How a church drum kit became a global sonic language.
Words by Alex Gwaze (Curator)
Questions by Alex Gwaze & Elspeth Chimedza (Writer, Creative Consultant)
Photographs by Visuals by Corey
There is a particular kind of ambition that accumulates quietly. It starts drumming for the back pew of the church, finds its way into the small hours spent learning chords on a guitar — until one day it announces that the borders around it are too small.
For Cosmos Roinuj — Cosmos Themba Junior Nkomo — that announcement came as an inevitability. In a cultural landscape where producers are often judged by chart placements, club hits, or the prominence of the artists they work with, no one is really paying attention to the question of who gets to shape that sound on screen, in animation, and television. That question remains largely unanswered. Roinuj is one of a handful of African producers quietly answering it. His debut track Us Trust has landed on Netflix’s Temptation Island. He scored the Bulawayo Arts Award (BAA) winning fashion film I Wear My Culture. And at the same time, his co-produced beats that feature artists such as Big Zulu, Fish F Ndaramu, and the late Cal_Vin. Roinuj’s sound has crossed borders, genres, and mediums in ways that most producers only imagined — because of his relentless expansion of his understanding of what sound can envision. Roinuj’s sound suggests a creative less interested in making songs than in world-building, less concerned with trends than with emotional architecture.
His pursuit of a different metric entirely began, as it often does for most Black musicians, in the church. Around 2014, a teenage Roinuj was playing drums at his local congregation — the kind of foundational musical education that tends to produce the most instinctive communal players. From there, he taught himself guitar. The guitar gave him something the drums hadn’t: music theory. Suddenly, he could hear how chords related to one another, how tension was built and released, how a progression could carry an emotional weight entirely independent of any lyric or voice. That knowledge would become the infrastructure that later helped him earn a BSc (Hons) in Music Business, Musicology and Technology from Midlands State University.
While most seek formal education to learn an instrument or how to produce, Roinuj zeroed in on the language of the music industry — a map of its structures, and a clearer paper trail of where an African creative might be positioned within the business side of things. He was not simply learning to make music. He was learning how music makes money throughout the world. It’s no surprise that after university, Roinuj entered the business through the most stable door possible. Musician Fish F Ndaramu took him on as an exclusive in-house producer and sound designer — a relationship that placed Roinuj squarely in a pseudo-apprenticeship inside another artist’s studio system, and asked him to serve his role without losing himself, particularly that quiet ambition of his.
This was a good fit for Roinuj because unlike most producers who came of age entirely in the digital space — learning to produce by ear through trial and error on a laptop — he had already spent years listening with his hands. So when he eventually had to work primarily with FL Studio and entered the world of beat-making and digital production with Fish, he brought with him something that cannot be easily downloaded: an understanding of how music breathes and is performed. They learned software first, sound second, and then the live feeling, if at all, somewhere much later. Roinuj learnt it traditionally — or in reverse, depending on your age — and it showed. He is one of those rare producers who can not only play the beat but can also structure and theorise it technically.
This grounding in the physical and technical act of making music is precisely what made him want to expand the sound beyond the desktop — to reach back into his own unearthed history and outward into visual mediums. That need to expand has produced a body of screen work rare for a producer of his age and location. Roinuj has scored and designed the sound for Imbokodo, The Delf Confrontation, and The Holder — a catalogue that places him in conversation with a tradition of producer-composers who refused to be contained by a single role: Quincy Jones, Trent Reznor, the RZA, and Ludwig Göransson. The difference is that where those names built their reputations within or adjacent to Western cultural institutions and music, Roinuj is building his from African and Black musical traditions and soundscapes. He is developing a distinctive cinematic style influenced by hip-hop, Afrobeats, orchestral music, and distinctly African sounds — and the global music industry is beginning to notice.
Roinuj is now signed with Atrium Music for international licensing, his catalogue spanning cinematic soundtracks, ambient audio design, and electronic dance music. He has turned from producing for others into composing his own work for his debut UNSAID EP. From instrument to software, from theory to business practice, from local stages to global platforms, Cosmos Roinuj’s expansion continues to every place sound can be heard.
AG: You started as a drummer and later taught yourself guitar. Many producers today don’t play instruments at all. Do you think being an instrumentalist changes the way you hear or produce music?
CR: Certainly, learning the guitar introduced me to music theory. This is how I learnt that chords are related to each other, and if you can arrange them in a certain way, you can go from performing your favourite song to writing your own. Other instruments I picked up are the recorder, the mbira, the marimba, and the piano. Playing instruments definitely affects the way you listen to music. I always find myself paying less attention to the vocals and more to the instrumentation. That’s how I got into music production. When it comes to production, you are more aware of playing techniques and articulations, and that can improve your overall quality. I don’t know if it’s just me, but once you start spending more time on a MIDI keyboard, you can’t go back. I find it so tedious to write chords and melodies manually on my FL Studio (laughs).
