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Bonginkosi Mduduzi Dlamini aka Zola is a poet, actor, and musician from South Africa. He is one of the most popular Kwaito artistes. Bonginkosi grew up in the ghetto of Zola, in Soweto. He was abandoned by his father, leaving his mother to care for him and his older brother and sister.
He is conscious of his society and it shows a lot in his music, tackling issues like prostitution, statutory rape and responsible parenthood. He has also spoken out on a ban for small arms in South Africa. His music features styles like hip hop, gospel as well as traditional Zulu and Sotho music.
His debut, Umdlwembe, came out in 2000. His second album Khokhovuka was a major success. Other albums include Bhambatha and Ibutho.
His show called Zola 7 casts Zola as the Ghetto Dream Maker, and on the weekly show he makes people's dreams come. It has been expanded to countries like Botswana, Nigeria, Lesotho, and Namibia. He featured Thembisile who he discovered through this show on a song called Don't Cry featuring Thembisile (whose dream was to become an opera singer).
Zola acted as the notorious gangster Papa Action in Yizo Yizo 2 and contributed a lot to the soundtack which was very successful. He also performed the score and played an acting role in the Oscar-winning film, Tsotsi and the movie Drum. His songs represent heavily on the Tsotsi soundtrack. He is signed to the independent label Ghetto Ruff records. He owns his own clothing line called Hola 7 together with a children's clothing range.
Some of his songs include Umdlwembe, Sana Lwam, Lwandle, Shosholoza, Greytown, Don't cry, X-Girlfriend, Moroba,