Bulelwa ‘Zahara‘ Mtukutana is on the verge of losing her house to foreclosure, and in a last-ditch effort, the songstress has turned to her fans for help.
Zahara on the verge of losing her home
The Loliwe star took to social media on Friday, to address her fans about the current financial woes she faces. Zahara, who owns one of the most lucrative music catalogues in South Africa, is on the verge of losing her home.
In an interview with Tshisa Live, the musician revealed she was in no financial standing to honour her Nedbank mortgage payments. Her total mortgage debt, Zahara confirmed, totalled R1.6 million, and where she stands, she is unable to meet her monthly instalments of R17 665.
Zahara’s townhouse was scheduled to be auctioned on Saturday, 7 May 2022.
“It’s all true. I went to Nedbank and they gave me more days,” she said.
On Friday, seemingly at her wit’s end, with only hours left to honour her mortgage obligations, Zahara turned to her fans, inciting those who support her to riot outside Universal Music Group South Africa (UMGSA) headquarters as well as DJ Sbu‘s offices.
Do DJ Sbu and Universal Music SA owe her money?
Zahara has been embroiled in a bitter feud with DJ Sbu and UMGSA since she first went public with exploitation accusations in 2017.
The disagreement stems from the recording contract she signed with DJSbu’s TS Records and Universal. According to Zahara, she was discovered by DJ Sbu performing in the streets and was handed money in exchange for her natural-born talents. That’s how Loliwe was born, in a nutshell.
The album, released in September 2011, went on to become one of the most commercially successful projects released in modern South African music. In fact, Loliwe is the second-fastest-selling album in South African history behind Brenda Fassie’s Memeza, with more than 500 000 copies sold by the end of that year.
According to Zahara, she’s not reaped the fruits of her labour and years into her commercial success, she still struggles to make ends meet, despite releasing an album, Nqaba Yam, under Warner Music SA in 2021.
Here’s the video clip where Zahara was heard inciting fans to riot outside DJ Sbu and UMGSA offices.
Zahara calls out DJ Sbu and TK Nciza for exploiting her over her debut album Loliwe. pic.twitter.com/JQKOYfAknF
— Musa Khawula (@MusaKhawula) May 21, 2022