EC: Why program it when you can play it and just press record. Did you also learn more about music production at university?
CR: To be honest with you, my parents made me go to uni (laughs). This was two years after high school, and my parents were on my case about pursuing a degree. I could’ve taken any other course outside of music, but I had literally spent the previous four years exploring music, film, graphic design, dancing, art, modelling and many parts of the entertainment industry. At that time, I had zero connections in the music industry and made what I call “ringtone beats”. I explored the modules and realised there was so much more to the music industry than simply being an artist or performer. This was also during a time when a church elder approached me during prayer sessions and said: “CJ, God wants you to know that whatever you’re going through right now, you’ll figure it out. You just need to take that leap of faith.” So I did. RIP Uncle Krish.
EC: Your name, Cosmos Roinuj, carries ideas of family values and legacy, as well as vastness and reinvention. How much of your artistic identity is rooted in those ideas?
CR: I love having my family around, and I’m always praying for them, from the rents to the mnawamiz, to the mamdalaz and the malumez, to the khuluz and the gogoz, each and every one of them. My father has always told me, from a young age, that the youngins will always look up to me as the eldest, so I have to make good decisions. And the lesson that I want to teach them is that if you truly want something, you just need to put the work in, and trust the process. For as long as I can remember, I have always been drawn to stories that express reality, life, love, creation, and death. As a creative storyteller, I resonate with these themes because that is our life, and I believe that as humans, we still have a lot to learn about life; otherwise, the world would be in a better state than it is right now (laughs). So every musical element comes from a place that wants to leave the world in a better state than I found it.
AG: On that subject of “fam” and putting in work — you worked extensively with Fish F Ndaramu. What did that relationship teach you about serving a vision that isn’t your own while still bringing something distinctly yours?
CR: That’s a great question. Fish is very authentic with himself, and he always comes with a very clear direction of where he sees the project going. In some cases, it’s just a small idea we have to develop from the ground up, but he is always specific about the direction, and 99.9% of the time we get there. He was already a brand at that time, so it was and still is my responsibility to know who I am, and what I want to represent so I can better contribute to his world, without losing myself. It also came with a certain amount of pressure because the bar had already been set so high. So having that conversation with myself was very necessary for me. In my experience, when I’m invited to contribute to someone else’s creative vision, it’s always important to remind myself that they could’ve gone elsewhere, but they chose me.
AG: What you bring, in my opinion, is a combination of cinematic textures with distinctly African sounds and instrumentation. How do you navigate that balance, bearing in mind mainstream audiences?
CR: When you’re writing music for a mainstream audience, the most important thing is a reference point. This is usually music that the audience is already vibing to, or a previous project. I usually pay close attention to song structure and arrangement, because you don’t want your song to be either too long or too short, or have so many elements that the vocal doesn’t have space to breathe. You also want a sense of novelty in your song, but you don’t want to reinvent the wheel. There is a very thin line between those, and you have to be very intentional throughout your songwriting process. So it is a real balancing act (laughs).
EC: African music is increasingly visible on mainstream global charts, yet African composers remain underrepresented in film, television and gaming. What drew you toward the audio-visual side?
CR: Writing music for film was always something that I wanted to explore from a very young age. I didn’t know how to get there, but I just knew that one day is day! So we had released so much afro-cinematic content with Fish, and then Paper Bag Africa reached out with a fashion film they were working on that celebrates African culture. Aside from it being an opportunity to quote-on-quote live the dream, this was also an opportunity to learn about the different ethnic groups in Zimbabwe, and as a scholar, I understood how much this research was preserving culture. Shortly after, I met Wayne Ndebele (Left Hand Animation), and he was developing a mini web animated series. Creating animation is probably one of the coolest things ever! Before a baby can even say “mama”, they already know what a cartoon is. No man should have all that power! (laughs) What made this project so exciting were the different themes and languages — we wanted Gugu as the girl from ekasi to embody that “ungazongjwayela kubi” attitude, while Camille embodies an “I may speak in English but please don’t step on my shoe” persona. I would say that contributing to works that combine cultural preservation and entertainment like this other project I worked on called Holder, is enough to get me excited.
AG: Having your music featured on Netflix’s Temptation Island was a major milestone, particularly as a creative working from Bulawayo. Beyond the excitement of the placement itself, what did the experience teach you about the business of music and international opportunities?
