Meet Linga Ndambasha of Linga TheBoss in North

Today we’d like to introduce you to Linga Ndambasha.

Linga, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Zambia, Africa and raised in Sheffield, England, where I lived for 8 years before moving to Arizona in 2007. I was always interested in music but never really pursued it. In the 7th grade, my older brother introduced me to his friend that was a rapper, and I remember thinking to myself “wow. I think I could do that”. That is when I first started rapping — admittedly, I wasn’t that good. So, I spent my entire 8th-grade year getting better by battling every self-proclaimed rapper in middle school, and by the end of my freshmen year, I had beat everyone in my school that I could find. That was also the point that I realized that I wasn’t proud of the content of my music- it was vulgar and far from representative of the person I wanted to become. I wanted to write music that was positive, and uplifting – songs that illustrated my faith in Jesus. So, I reinvented the message of my music and decided to start working on my very first project, an EP I titled “Distinguished”. Being that, I was so new to the music scene, writing and releasing an EP, something which usually takes less than a year, took me 2 1/2 years.

I released my EP on June 24th, 2017- it was a long, tearful journey but it was exciting to have a project out on all the major music platforms. From there, I went on my first ever tour starting in December 2017 – April 2018! I visited church youth groups all across Arizona and got to connect with and inspire so many students from across the state. It was a crazy ride – I didn’t have a car during that year attending GCU, so when I went on tour I had to call Ubers to come and pick me up and often times I would do my homework on the way to the stops on my tour. You’ll be happy to know that the tour was successful AND that I passed all my classes with A’s even though I had to miss several classes to finish my tour.

Throughout that year at GCU, I got to collaborate with some amazing artists and release some of my most popular songs. A recent success I am proud of is that this summer I had an opportunity to perform in front of a crowd of 10,000+ at AG Fine Arts in Houston, which is a “discipleship tool of the Assemblies of God Youth Ministries designed to help students discover, develop, and deploy their ministry gifts”. Currently, I am working on my first album called “19”, that I am planning to release in October.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not having a car was a major challenge (mentioned in my previous answer). But a lack of support and flaky collaborations were my biggest challenge – my EP took 2 1/2 years because so many people that I was supposed to work with flaked out, stopped responding, took forever to respond or just canceled mid-project. I am even running into similar problems this time around working on my album but the good thing is that I have learned from my mistakes last time.

Linga TheBoss – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I am a Christian rapper and singer. I love to create music that is upbeat and eclectic. I love to combine new styles of music, explore different genres, and discover the ways that separate genres can connect. My heart is to convey light, love, and positivity in every project I release. Most of my listeners are teens and young adults which is exciting for me because I am so passionate about the next generation! I believe that they carry the fire that will change the world. I strive to create music that will illustrate hope, peace, light, joy, freedom for everyone that listens. I am most proud of the fact my music is counter-cultural, most artists make music that glorifies things like money, sex, and drugs. I strive to make music that has a message that is the opposite of that – music that glorifies God.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
This summer, I had the opportunity to perform in front of a crowd of 10,000+ at AG Fine Arts in Houston, which is a “discipleship tool of the Assemblies of God Youth Ministries designed to help students discover, develop, and deploy their ministry gifts”. After I performed, I got to connect with so many cool young ladies who wanted to sing and rap one day who felt inspired by my performance and came to ask me for tips on how they could improve their own gifts. It was so cool to get to share the little that I know about rapping and singing with so many future world changers – most who would one day become better artists than me.

Contact Info:

• Website: lingatheboss.com
• Email: lingatheboss@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/linga_theboss/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LingaTheBossMusic/

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.