Calgary-based, Zimbabwean Afro R&B artist Kuzi Cee goes back to his roots sonically with his latest single “Rain” about the space between heartbreak and hope.
“We gotta keep the foot on the pedal and releasing music is the name of the game right now.” -Kuzi Cee
Afrobeats and R&B have reshaped the sound of popular music in the last two decades, opening the door to African rhythms and the emotional storytelling of early-2000s R&B.
For Calgary-based Afro R&B artist Kuzi Cee, the blend between the two comes naturally.
“I recently dove back into finding my roots with the production and finding these drums,” says Kuzi. “I gotta thank Tyla for what she did with the movement of bringing Southern Africa to the forefront of mainstream media and allowing me to tell my story, especially being Zimbabwe-born.”
His sound is shaped by movement and experience. Kuzi spent his childhood and early years moving between major cities, London, New York, and Toronto, before eventually settling in Calgary, picking up pieces of culture and identity along the way.
Naming inspirations like Justin Bieber, Ne-Yo, Destiny’s Child, and Chris Brown, Kuzi describes himself and music as a self-proclaimed lover boy. But that wasn’t always the plan; first starting his music career as a rapper in high school, before discovering his singing voice, his rapper days, now something “we don’t talk about anymore.”
“I had started getting comfortable with bringing the vocals in, and I released two songs on the same day, one of which was an R&B song and one of which was a rap song,” says Kuzi. “ I think it was around one weekend that the vocal song had 300 hits, and that rap song was at like 30.”
Since making the shift, Kuzi has leaned fully into the emotional storytelling that first drew him to R&B while growing up. As the youngest of six siblings, he says, the music and love of the R&B sound surrounded his house, shaping what would define his own music.
“My Zimbabwean roots are truly who I am as Kuzi. The Zimbabwean culture is ultimately the backbone of who I am as an individual.”
Describing it like a permanent iPod of songs playing through his head, it wasn’t until recently that he took his love for the genre and began blending it with his Zimbabwean roots.
“My Zimbabwean roots are truly who I am as Kuzi,” he adds. “I grew up in a very Zimbabwean household, and I have very, very African parents to say the least, the Zimbabwean culture is ultimately the backbone of who I am as an individual.”
Despite moving between cities and countries, that cultural foundation remained constant, eventually finding its way into the music itself.
At a time of Latin guitars and other global sounds dominating popular music trends, Kuzi saw an opportunity to lean further into his own African background, what he calls “the sound of the world.”
Blending Afrobeats-inspired drums with R&B ballads gave him the freedom to experiment with his sound, and in doing so, build the “lover boy” style he now describes as central to his music.
That blend and experimentation also opened the door to a more vulnerable kind of storytelling, a return to his early-2000s inspirations that define his latest music as a Universal Music Canada artist.
Produced by Aeon Wang and mixed by GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Teezio, Kuzi Cee’s latest single, “Rain,” which explores what happens when a relationship gets past that initial honeymoon phase. It’s a a follow-up to his earlier track “Rather Be,” which captures the excitement of new love. The track has amassed over 2.9 million streams worldwide so far since its October 2025 release.
“Rather Be was me saying yes, I’m present,” Kuzi says. “But Rain is the realization of, oh, I got problems… I might be the problem.”
Kuzi describes “Rain” as the kind of record meant to be belted out to the heavens, with the emotional release of singing your heart out in the rain. Recognizing the cliche, the feeling behind it is real for Kuzi.
“It’s raining and, you know, and I’m out here in the tank top, leather pants, Timberlands, chains, and screeching up,” says Kuzi.
That same emotional release is what he hopes listeners feel when they hear his music, either on the radio, named as an iHeartRadio Future Star, or screaming the lyrics back to him at a show.
“Rain is the realization of, oh, I got problems…I might be the problem.”
The latter of the two is already happening on stages across the world as Kuzi grows not just lyrically but in performance, including overseas in Germany for the first time, and at large festivals like Calgary’s Stampede in front of a hometown crowd.
“It’s so hard to put into words that feeling of being on stage. I think every artist chases that in every single medium,” says Kuzi. “It’s just madness, but so fun to be able to get on these stages and tell my story. I like to describe it as I’m at a party with however many people are at the venue, and I’ve got the aux cord.”
With “Rain” marking the start of a new chapter, Kuzi plans to keep building on its momentum and continue to hit those stages.
From Zimbabwe to Calgary, and everywhere else in between, his story continues to unfold, one song and moment at a time.
“We gotta keep the foot on the pedal and releasing music is the name of the game right now,” he says.
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