kagablog

Thusday 13 February 2003

zola: It’s Bonginkosi Thuthugani Ka Dlamini! You see when you grow up on the streets right you get a name associated with the things that you do, for example if you play soccer you’ll get a name like Shoes or Pele or Maradonna, they always give you names you know and then with what we were involved in which was more like we were a bit of naughty kids but we had a passiion for art and we were doing kwaito from when we were young then I inherited the name like Zola. Which of course is also my township, I grew up in Soweto and there’s a little small place which for years has been known for being notorious and it’s actually called Zola so that’s how I got the name Zola. I grew up in Zola, 100%.

aryan kaganof: Where does this word kwaito come from and what does it mean?

zola: Ok. It all begins with the Dutch people. The voyagers when they come to South Africa and then all the other nations mix up as South Africans integrate into what it becomes today but basically you had Dutch which of course when it mixed up with other languages ended up as a language called Afrikaans and in Afrikaans there’s a word called kwaai, sommer baie gevaarlik, somebody who’s dangerous, like very cheeky you know, hard core. And then back in the sixties there was a gangster groups called Amakwaitos which of course were the most notorious boys around. I don’t know exatly if they were from Sophiatown or Soweto, one of the two, but that’s basically where the name came from. So we had a bit of Afrikaans a bit of Zulu a bit of English a bit of Tswana Tsonga Tshona and then all those languages came up together when people started working in the mines when people went up to Joburg with the gold rush and then they had their own language. That’s where the name kwai came from and as the years went by music changed and it ended up being called kwaito as in Amakwaitos.

aryan kaganof: What relationship does kwaito have to hip hop and house?

zola: A lot of people would argue that house is European made but really if you think of it you know if you go up to Nigeria the people called the Griots which are the best drummers in the world and that’s where they sample the drums of house and then digitalize the whole thing you know so house would very much with us be more like an ancient cultur. And then on on side you’ve got hip hop which is more like your modern culture which is how people express themselves on the street but then again if you take that very same African beat, gugh gugh gu gu gu gugh, and then you put poetry on it right, and then you rhyme with poetry then you end up with hip hop and since it’s street music people will end up talking about street stuff and how the street affects them good and bad. So those two genres of music, how they relate to kwaito is the whole fact that I also grew up in the ghetto I also grew up in a very tensely political country even though now everything has now settled down and we are happy our economy is growng and stuff but then again what happened is we still had to adress street life, aberrational families, rape, sex, drugs, prison, education, church, culture, cult, myuth, all those things come out through our version of music which is kwaito. We sing about those things before we can start singing about suburban life because truly speaking we don’t know suburban life. I’m still fighting the same struggle that my brothers in the States and all over the world are fighting.

aryan kaganof: What was the point that you cracked into the industry?

zola: Ok, for one I’ve been bubbling under for ten years. Which we can safely say that kwaito stole my childhood but for the beauty of it, right? But I did a movie called Yizo Yizo, it was a tv film but very much movie quality. And which adressed the problems of the South African youth, predominantly black. And I played a character called Papa Action who was an inmate and he was going through his problems, like spiritually and problems at home and stuff, and what happened is they were also doing a cd which would come with the film and I did a song which became the main track called Ghetto Fabulous which basically was a dedication to my people that even though we suffer we still ghetto fabulous. And basically that’s how I managed to break into the music industry but I had to go via acting first.

aryan kaganof: Tell us about your debut album.

zola: mdlwembe means stray dog, a dog with no owner right. A dog with no owner will eat from a garbage can , bite when it has to, will run away when it has to, it’s got rabies and it will go and basically mess up your lawn if it feels it wants to use it as a toilet right. Unfortunately in life there’s people who treeat themselves exactly like that, they are always a thorn in society, they are always bugging people, they always trying to hijack a car, trying to take a bag from an old lady and those people we refer to them as imdlwembe and basically the song was dedicated to them as in saying the good people are taking back the streets, we are taking back our pride, we taking back the reason why we fought for this country to be liberated, we will not be bugged by a young kid just because he’s got a nine millimeter. We not afraid of them. So it was a warning to the minority of criminals that we have that this country is better than that. And because people related to that and they were sick of what was happening it blew up and became a big song.

