Slottaness

Nicholas Sibusiso Dlamini, commonly known as Slotta is a Swazi award winning artist. He is a vocalist, composer, producer, photogragher, deejay and songwriter. He really is a man with many hats. This year alone, he has won two major international music competitions, which includes a Brazilian Remix competition under Sure Player Recordings and having the remixes released officially and the Chymamusique remix competition and having the remixes released as well. He was part of the headliners on the 2nd House Music Festival in Eswatini, he played on the first ever MTN Bushfire festival digital stage, just to name a few of his achievements this year. 

 Slotta started his musical journey as a vocalist, which he still is, from way back in 2008, he used to hang around Subjamz studios and watch the master, in which Subjamz ended up imparting his knowledge to Slotta. In 2011, when he was doing his second year, he bought a laptop and installed fruityloop and that's when he started making hiphop beats. But, deep down,he knew that deephouse was calling and he started adding more genres to his collection and within 9 months, he felt confident with his work to a point where he started doing bootleg remixes and sent them to the original owners who dismissed such. Early 2012 he sent his stuff to a renowned South African music label (Soul Candi) who declined his submission citing that it was not what they were looking for at the moment. 

 In all that, he didn’t let that stop him, as he broadened his horizons. Deeper Shades was the next option and he sent his material again and Lars got back to him and gave some pointers on what to fix and he promptly did so. The rest is history!

 His EP was released in 2016 under Deepershades. He further did some remixes under DSOH for a track called “I miss the things" which are still unreleased. In 2017 a single called "love hold on" remixed by Satoshi Fumi (a renowned Japanese dj/producer) was released under Deepershades. It was a busy year, as under Antidote music (a Swazi label) he went on to release his second EP titled “T.H.I.S” which is an acronym for “The Human Inside”. 

 2018 came with the release of his third EP tittled Wired Deep, which came out under Stellar Disco Records in Norway, a remix he did for South African artist/dj OUmuzic as well as two remixes for Dj Czar’s EP where he features S-Tone came out under Antidotemusic. 2018 shaped up to be yet another beautiful year as more remixes alongside +268 for “Narno Tarne – The Storm” came out. 2018 also saw the release of his Sweet Temptation Remixes EP under Deepershades of House and the winning of the first ever SWAMMA Best House Artist award in the country. The house music category was featured for the first time ever and it amassed more voted than any category. 

 Then 2019, through the daily relationships one establishes, came with the chance to remix a track by Drum N via a friend’s label in Norway by the name of Addvibe (Vivier Recordings) ,plus yet another blessing as he entered a remix competition hosted by Micasa from South Africa and he went on to win a studio session with Micasa, thus giving him the chance to produce something wonderful with them in studio at a date yet to be slated. Furthermore, on yet another remix contest for Marissa Guzman (singer/songwriter) who has worked with BlackCoffee amongst other people, he came out in the top six of that competition, which will see those particular 6 remixes featured in their own released later in 2019.

When I asked Slotta about how the national lockdown treated him, he mentioned that the lockdown was a bit of a challenge at first, but as time went by he got his footing and took in his stride. "If one has all their eggs in one basket then there will be a greater hurdle to conquer than say (for example), if I ran a butchery, a marketing company, or a courier service. So, in essence, all these businesses cushion each other to some degree. The joys of being diverse continuously help me to keep pushing myself to the limit and never allowing situations to get the better of me. I’ve been working on refining my musical craft, joining competitions to expand my foot print and touching up other artist’s upcoming EP’s." He says. 

 Slotta just hosted his first online show, last week, Sweet Temptation, with New Life Entertainment. He says that this started in 2019 as an event to “launch” him as a deejay and celebrate his birthday by New Life Entertainment. Little did they know that this would grow full force. So, after some meetings they agreed to make it an annual event with the hope that it keeps growing in leaps and bounds. This was definitely bigger and the lockdown kind of came as a blessing in disguise as an opportunity availed itself. The show got a boost from Deeper Shades Of House in Carlifornia, the label he release my music under with the use of its digital platforms with a following of over 200k just on Facebook. This saw the show broadcast across multiple online platforms such as facebook, periscope, youtube, mixcloud and the Deeper Shades website. The show was a definite success, judging from the conversations within the comments sections. 

 Slotta suggests there’s no time like the present to look into collaborations with other artists. This is a time where one can write more, rehearse more, perfect their craft more. This is a also a moment in time where one realises just how “unprepared” they were, so in essence it helps to try plan ahead for Eswatini artists. 

 He mentions that we can expect a lot from him in the next few months, "If its not my own material then its definitely something I produced or worked on. As the year began, I tried to work with as many artists as possible and there is A LOT OF MUSIC AWAITING RELEASE! Then of course, an EP under Deepershades Of House and some remixes". He concludes.