Tomorrow, Friday, 31 July, Grammy Award-winning hip-hop artist Rapsody will release the second single off her upcoming album God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops and it includes a D'Angelo sample as well as vocals from Nomisupasta (Nomsa Mazwai). 

"It's really describing the simplicity of love," Mazwai says about the single titled Apple Juice. "It's not about the cars, it's about the conversation. It's not about the money. It's about the moments."

The song is just the latest chapter in a relationship more than a decade in the making. Mazwai's voice first found its way into Rapsody's world back in 2012, when producer 9th Wonder sampled her 2010 self-titled debut album for three songs on Rapsody's own debut, The Idea of Beautiful. 

It would take years — and a trip Rapsody made to South Africa last year to record her new album — for the two artists to properly work together in a studio.

That visit produced many songs including God Gotta Afro, the album's lead single, featuring Karabo Ya Morena, the Soweto youth choir whose name translates to God's Gift. It's the same choir that led the singing on Mazwai's own #FunkItImWalking night tour through Soweto last year, the one that wound its way past the Jabulani flats, through Kwa-Khaya Lendaba, and ended with Rapsody in conversation with struggle veteran Seth Mazibuko at Native Rebels. Their voices, recorded that week in Johannesburg with production by Denaun “Mr. Porter” Porter, now open Rapsody's new era.

Apple Juice is anchored by a sample of D'Angelo, credited alongside a production and writing team that includes Rapsody, Mazwai, Mr. Porter, Victor Gaspar and Groove. And it’s not the only place she turns up on God Gotta Afro & Gold Hoops. Mazwai also lends vocals to two further tracks, Joyful Joyful and Oh My God, due when the full album lands on 21 August. 

Those parts carry a different weight for her than the fleeting Apple Juice cameo: fuller vocal contributions, the kind she pushed to have properly credited as featured artist work when the paperwork for the album was drawn up.

"Featuring Nomisupasta is money in the bank for me," she says. "I've been in the industry for 16 years. I won my first Sama 15 years ago. I didn't arrive yesterday."

She's using the moment as fuel, not a finish line. Her own long-awaited sophomore album Surrender has two singles out — Next Week Tuesday, produced by Mr Porter, and Njalo Njalo, a Madlib-produced collaboration that also features Rapsody. With her back catalogue going up on streaming platforms and Surrender still to come, Apple Juice functions as a kind of down payment on her own release.

"I can do that right now with my existing repertoire," she says of leaning into the association. "For me, this is definitely part of my story."