aryan kaganof: What is Woof Woof about? Why did you use the ragga form?

zola: Well it’s a very personal story. I had a girlfriend sometime back who dumped me, badly, for the simple fact that I had nothing. Right? And she’d gone out with a guy who had more. So I saw her about two years after I had struck it successful in the business and then I don’t know, somehow a song came up you know and Woof Woof basically says wherever I go all my dogs bark, they respect me and yo, sister look at me now, look at what I became, but thanks for dumping me because I would have been stuck with you for the rest of my life not knowing that you were in this whole business for money, not that you loved me truly. So her dumping me was a blessing but it did hit a nerve because I was young and I was really in love with her. It’s more of a thuggish, dirty, down into the dirt-like take me as I am you know, if you don’t love the thug then get out of my way you know? Because I cannot picture myself all romantic and walk in the park feeding the ducks because we don’t have that where I’m from. The only kind of water you get flowing down is when a sewer gets blocked you know. So I cannot be romantic as in an R&B singer, I can try to be romantic but in my way, my kind of music.

aryan kaganof: when you were a kid at school you used to be called mubi, mfene, mnyamane, what was that like?

zola: This is very much a story of the ugly duckling right. Because I came from a poor family and we still lived in a country whereby even my complexion kids would tease me because of it because the most beautiful thing was being white. So automatically anyone who was lighter in complexion sort of appeared nicer in society. We even had wedding songs like wanangstalalilikadag??? meaning this beautiful maid she’s beautifully coloured meaning she’s light in complexion and stuff. So it got to a point whereby I was a skinny kids, came form a poor family, didn’t have much of dress code and stuff and with kids what happens is we rank in society, if so and so has a rich father he becomes the leader of the boys, if so and so has got a poor father or a mother he becomes the servant of the boys on the street. So I was more like a servant. And my mission was to prove that a kid from the ravages of the ghetto can actually grow up and become an example in the country because we have Mandela, we have Bantus Steven Biko and our current president Thabo Mbeki who came from that situation and they became something better. So unfortunately with the kids it’s a different story because they’ll always tease each other and say bad things to each other and so metimes it gets to a point whereby it becomes a seriously sensitive issue where another kid will go and seriously hurt another kid. You’ve read about this around the world where kids can just walk into a school and shoot everybody else or you hear that so and so just killed somebody and the whole issue just started over a girlfriend or who was ugly and who was handsome. It happens. But I survived that and I live in a country whereby a lot of kids can actually toelrate that , we live in a country of different cultures, different races, and different religions and we were this close to a civil war, but we survived it. That’s why we stand as a proud example to the world that we have our liberty back without an actual civil war. And if my country could survive that then I as an individual can do more.

aryan kaganof: Would I be correct in assuming that Tupac played a big role for you in terms of inspiration?

zola: The life that Tupac lived, played an inspiration. He was a man, I don’t know him, I never met him. The stuff that I read about him, the stuff that I saw on DVD and back then in the tapes about his about his documentaries and that beautiful book called Rose In The Concrete, those are things that gave me an I nsight of what kind of a man he was. And how he died, how he lived his life, how his mother was an active member of the Black Panthers and how that in a way related to my life from when my mother was poliitcally active to how she lived and how she was preganant with me right in the heart of ’76. She gave birth to me in ’77 and how I lived a miserable life, how my father left me, how I grew up hard and how I had fights with my mother when I was 17, 18, because I was a teenager and how I struck it gold and how me and my mother reconciled and healedand I became a voice of the nation. I understand what Tupac went through because I went through exactly the same, the only experience that he had that I haven’t been through is that I haven’t been killed yet. Rigth? So I feel him, I understand him and I also understand that he could not sing about swans in the park, he could not sing about the beauty of how some western books portray life because he grew up on the concrete and he was a rose. He grew up hard and I’m going through the same thing right? And even worse in my country I can never have the money that he had. But he also taught me that sometimes it’s not about money, it’s about letting it out and be fully used before you die right? So he used all of his energy, he fought every day, he fought pollitically, he fought spiritually, he fought socially, so even though he was a brother from another country, but what he was is like in direct parallel of what I go through every day of my life. Therefore I feel him. I feel his pain, I feel his joys, and I feel what he was trying to achieve and he was in a struggle. And a struggle is something that you never achieve, it’s something that you fight until you die. Therefore I shall also fight until I die. Him and I are birds of the same feather. It’s just that I’m still here and he migrated.

