You hear it once and it will not leave you alone: a voice from a short video or a club night, and the only clue you caught was a name that sounded like Busi. So you type busi songs and hope. The good news is that the search has a real answer, and it is richer than you expected: two South African singers, a generation apart, one of whom conquered an American chart in Zulu and one of whom ended up on a Beyonce record.

The search	busi songs almost always means one of two South African singers
Busi Mhlongo	The queen of modern Zulu music; died 15 June 2010
Her landmark	Urban Zulu, 1998: two months at No.1 on Billboard’s world music chart
Busiswa	Busiswa Gqulu, born 8 November 1988, Mthatha
Her landmark	My Power, on Beyonce’s The Lion King: The Gift, 2019
UK connection	Mhlongo’s exile years included London clubs, Osibisa and Jabula

The Search That Has Two Right Answers

Type busi songs into a search box and you are almost certainly looking for one of two South African singers, separated by a generation and joined by a name. One is Busi Mhlongo, the woman critics called the reigning queen of modern Zulu music, whose 1998 album sat at the top of Billboard’s world music chart for two months. The other is Busiswa, the gqom and amapiano star who ended up on a Beyonce album. This page covers both properly, because the search deserves an actual answer rather than a guess.

Busi Mhlongo: The Queen Of Modern Zulu Music

Victoria Busi Mhlongo took maskandi, the guitar music carried into the cities by migrant Zulu mine workers, and turned it into something the whole world could hear. That is not a small claim. Maskandi was working men’s music, played on cheap guitars in hostels far from home, and she electrified it, put a woman’s voice at the centre of it, and carried it onto international stages. Critics called her the reigning queen of modern Zulu music, and nobody seriously argued.

Urban Zulu And Two Months On Top Of Billboard

Her second album, Urban Zulu, produced by former Soul II Soul producer Will Mowat, spent two months at number one on Billboard’s world music chart in 1998. Sit with that for a second: a Zulu-language record, rooted in migrant workers’ guitar music, holding the top of an American chart for eight weeks. Very few African albums of that era travelled so far, and it remains the record people reach for first when they discover her.

The London Years Nobody Searches For

Here is the part with a British thread running through it. Much of Mhlongo’s career was spent in exile from apartheid South Africa, performing in Portugal, Canada, the Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom. In London she sang in nightclubs, cabarets and theatres, worked with the Afro-funk pioneers Osibisa, and fronted Julian Bahula’s band Jabula. A generation of British audiences heard her live without ever quite knowing what they had seen.

What Exile Does To A Voice

Singing your home’s music in rooms full of strangers, in countries where nobody speaks the language of the lyrics, changes a performer. The songs have to carry everything on melody, rhythm and sheer force of delivery, because the words alone cannot do the work. People who saw Mhlongo perform describe something closer to possession than presentation. That intensity was partly a gift and partly what happens when the stage is the only place home exists.

June 2010 And What She Left

Busi Mhlongo died on 15 June 2010 after a long battle with cancer. The catalogue she left is not enormous, which makes it easy to hold: Urban Zulu is the essential record, and everything else rewards the listener who goes looking. Her influence runs through modern South African music in ways that are easy to hear and hard to footnote, because the artists she shaped mostly absorbed her rather than covered her.

Busiswa: The Second Answer

The other singer behind this search is Busiswa Gqulu, born on 8 November 1988 in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, raised partly in Durban, and known to most of the world simply as Busiswa. She began as a poet, was spotted by Kalawa Jazmee’s boss Oskido, and broke through on DJ Zinhle’s enormous hit My Name Is. From there the singles kept landing: Ngoku, Lahla, and the feature on Bhizer’s Gobisiqolo that half of South Africa danced to.

From Gqom To Amapiano Without Missing

Busiswa’s career maps the last decade of South African dance music almost exactly. She rode gqom, the raw Durban club sound, when it took over the country. Her 2017 debut album Highly Flavoured arrived at gqom’s peak. Then, as amapiano swallowed everything, her 2020 album My Side Of The Story moved with it, carrying singles like Sbwl with Kamo Mphela. Dominating one South African genre is a career; staying on top through kwaito, gqom and amapiano is unusual by any standard.

The Beyonce Call

In 2019, Busiswa appeared on Beyonce’s album The Lion King: The Gift, on the track My Power. For a South African artist that is about as visible as a feature gets, and it introduced her voice to an audience that had never heard gqom in its life. The country noticed: she had already been named in the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans back in 2014, years before the international spotlight found her.

Why British Listeners Keep Finding Both

South African music keeps arriving in Britain in waves: the exile bands of the eighties, the world music boom of the nineties that carried Urban Zulu, and now amapiano nights in every major UK city. Someone hears a track at a club or in a short video, catches the name Busi or Busiswa half-said, and types busi songs. Both answers reward the search. One is a legend to sit with; the other is a playlist that does not let you sit at all.

Where To Start With Busi Mhlongo

Start with Urban Zulu and play it in order. It was built as an album, produced with real care, and it explains within three tracks why an American chart surrendered two months to it. If it lands, go backwards and forwards from there. Her recordings are on the major streaming services, and the ones that catch people first are usually the ones where the voice is barely accompanied at all.

Where To Start With Busiswa

Start with My Power if you want the global doorway, My Name Is if you want the song that made her, and Highly Flavoured if you want a full album of peak gqom. Then let the platform lead you into amapiano. Her catalogue is built for playlists rather than armchairs, which is not a criticism; it is the difference between the two artists in one sentence, and it is why the same search term serves two completely different evenings.

Two Careers, One Name, One Lesson

It is worth noticing what these two careers share beyond a name. Both women took music that outsiders considered local and carried it somewhere nobody expected: a mine workers’ guitar style to the top of Billboard, a Durban club sound onto a Beyonce record. British music has its own versions of that journey, and our profiles of Adele and Jennifer Hudson cover voices that crossed borders the same way. The pattern repeats because talent keeps outgrowing the box it starts in.

Final Thoughts

One name, two extraordinary careers: the woman who carried mine workers’ guitar music to the top of Billboard, and the poet from Mthatha who rode every wave of South African dance music onto a Beyonce album. Whichever one your half-remembered song belongs to, start with Urban Zulu or My Power and follow your ears from there.

Half-remembered band names lead people to some of music’s best stories. Another search that rewards the curious is the Sham 69 story: a Surrey punk band named by weathered graffiti, five Top 20 hits, and gigs stopped by followers they never asked for.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Busi in South African music?

Usually one of two singers: Busi Mhlongo, the late queen of modern Zulu music, or Busiswa, the gqom and amapiano star. Both are covered above.

What is Busi Mhlongo’s most famous album?

Urban Zulu, from 1998, produced by Will Mowat. It spent two months at number one on Billboard’s world music chart.

When did Busi Mhlongo die?

On 15 June 2010, after a long battle with cancer. Urban Zulu remains the essential record in her catalogue.

What is Busiswa famous for?

Hits across gqom and amapiano including My Name Is with DJ Zinhle, her albums Highly Flavoured and My Side Of The Story, and featuring on Beyonce’s track My Power in 2019.

Did Busiswa work with Beyonce?

Yes. She appears on My Power, from Beyonce’s 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift.

Did Busi Mhlongo perform in the UK?

Yes. During her years in exile she sang in London nightclubs, cabarets and theatres, worked with Osibisa and fronted Julian Bahula’s band Jabula.