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The Eclectic World of Zaki Ibrahim
By Linda A. Annan
She sounds like Sade dipped in elements of funk, hip hop and something else ineffable. The tone of her voice typifies originality, close to the raw, unadulterated timbre of a lyrebird. The sound belongs to South African-Canadian music artist Zaki Ibrahim.
Not your usual “fresh girl on the scene,” Ibrahim holds a style very unique to her person, one made possible by a strong sense of self. Her carefree movements in performances corroborate this notion of nonconformism about her; her songs elucidate this even better.
“I think the music that I make will always be the poetry that I write. It contains what it contains. It’s like my point of view, my expressions, my influences, my interpretation of things,” Ibrahim explains.
True. But one interesting aspect of Ibrahim’s artistry is the arduous task of classifying her music – there is no one dominant element.
She professes: “I don’t like to categorize. I come from many things; the music comes from many things. I like to call it music; I like to call myself human. I recognize and pay homage to and respect all of the influences that make up the sound but I can’t necessarily call it one thing.”
Indeed, Ibrahim’s origin knows no borders. She was born to a South African father and British mother in Vancouver, BC, where she lived until age three and then moved to South Africa to live with her grandparents. Her father, she asserts, was exiled during the apartheid period and was adamant about having her experience life in South Africa as well as North America. This resulted in Ibrahim schooling in both South Africa and Canada. The encouragement from her family to be cognizant of the differences between the two places seems to have greatly contributed to the grounded life of this conscious artist.
“I remember at some point I felt there was a lot of anger, there was a lot of confusing things, the whole world was racist to me, the whole world was unjust,” Ibrahim reminisces about her high school years in Canada and South Africa.
As she narrates her story there appears to be a hint of something yet to be unearthed in the emotional effects of apartheid.
She softly chuckled before launching into the territory.
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