'SAX' so good with Zwile

....Set to release his 3rd Solo project

Zwile Bhembe was 15 when he picked up a saxophone at Salesian School in Manzini. He didn't know yet that it would take him from backing bands in Eswatini to a Sjava stage in front of thousands, or that a decade later he'd be releasing his most personal work yet, a seven-track project called Sax & Sugar.

Bhembe grew up in Elwandle, on the outskirts of Manzini. Before he was ZwiLe the solo act, he was Zwile the session player, the horn behind other people's songs. He spent his early years lending brass to local acts like Itallo Dlamini, Women in Praise, and Step by Step, learning a skill that doesn't get talked about enough in music: how to support a song without taking it over. That instinct knowing when to play and when to leave space still shapes how he performs today.

His solo catalogue has been small and deliberate. After The Rain, released in 2022, introduced him as an artist in his own right, with 'Khushu'  turning a childhood game into a jazz arrangement that stuck with people. Faradays followed in 2023, leaning into Afro-Funk and proving Bhembe wasn't interested in staying inside one lane. Since then, he's shown up on other people's records too: 'Overflow' with Deejay Cup, 'iNkhani' with Le Kronik & Kalulu, and 'Emalegeni' with Lyrikal Busta, each one pulling his sound somewhere new, from dance floors to electronic soundscapes to urban contemporary.

Live is where Bhembe has built his name. He's played the Eat Swazi initiative, sat down for an unplugged radio session with Clarence Ford, and performed cultural standards like 'Mbombela wesitimela' alongside Samantha Rudd. He's also become a regular presence at state functions, playing for His Majesty King Mswati III and visiting dignitaries on a different kind of stage, one that calls for restraint rather than spectacle.

The moment people bring up most, though, happened in 2024. Bhembe messaged South African star Sjava on social media, asking for a shot to share his stage at the Standard Bank Luju Food and Lifestyle Festival. Sjava said yes. Bhembe walked out mid-set, played in front of a festival crowd that had no idea who he was, and left it knowing exactly who he was. It didn't make him famous overnight, but it changed how promoters and artists in the region started to see him: not just a session horn player, but a headliner in waiting.

Off stage, Bhembe runs Zwile's MusicLab, teaching young horn players in Eswatini the same fundamentals he had to learn the hard way. He talks about it less than his performances, but it's arguably the clearest window into how he thinks about his own career as something worth passing down, not just building up.

The EP: Sax & Sugar

All of that the sideman years, the solo records, the Sjava moment, the teaching feeds into Sax & Sugar, Bhembe's most personal release to date. The title splits the album in two. The saxophone is the instrument that introduced him to the world. Sugar is everything underneath it his voice, his story, and a nod to Eswatini's own history with sugar production, one of the country's biggest exports and, in Bhembe's telling, a stand-in for value that isn't always seen from the outside.

"Sax & Sugar is the closest representation of who I am as an artist and as a person. The saxophone introduced me to many people, but there is more to my story than the instrument. Through this album, I share my voice, my experiences, my lessons, my love story, and my hopes for the future,"  Bhembe says. 

The seven tracks move through ambition, patience, love, and unity, without pretending any of it is simple:

• Angifiki -ambition and refusing to settle, even when things are slow to come together
• Beketela -patience through hard seasons
• Way to the Top -resilience and the work behind chasing something bigger
• The One -love, at a time when a lot of people have stopped believing in it
• Choose -living on purpose instead of by accident
• One Big Family-unity, pushed against a backdrop of division
• Wilding and Vibing- joy, and letting yourself have it

Bhembe isn't shy about what's sitting behind the music. He's talked about unemployment, gender-based violence, and mental health as things his generation is living with in real time, and he wanted the album to sit inside those conversations rather than talk over them.

 "As young people, we are facing many challenges unemployment, violence, division, and emotional struggles that often leave us feeling disconnected. Through my own story, I wanted to create music that encourages healing, reflection, unity, and belief in better possibilities," says Bhembe. 

There's a line Bhembe uses to describe where he's at right now: a Swazi child who has served the industry, and now it's time for the gold to come out. Sax & Sugar is less a debut moment than a receipt for everything that came before it. The sideman work, the classrooms at MusicLab, the festival stage he wasn't invited onto until he asked for it. All of it is in the record now, saxophone first, everything else close behind.