Tehn Diamond

Tehn Diamond

Tehn Diamond performing at the Big Brother Africa finals 2013
Background information
Birth name Tendai Nguni
Born (1985-01-17) 17 January 1985
Origin Harare, Zimbabwe
Genres Hip hop
Occupation(s) Musician, recording artist, rapper
Years active 2006–present
Labels Independent (current)
Associated acts Jnr Brown, Djembe Monks, Prayersoul, Take Fizzo
Website www.iamtehn.com

Tendai Nguni (born 17 January 1985),[1] better known by his stage name Tehn Diamond or rather his Twitter name Happy Smurf is a Zimbabwean hip hop rapper, singer and song writer from Harare, Zimbabwe. He is a member of the hip-hop collective Few Kings,[2] with whom he has released one album.[3]

Early life

Tendai Nguni was born in 1985 to a politician father,[4] Sylvester Nguni and his mother, a care giver. He has one brother and two sisters. While raised in the Borrowdale Brooke section, a gated community in Harare, Zimbabwe, and attended the St George's College, he originally moved to Brisbane, Australia to pursue a degree in finance, but later dropped out to pursue a music career.[5] In 2008, Federal Government of Australia announced it would revoke student visas for eight children of senior members of President Robert Mugabe’s regime and Tendai Nguni was one of them.[6]

Musical career

Early Years

He relocated to Singapore where he continued to explore his music talent.[7] Whilst in Singapore, Tehn Diamond performed over 800 shows,[8] before moving back to Zimbabwe where he now resides permanently.

Tehn Diamond’s career started with Student of the Game — Higher Learning, in 2008 and its follow-up titled Student of the Game — Boys will be Boys in 2010. They received a good following landing him a National Arts Merits Award accolade for Best Video in 2012.

[9]

2012-present

In December 2014, he embarked on a tour of Zimbabwe which saw him perform at multiple venues across Zimbabwe culminating in a show in Bulawayo hosted by local beauty products brand VAULTED and has done several collaborations with other fellow Zim artists including The Djembe Monks, tribal house music group from Bulawayo. Tehn Diamond also headlined Africa's biggest reality eviction show Big Brother.[10][11][12][13] His song titled Happy was placed in rotation nationally by all major radio stations that include Star FM and Power FM[14] and was nominated for best song of the year at the Zim Hip Hop Awards[15] On Valentine's Day 2015 he opened for Cassper Nyovest at 1+1 Long Cheng Plaza in Harare, of which Twitter went crazy over his performance with the main artist Cassper Nyovest himself tweeting "...you dope!"[16]

Awards

National Arts Merit Awards

The awards which are commonly referred to as the NAMAs are the principal awards in Zimbabwe and Tehn Diamond has won a NAMA more than once particularly in 2012 for Best Video(Happy ft Jnr Brown)

Year Recipient/Nominated work Award Result
2012 "Student Of the Game(SOTG)-Boys Will Be Boys"
Best Video Won
2010 "Student Of The Game-Higher Learning" Best Hip Hop Artist Won
Best Hip Hop Album Won

Discography

Compilation albums

List of albums, with selected chart positions
Title Album details Peak chart positions Certifications
Hot 100|Zim Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums|Zim
R&B		 Top Rap Albums|Zim
Rap
The Feeling Aint Fair
(with Few Kings)
  • Released: 23 October 2013
  • Label: KYN Records, Nothing Short of Amazing, Big Boy Business, Zion
  • Format: CD, digital download
 – – –
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

As lead artist

List of songs, with selected chart positions, showing year released and album name
Title Year Peak chart positions Album
Power FM School of Hip Hop|Zim
 Buddie Top 10|Zim
 Hot Rap Songs|Zim
"Happy"[17]
(featuring Jnr Brown)		 2013 – – — The Feeling Aint Fair
"Grown up Kid"[18]
 2012 – – — "Student of the Game: Pursuit of Amazing"
"Simudza Gumbo"[19]
(featuring Dadza D)		 2014 – – — "The Perfect Tehn"
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, May 01, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.