Bongo flava singer Diamond Platnumz raised money for his 2010 debut single, “Kamwambie,” by hawking second-hand clothes, pumping gas, and selling his mother’s gold ring.
∙ His second single, 2014’s “Number One,” was remixed with Nigerian star Davido. ∙ He has won 17 Tanzania Music Awards, making him the most-decorated artist in the award’s 20-year history. ∙ Platnumz’s skills on his 2012 Rick Ross collaboration, “Waka,” so impressed Ross that he canceled his flight home to shoot more footage for their video. ∙ With 2017’s “I Miss You,” he topped the charts while switching gears from club bangers to a slow jam about a country man begging his big city love to come back home. ∙ He launched his own TV and radio station—Wasafi TV and Wasafi FM—in 2018, as a way to spotlight artists on his WCB record label. ∙ In 2020, he became the first sub-Saharan African artist with more than 1 billion video views, leaping ahead of such stars as Davido, Drake-boosted WizKid, and P-Diddy protégé Burna Boy.