Jabulile Majola Opens Up About ‘Ipasi’ and the Stories Behind His Hardest Songs

South African Afro-folk and Afro-soul artist Jabulile Majola has opened up about the deeply personal stories, questions of identity and emotional experiences that shaped his latest album, Ipasi.

The 11-track project, released on 11 September 2026, marks another important stage in Majola’s artistic development and follows his 2025 project Isitifiketi. The album features songs including “Hope”, “Baba Wethu”, “Mandla”, “Ithole Lenyathi”, “S’bani Sami”, “Unikelwe” and “Ububele Bakho (Nala)”, with collaborations involving artists such as Thando Zide and Lia Butler.

For Majola, however, Ipasi is more than simply another collection of songs. It continues the personal story introduced through Isitifiketi, with the musician using music to explore growth, change, love, heartbreak, vulnerability, faith and the complicated process of understanding who he is.

The album’s title itself is closely connected to that theme. Ipasi, which refers to an identity document, becomes a metaphor for Majola’s continuing journey of discovering and defining himself. Rather than presenting identity as something that is permanently settled, the project reflects an artist who believes people continue to change throughout their lives.

Majola’s relationship with identity has been shaped by his childhood. Born in Pietermaritzburg, he was separated from his biological mother shortly after birth and was raised in a Christian children’s home in Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal. He later discovered that his biological mother’s name was Jabulile Majola, which became the inspiration for the name he uses professionally.

That history continues to influence his songwriting. Majola has previously described his creative process as one built around living, praying, remembering and paying attention to the experiences around him. Rather than forcing songs into existence, he believes ideas emerge through life and through remaining connected to his faith.

The emotional weight of that approach can be heard throughout Ipasi. The songs move between personal experiences and broader themes that many listeners can recognise, including rejection, unemployment, love, loss, hope and prayer. Much of the album is performed in isiZulu, allowing Majola to draw deeply from his language, culture and personal history.

One of the central questions behind the project is where an artist goes after documenting one chapter of his life. Majola has explained that he considered whether to completely change direction after Isitifiketi, remain within the same sound or expand what he had already created. He ultimately chose expansion, retaining the essence of his Afro-folk and Afro-soul sound while introducing broader instrumentation, melodies and harmonies.

That evolution is also reflected in his career. Majola spent about 16 years working as a rapper before moving towards Afro-soul and Afro-folk. He says the transition was not particularly difficult because he had already spent years experimenting with different genres, including alternative music, Afro-tech and house. His approach has increasingly become about following whatever music connects with him rather than restricting himself to one category.

The result is an album that does not attempt to provide simple answers to the difficult questions surrounding Majola’s identity. Instead, Ipasi embraces uncertainty and allows those questions to become part of the music.

Majola has spoken openly about growing up without knowing where he came from and how difficult it was to reconcile questions of culture, religion and identity without having all the information about his origins. Yet he has also embraced his Zulu identity, acknowledging both what he knows and what remains unknown.

For the singer-songwriter, that vulnerability is ultimately part of the purpose of his music. He believes that people can carry experiences and gifts capable of helping others, but those contributions can remain hidden when people become trapped by uncertainty about who they are.

With Ipasi, Majola turns that uncertainty into art. The album documents a man still growing, questioning and changing, while holding on to hope and the belief that the journey itself is worth sharing.

The release is being followed by an Ipasi tour across South Africa, giving audiences an opportunity to experience the new material live. The tour includes performances in Gqeberha, East London, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.