There is a Zimbabwean lion roaring on the global Reggae stage. Kwekwe born but now South Africa based Don Franco Tafari is a young Reggae/Dancehall Rastafarian artist who is making great inroads musically on a global level. Born in a musical family where his grand father was a lead band member for a Jit band in the 70s based in Chimanimani and his uncle was also a session musician.
Growing up in Kwekwe Don made his first break into music, though not professionally by then. His first musical recording was with a High school group where he was part of a School Compilation track called Blaze up the Chailwa which received considerable radio airplay on Zimbabwean Radio stations.
After completing school, he migrated to South Africa to further his education where he met a Malawian music producer Zephy Oldies who produced his first Mixtape that featured tracks like song for Mama which got him the spotlight within the first months of release catching the attention of the media and promoters.
It was through this project that he met a US producer from called Kyle Capalbo of VIS Records who introduced him to his partner Natty Meggs from More Life Productions the two were working on a joint musical project called Herb Family riddim. I got to be part of that project which featured amongst big international Reggae legends such as Sizzla, Fanton Mojah, Teflon, Delly Ranks.
His track on this project did well and went on to sit on number 8 on the Japan Reggae charts and was made an official backtrack for a radio show in Costa Rica. This paid dividend for Don Franco who went on to parter with Culture Roots Reggae from Germany and they produced Call on Jah which was premiered in more than 30 radio stations in the USA, sold thousands of copies on Itunes with his first EP project called Seasons of Life under Zojak records.
Currently Don is working on an album which will be produced by Rebel Shumba and also features producers like Quazor and other International producers from Germany, France, Romania and Jamaica
Despite all the breakthroughs on the Reggae scene and on the music terrain in SA, his biggest challenge has been penetrating the Zimbabwean music market. He laments that the Zimbabwean people now consider him as a foreign artists and they value local produced content which is done in venecular as his music is mainly done in english in line with his global appeal strategy. Check out his video titled Ethiopian girl featuring Teddy X , Massuwani and WB.
