Eli Zaelo (Born Tshegofatso Kgomotso Mhlongo) is a multilingual artist from Pretoria, South Africa. Eli sings in English, South African languages-isiZulu and SeTswana, as well as in Mandarin and Cantonese.
She got her start as an actress at the young age of 18 when she had her first made for TV lead role in the movie, “The Love of my life” which aired on Mzansi Magic throughout the Southern African region. She has since starred in 7 films for the channel. At the age of 19, she went to study Vocal Performance under the music department at Los Angeles
College of Music in Pasadena, California USA. In 2015, she landed the role of Nala in Hong Kong Disneyland’s “Festival of The Lion King”, to which she stayed on for a year and a half. A few months into arriving back to her native, South Africa, she started taking Mandarin-Chinese lessons with a tutor from Taiwan who taught her “Tian Mi Mi”[ 甜蜜蜜] by Teresa Teng. This was a destiny encounter. Eli then moved back to Hong Kong in early 2018 to teach Drama and Musical theatre at various centres while learning more Chinese covers. In 2021, she released her first single, “Human” an uptempo house/ afropop tune in English and isiZulu, as well as a soft rock ballad “Stories about love” [愛情故事] in Mandarin. Her journey into stepping out as a multilingual artist saw her being featured in various platforms such as South China Morning Post, BBC, CNN, TVB Jade, TVB Pearl, France 24 and The Hub Beijing etc.
She then boarded the Genting Dream Cruise ship for the Christmas Festive period in November-December of 2021. She was a half time performer at the 2022 Hong Kong Rugby 7s, as well as the official performing artist representing South Africa at the “International Ethnic Cultural Performances Festival 2022” hosted by the Leisure and Cultural Department of Hong Kong. Eli has also performed at a number of events across the board, including five star hotels (The Peninsula, Rosewood, Intercontinental, Island Shangri-La) , Official Government events and weddings in Hong Kong, South Africa, Pasadena California, Beijing, Shanghai and Thailand.
Eli Zaelo’s passion is to bridge the gap and to connect the world through music. This will be further showcased in her debut double album set to be released mid 2023. One in English and South African languages (SeTswana and isiZulu). The other on Cantonese and Mandarin.
Echo-HK 