Zoe Modiga on choosing softness, opening The Vault on almost two decades of lived experience, and making peace with living.
Katlego Sekhu
Zoe Modiga recently joined Fresh and Thato for Fresh Fridays on Kaya Breakfast, for a warm, playful and honest conversation about her new album, The Vault.
The morning began with a challenge. Asked to finish a nursery rhyme in her own style, she took “Rain, Rain Go Away” somewhere unexpected.
“Rain, rain, go away. Come another day. But if you choose to stay, can I have my way?”
It was a fitting way in. Her new single, When The Rain Comes, reworks the same rhyme.
The conversation soon turned to an idea that runs through her work: softness as a rebellion.
“It’s easy to form calluses from experiences. But the thing that is harder to choose is to remain soft in experiences. So I really do think softness is a very radical thing, actually.”
For her, softness is not the absence of strength. “I don’t think softness means not being able to advocate for yourself when it calls for it,” she said, adding that there is “such a thing as a righteous rage.”
The Vault, she explained, is her most personal record. Her earlier albums leaned towards sociopolitical matters, introspection and divine feminine energy. This one draws on her lived experiences from 2007 to 2025.
“I trust my music lovers enough that we’ve built something beautiful together and I would like to let you into my world and my thoughts without skimming at the surface.”
Opening that door was not easy. The album moves into alternative soul, with sounds many listeners would not ordinarily associate with her.
“The Zoe I was afraid to unleash was probably this one,” she said. “I didn’t know that it would land with the audience as them understanding that Zoe Modiga is an expansive artist.”
Having released it, she is ready to explore further. “Let’s go, let’s explore, let’s expand.”
Looking back on the year, she spoke of gratitude for family, chosen family and her creator, of releasing her fourth album, and of representing South Africa and the continent on stage alongside the Moscow Jazz Orchestra. It has also been a year of “a lot of triumphs. And a lot of storms as well.”
Her name sits at the heart of how she carries it all. Zoe means life, and Modiga, according to her grandfather, means peace.
“So this is just me, one day at a time, making peace with living.”
Next month she is set to speak at TED Talks South Africa on 28 November, on womanhood and women as the architects of society. Details will be shared on her social media.
To hear the full interview, listen to the podcast.
READ NEXT:
![[WATCH PODCAST] Zoë Modiga unseals a new musical era with long-awaited 4th album titled ‘The Vault’](https://www.kaya959.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/KAYA-959-THUMBNAILS-9-100x100.png)
