Que Montana, Lolita share musical experience

Kenneth Matimaire

In a rare collaboration of two connoisseurs who were mentored and nurtured in totally different genres, Que Montana popularly known as the African Prince of Afro Fusion, and the Goddess of Classical music Velvet Lolita, have come together to share their musical experience, different life stories and break music boundaries.The South Africa-based Zimba-bwean collaborated with Lolita to record their self-titled 10 track masterpiece album — Untamed set to be released on June 3.
Critics have already labeled the project the best collaboration to ever come out of South Africa in the last decade.
The Financial Gazette had the priviledge of sampling three tracks from the album before its official release.
Untamed is laced with a breath of fresh air, new sound, unimaginable blend of voices and style, which takes listeners on a memorable experience.
The most amazing element on the album is how the two music geniuses, Que Montana and Lolita have been able to    fuse deep African rhythms with western styles creating a whole new music style that truly is untamed.
The album is mostly in IsiZulu and English as well as one Shona track. It has carefully structured and mature lyrics, which shows the song writing prowess of the two music stars.
It is amazing that before they have released the album, the duo has already received huge orders for their music and a lot of corporates have approached them for endorsements.
The duo is set to embark on a national tour in every town, city and province in South Africa in a bid to take their music to the locals. They will also be           performing in Zimbabwe, Zam-bia, Botswana Malawi and Mozambique this summer as part of their regional tour in preparation of a  European tour early next year.
This becomes Que Montana’s sixth album and first project under his new stable CoolSpot Productions based in South Africa.
Que Montana, who played most of the instruments; acoustic guitar, bass, and keyboards had extra help from Daddy Ish on two of the tracks, Zimbabwe’s renow-ned guitar player Daniel Meck while mixing was done by Freshly Grounds’ sound engineer, Gavan Eckhart.
“I think this has been my best project ever in terms of quality mainly because we were using state of the art recording equipment and we had one of the best engineers in SA           who has done sound for big names like Angelique Kidgo and  Chaka Khan so you can just imagine.
“And what amazed me was the level of respect these people that we were working with had for our music. They said they haven’t heard something so fresh and unique in a long time. It’s quite encouraging especially coming from veterans like them,” said the South African- Zimbabwe star.
Que Montana boasts of five albums under his belt. In 2005 he recorded his debut album Neo Vector, which was followed by Sweet Pain in 2007, Untamed (2009), String Attached in 2011 and his 2012 production Why Not.
His music was well-received in various countries around the world. He has done collaborations with artists from Zambia, DRC, Brazil and America.