{"id":221797,"date":"2026-01-24T23:45:51","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T21:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/namibia\/namibia-mapuzza-builds-momentum-beyond-the-spotlight\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T23:45:51","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T21:45:51","slug":"namibia-mapuzza-builds-momentum-beyond-the-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/southern-africa\/namibia\/namibia-mapuzza-builds-momentum-beyond-the-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Namibia: Mapuzza Builds Momentum Beyond the Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"25\"><em>At just 18 years old Willias Nghitotelwa, popularly known as Mapuzza, is among a new wave of Namibian artists quietly building momentum outside the spotlight.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"17\">&#8220;I was born and raised at Walvis Bay&#8217;s Kabeljou area, Moon Street,&#8221; he says in an interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"11\">For Mapuzza, the small-town setting became fuel rather than a limitation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n  <span style=\"font-size: 110%;\"><br \/>\nKeep up with the latest headlines on <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VaIdDi8Bqbr263erhw1K\" rel=\"noopener\">WhatsApp<\/a> | <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/allafrica\/\" rel=\"noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a><br \/>\n  <\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body-text\" data-para-word-count=\"40\">While many artists chase opportunity from established centres, he has been navigating the industry from a&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/allafrica.com\/stories\/202601230648.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read more on AllAfrica.com<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>South Africa Today Africa \u2013 Southern Africa <a title=\"Namibia\" href=\"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/category\/southern-africa\/namibia\/\">Namibia<\/a> News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At just 18 years old Willias Nghitotelwa, popularly known as Mapuzza, is among a new wave of Namibian artists quietly building momentum outside the spotlight. &#8220;I was born and raised at Walvis Bay&#8217;s Kabeljou area, Moon Street,&#8221; he says in an interview. For Mapuzza, the small-town setting became fuel rather than a limitation. Keep up [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":221798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[723],"tags":[258,256,6831,53491,16362,4706,724,257,254,5124],"class_list":["post-221797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-namibia","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-builds","tag-mapuzza","tag-momentum","tag-namibia","tag-namibia-news","tag-news","tag-south-africa-today","tag-spotlight"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.allafrica.com\/static\/images\/structure\/aa-logo-rgba-no-text-square.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}