Before the flashy cars, hit singles, and the Zanku craze that swept Africa, Zlatan Ibile was just another teenager staring at a failed Mathematics and Accounting result and a future that suddenly looked uncertain.
“I was supposed to go to university in 2011 or 2012,” the rapper told Nandi Madida on Apple Music 1. “But I didn’t have my complete papers. My dad is a pastor, and I used to play drums in church, but I never thought I’d become an artiste.”
Failure, for the young Zlatan was ignition. With nothing else to lose, he followed a friend to a studio. “The first song I recorded was rubbish,” he admitted with a laugh. “But when I played it for my siblings, they made me feel like Jay-Z that day.”
That spark turned into an obsession. Nights of scribbling rhymes replaced failed equations, and by the time he won a rap competition in his first semester at university, Zlatan’s destiny had flipped. “I didn’t even believe anyone could win a car through music,” he recalled. “Out of 140 contestants, I won. That was when I started taking rap seriously. That moment changed my life.”
Now a household name, the “Symbol of Hope” crooner says his new album speaks for every dreamer who’s been written off too early. “I see how my music inspires others not to give up,” he said. “If I can do it, you can too.”
