“I Sleep and Wake Up With a Song” Nontokozo Hlatshwayo On Her Songwriting Process
“I sleep And Wake Up With a Song” Nontokozo Hlatshwayo On Her Songwriting Process. Up-and-coming South African gospel singer-songwriter Nontokozo Hlatshwayo has opened up about her songwriting process, revealing that many of her songs begin in unexpected moments, including when she is asleep.
Speaking about how she creates music, Hlatshwayo explained that she sometimes wakes up singing a song or finds herself carrying a melody in her head. She described the experience as something she does not always understand, attributing it to God. “I sleep, and then I wake up with a song. Sometimes I just wake up singing a song,” she said.
Rather than allowing those spontaneous ideas to disappear, Nontokozo Hlatshwayo makes a point of capturing them as soon as she can. When a melody comes to her, she records it on her phone, while lyrical ideas are written down in a book for later development.
However, not every idea immediately becomes a finished song. Hlatshwayo admitted that there are moments when she does not have the energy to work on an idea straight away, meaning some melodies and words have to wait until she feels inspired to revisit them.
For Hlatshwayo, that inspiration often grows out of personal reflection and moments of connecting with God. She explained that while she usually receives melodies first, the words tend to emerge later through reflection.
“Most of the time I don’t get words. I get the melody, most of the time. And then those words come from those reflections,” she explained.
Her approach highlights a songwriting process that begins with capturing spontaneous musical ideas before allowing reflection and inspiration to shape them into complete songs. For Hlatshwayo, the journey from a melody in her head to a finished worship song can begin in the simplest of moments, even before the day has properly started.
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