Matongo Family Toasts to 2 Decades in Music

For 20 years, prolific music trio Matongo Family have been making moves in the music industry – both as a group and individually – and they have won the hearts of many Namibians.

To celebrate this milestone, the group is giving back to the people who have made their journey in music possible. Partnering with Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR), Matongo Family is giving away a weekend away to one lucky fan, their partner and children to spend at an NWR resort.

The #LetsGoToNWR campaign will be running for the entire month of September and fans can take part by downloading Matongo Family’s latest single ‘Let’s Go’ which features Maszanga, posting a video of them dancing to the song to the Matongo Family social media pages and using the official hashtag (#LetsGoToNWR). They can then tag their friends and family on the post in order to increase their chances of winning the big prize.

“The concept for the competition came from an idea we had to get fans to be more creative with Namibian music. We adopt too much of western and South African trends. Like the Drake #InMyFeelings challenge, many Namibians took part but were not even rewarded. So we decided to do our own version and show that we are also proud of our fans for supporting us throughout all these years,” said Mr Makoya.

Asked what kind of dance fans should incorporate in the video, Mr Makoya said the idea is to let fans have full creative reign over their entries. “Any dance can be incorporated as long as it’s awesome and people will like it. We want people to do their own thing,” he said.

For NWR, the collaboration was a perfect way to align with a brand as tested over time as Matongo Family. “Just like them, we recently celebrated our 20th anniversary in the tourism industry,” said the company’s manager for corporate communications and online media, Mufaro Nesongano.

Speaking about Matongo Family’s 20 years in the music industry, Mr Makoya said that the group has gone through some good and bad times but the good always outweighed the bad. “I can honestly say we experienced the highs and lows of the music industry. From the time when social media didn’t exist and it was hard to get onto media platforms. We once had one of our songs banned from radio but we also received an award for our work,” he said.

‘Let’s Go’ is available for download on donluafrica.com and SoundCloud. They are also working on putting the final touches to their album which will be released later this year or early next year. “We have material that we’ve been working on for two years now and we’re just trying to get our ducks in a row before we release. We’ll know by the end of this year when exactly the album will drop,” Mr Makoya concluded.