SA Musician's 'Nervous' Zulu Verse Catches John Legend's Attention. Photo: TikTok screenshot
SA Musician's 'Nervous' Zulu Verse Catches John Legend's Attention. Photo: Twitter / Mthandazo Gatya

Home » WATCH John Legend’s ‘Nervous’ with an African Twist

WATCH John Legend’s ‘Nervous’ with an African Twist

Global superstar John Legend has given a nod of approval to South African musician Mthandazo Gatya’s duet of his hit ‘Nervous’, publicly liking the video on TikTok, and retweeting it on Monday on Twitter. And Gatya’s dreams could be coming true with a Black Coffee collaboration! Gatya – who had a hit during Lockdown with […]

SA Musician's 'Nervous' Zulu Verse Catches John Legend's Attention. Photo: TikTok screenshot
SA Musician's 'Nervous' Zulu Verse Catches John Legend's Attention. Photo: Twitter / Mthandazo Gatya

Global superstar John Legend has given a nod of approval to South African musician Mthandazo Gatya’s duet of his hit ‘Nervous’, publicly liking the video on TikTok, and retweeting it on Monday on Twitter. And Gatya’s dreams could be coming true with a Black Coffee collaboration!

Gatya – who had a hit during Lockdown with ‘Senzeni’ – posted his Zulu verse and duet with Legend to TikTok four days ago, captioning the open verse challenge as “Such a beautiful song by John Legend, I had to give it an African twist”.

His magical Zulu lyrics blend perfectly with Legend’s music… and the song went instantly viral, receiving over 1.3 millions views on TikTok with tons of South Africans tagging John Legend to take a listen.

On Sunday Gatya thanked his “fam” for making sure Legend saw his duet, and said “great news is that he loved it and replied, as to what will happen next, we can leave that to God, thank you from the bottom of my heart??❤️“

He also thanked The Wife actress Khanyi Mbau who tagged Legend to watch the video (as did many others). But there was still more good news to come. On Sunday, a Twitter user from Pretoria posted Gatya’s video saying: “I’m not Zulu but…????❤️”

By Monday, Legend himself had retweeted the video, with a big nod of approving emojis: “?????”

WATCH John Legend’s ‘Nervous’ with an African Twist

A social media user replied to Legend urging him: “Change the man’s life, John. Do a colab, invite @RealBlackCoffee to do the arrangement and put some sauce in it.”

Before you could say ‘nervous’, Black Coffee had responded saying: “Let’s go!!!!!”

A delighted Gatya said tonight (Tuesday): “Speak life into your words, When “Senzeni” blew up I always was asked during my TV & radio tour who do I wanna work with, I’d say
@RealBlackCoffee & @sunelmusicianza; fast forward (to today, and) i work with Sun-EL (they met at an awards show) & then this comment from the big man “Let’s Go”?”

Gatya added: “My John Legend duet was a reintroduction, I’d be ungrateful if I said people have been sleeping on me, I dropped this song (Selenzi) during lock down, became big but couldn’t promote it so people know the face, it’s on 2X Platinum because of them, grateful??”

The young musician also thanked Spotify this week for making him the cover of ‘Made in South Africa’.

His new EP Journey to Infinity dropped on Friday, and with his John Legend duet going viral, it looks like Gatya’s about to become a legend himself…

For those asking, the Zulu verse, loosely translated means: “Been together for years but you still make my knees tremble, letting you down is what I fear most, I will love you till the end and we will have children, and make your parents happy forever ??”