African roots.
Future sound.

ZYO is the Afro-electronic project of South African artist and producer Chris Querido — a multiple #1 charting artist with more than one million streams and a growing catalogue of records that have connected with audiences across South Africa.

With high rotation across major South African radio stations, #1 records and support from global streaming giants Spotify and Apple Music, ZYO has established himself within the contemporary South African music landscape. His music reflects a country where African identity, electronic music and global culture increasingly exist in the same space — drawing from all three without losing its sense of place.

Rooted in Afrofuturism, ZYO brings African rhythms and ancestral textures into dialogue with contemporary electronic production and songwriting — creating music that feels distinctly African, unmistakably current and always forward-looking.

The project began behind a visor. Early incarnations of ZYO concealed Querido's identity beneath a futuristic helmet and African shweshwe, deliberately placing the idea ahead of the individual. The helmet may have disappeared, but the idea at the centre of ZYO hasn't.

The name comes from the Zulu word esizayo — “the future.” It remains the clearest expression of ZYO's artistic vision:

Music connected to where South Africa is now, while imagining where African sound can go next.