Born 'Tinashe Mtetwa’ on the 13th of January in ‘96, Luminous is a Zimbabwean rapper , song writer from Bulawayo who believes his life is the best ‘microphone’ ever given to him. The ‘#Nkulumane Boi’ loves t o ‘ Spit it (Life) like he lives it. Raised by a single parent, his mother, Luminous has always had questions about what it really means to 'live and be a man’ among other things. From a tender age, the kid would turn to media for entertainment and would take the information that came with it, he also recalls reading the bible for the same reasons and this was before he got saved. Being from a broken family, ‘Lumi’ moved from church to church, school to school but never moved to another neighbor hood, so be or e he got to his teen years, his behavior was influenced by different things and people from different walks of life and Nkulumane played a major role in that. The hood taught him a lot like how to ‘hit on a girl, how to treat her; how to treat elders, how to relate with other people, ‘how to get into trouble, how to stay out of it’. Violence, unity, hatred, love, death, respect, disrespect, hustle, fun, trouble, survival, name it …Nkulumane had it all but it still did not add up for Luminous. To add to what he already knew, music found its way to his heart, the mapostori background would soon meet ‘Simon Chimbetu’, after Luminous found a cassette tape that his father had left behind, he also listened to his mother’s collection of country music, ’Dolly Patton, Don Williams, Jim Reeves and Jimmy Swaggart’ were among the tapes he found. Charles Charamba and his wife were on he playlist till their VCR got stolen. His sister introduced h m to the sound of 'Westlife’, while Nkulumane made him listen to kwaito and house music. The first hip hop video he saw was om a Zimbabwean rap group ‘Major Playaz’ on ZBC TV. The TV station exposed Luminous to Urban grooves, ‘Ex Q and Extra Large were among his favorites. In 2006, the kid met God in a way that changed his life forever and it wasn’t a Sunday. The youth ministry at his new church introduced hi to ‘Christian rap’, he fell in love with the sound and immediately started writing his own material. The tenants at his house exposed him to the sound of ‘Soul Brothers, Sean Paul and Joe Thomas’. It wasn’t long before Luminous recorded his 1st song with the help of his childhood friend who used a tape recorder to record the song. When Lumi's mother got new tenants in 2008, they introduced him to T Bone another Christian rapper’ together with Cross movement and the 116 clique …13 letters and History were among the first albums he heard. At a fellowship at his house, Luminous heard Lecrae’s ‘Real Talk’ album and it did it for him. The music and the youth ministry contributed to his growth in the faith, however Lumi became religious and that affected him in ways words can’t describe. LUMINOUS Rapping at his church, Luminous met DJ Prayer another Nkulumane boi after a concert and the two started working together. After a few years of working with DJ Prayer, Luminous had learnt a lot and borrowed studio equipment from Prayer …In 2012 Luminous did a mixtape with a brick, steel rod and wire as a mic stand and named it after his secondary school Ihlathi …The ‘Ihlathi wassup mixtape’, was well received by students and teachers at the school with fun songs like ‘Study Hard a remix of Ace hood’s Hustle hard and Izaga zesintu. His relations hip with God was however on the rocks, early 2013 he worked on that and met local rappers like Kwanfire(Asaph) now Asaph, Cal_Vin, T1nda, Nashverb among others. He got the chance to work with some of these artists when he made Truth music, a 15 track project with tracks like ‘Uzenzubani? Produced by DJ Prayer and Brand new man produced by Face of Face the music’. 2014 saw the formation of ‘M.i.C’ (Man in Christ) with T1nda and Billman and Tha Cypha, rappers he had met at church. The kid was in 2014 nominated for an award at the Zim Christian Hip Hop Achievement awards, he hopes to grow as a Christian, as a person and as an artist and will continue being the student of the game, sharing his gift with the world, painting pictures of hope with words, while viewing everything through the lens of scripture till the curtain close. You might hear him rap about his love for Nkulumane or Bulawayo, God, the gospel of Jesus or food even mahewu, the ups and downs of life and this is because it’s real to him.