Songo was disabled and used a wheelchair. He spent most of his life working through the Cyrene Mission School, producing art on the behest of Frank McEwen, a British expatriate who helped establish and later ran the Rhodesian National Gallery of Art[3] (now the National Gallery of Zimbabwe). Songo's early work consisted of occasional paintings and sculpture, however, in later years, he worked almost exclusively in the classic traditions of Shona stone sculpture.