CR: You know, it’s now easier than ever to get international opportunities. We are at a time where information is easily accessible at almost zero cost, as long as you have the internet and willpower. If you want to build a sustainable career in music, then you have to treat yourself as a business and be very patient. For me, that meant putting in the hours first, to hone my skills, identify the gaps in the market, take up any gig that aligned with my vision, whether it was paid or unpaid, and at the end of the day, I had a portfolio that gave me a competitive edge in the market. Music supervisors, libraries, publishers, and sync agencies generally don’t care how many followers or streams you have, as long as you write good music, package it well, have a great work ethic, and most importantly, have your paperwork in order. These and other key players in the music industry will never take you seriously if you’re a musician and you don’t have written split agreements, and if you’re not registered with a Performance Rights Organisation. So get your papers in order for all opportunities, local or abroad.
AG: Much of contemporary film scoring is rooted in Western orchestral traditions, though there are some directors like John Carpenter, David Fincher, and Quentin Tarantino who do things differently. What is your philosophy when composing music that needs to build a world rather than simply accompany a scene?
CR: When building a sonic world, it has to sound very consistent. That world is made up of different themes that embody the characters, the tone of that world, the emotions, the story, the cultural context, and so on. These themes, to a great extent, will be relatable to the audience. You are the co-creator of that world, so there are absolutely no rules. You’ve got so much space to experiment with different genres, different instruments, sound design, mixing techniques — the list goes on and on. Borrowing a page from legendary composer Hans Zimmer, my philosophy at this stage is that I want to create a journey for the audience without ever telling them how to feel. Just a single musical note playing should be enough to open a door into that world, and they get to experience that journey themselves.
EC: You just mentioned Hans Zimmer — who else do you rate, or which albums do you consider deeply cinematic?
CR: From the top of my head, based on my current playlist, I’d say Sinners (Original Motion Picture Score) by Ludwig Göransson. Ludwig is such a brilliant composer with his playful orchestral-meets-contemporary style of writing. He goes through great depths to create the sonic world — take what he did on MCU’s Black Panther, for example. He literally came to Africa for a personal interaction with the culture and delivered one of the most iconic themes in cinematic history. Sinners, on the other hand, has a blend of orchestral, roots music, and the blues, and it centres on the notion that singing and storytelling can bend time and unite generations. Another is K-Pop Demon Hunters (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film). While this album is not 100% cinematic, the K-pop music scene is a very interesting case study — it has grown to be a multi-billion-dollar economic engine for South Korea. K-Pop Demon Hunters blends cinematic sounds with pop, trap, and EDM, with very strong songwriting for a “kid’s cartoon”. And the production on Shaka iLembe is so out of this world! You are listening to orchestral elements blended with African percussion, and because Africans are so spiritual, those amazing vocalists just take you out of this world.
AG: Looking at your list, it covers so many genres and it’s global. For my last question — what do you hope the next generation of Zimbabwean producers will do differently from those who came before them?
CR: Firstly, huge shout-out to all Zimbabwean music producers putting in the work. There’s amazing music on our radios, and YouTube is blowing up. It’s always inspiring to sit in a public space and hear someone watching videos on TikTok, then you hear a peer’s producer tag, and you’re like, “Wait a second, I know that guy!” But a common mistake so many producers make — and I have fallen into this category — is being passive with ownership. When that song plays on the radio, TV, or gets streamed, if you haven’t had the royalties conversation with your artists, then you are probably leaving so much money on the table. We need to start looking at each project as an asset. It’s no different from a housing project — every time someone buys or rents that property, you get paid. That split agreement is your title deed. Discuss your splits, get registered with a Performance Rights Organisation to secure your royalties, and give yourself time to learn about music publishing. Invest that money into your business. I hope that one day we see more producers doing music as a full-time business, making international moves, and making real money from it.
In nearly every creative industry, there are practitioners who decide they can and will do more. Painters begin thinking like filmmakers. Filmmakers begin thinking like architects. Producers stop hearing songs and start hearing worlds. Cosmos Roinuj is one of them. His body of work moves comfortably between hip-hop, film, animation, orchestral composition, ambient sound design, and electronic music — each sound appearing without being trapped by any of them. What that arc reflects is something larger than one producer’s ambition — a broader shift taking place among a new generation of African creatives, one that rewards knowledge, adaptability, and digital fluency. The old model demanded specialisation. But Quincy Jones didn’t make Thriller, or Ironside, or the iconic Austin Powers theme Soul Bossa Nova by staying in his lane. Why should you. Roinuj has understood this early. Thinking big, it turns out, usually starts somewhere very small.
Follow Cosmos Roinuj @cosmos_roinuj
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