Thando Lwam’. He was also featured on Mas Musiq’s ‘Gwinya Lam’ and DJ Ganyani’s ‘Emakhaya’ late in the year, before kicking off 2022 with a feature on the first viral Amapiano song of the year, 9umba’s ‘uMlando’.