aryan kaganof: If we look at Bob Marley in reggae or Tupace in hip hop, would it be pretentious to say that you assume a comparable role within kwaito?

zola: I do assume but before I can even say I assume it that role was given to me before I was born. That political role, that consciousness, that struggle, that pain, that pain that Bob Marley fought all of his life, the things he talked about in his music, for he could not pick up a gun and shoot a man therefore he took a microphone and fought it onstage. Same thing that Tupac went through. I can say in a true sense that role was given to me before I was even born. And it’s something that I’m supposed to take all the way for the rest of my life and hope that before I die other kids will pick up after me and take the same role and move on. Until whenever the powers that be truly understand what we are trying to talk about.

aryan kaganof: There is an element of the messianic in the tragically young deaths of both of these great men. Is kwaito the music form that will deliver up a South African messiah?

zola: Julius Caesar was killed by his own friends. Christ was betrayed by his own friend. Shaka Zulu was killed by his own brother. Tupac’s death remains a mystery. Bob Marley’s death I’m still trying to figure out up to now. I do not wish to follow a legacy that I’m gonna die. But I know that that’s the way of the flesh. But what I’m living I’ll be preaching and I’ll be singing. However, being god’s servant is something that I very much like to do but I cannot necessarily say that there is a messiah in me. I may be a voice that maybe I might have inherited it from Bantu Steven Biko and Mcenge (?) and Tsiyetsi (?) and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and the Mahatma Gandhi. I’m a different voice that speaks a different language to a whole new different population. But I do not seek a messiah in me, I only seek to be god’s servant. And if God decides that the time has come for me to go I will go. And how I go will b eentirely depending on the situation. Somebody could shoot me. I could die from AIDS. I could die from a car accident. Anything is possible but I know that one day I shall go the way of the flesh. The most satisfying thing about it is that, you know Tupac when he says he was watching Marvin Gaye’s show yesterday, I’d like to sit with Martin Luther King one day and Batus Steven Biko and maybe grow my dreadlocks with Bob Marley, that would be a great feeling for me because I do not believe that when I die that’s it. I believe that when I die I move to a greater power, a position which I was born for. The whole life, whether I live for seventy years, is nothing more than a test, the longer I live the longer the test is extended. But there’s a life after this and that’s exactly where I’m going. And if they decide to write books and movies about us it will be great because they will push on the legacy that we tried to teach. But we only got to a situation of teaching because us ourselves were taught and my greatest teachers in life are these kids because they know nothing about apartheid even though they are getting the reflection of it because they live in the ghetto, but they get a better chance than me and if they ever tell the stories that I tried to tell they will tell them better, they will become better individuals than I am. So every day a new generation will work towards cleaning the mistakes of the past and creating something new. What I’m doing almost has got nothing to do with the present, it’s got something to do with the future, which, unfortunately, I won’t be there to see, cos I’ll have to move on. That’s the way of life. And why I wear a seven on my neck every day, is based on a simple fact that if you follow your Bible right, you’ll see that God workds around the number seven. The alphabet itself, G for god is the seventh letter of the alphabet. The Israelites circled Jericho seven times and the walls crumbled. Christ is killed on the sixth day and the first day he rests on his grave is the seventh day. God creates Earth and Man and then he rests on the seventh day. So we wear a seven as a form of respect and a tribute to what God has given to us. And I could wear it in Gold and the reason I wear it in silver is because Christ was sold with silver coins. So for us it is a very tense spiritual thing that I cannot explain. So when I get on stage and I see 40 000 peole, I see beautiful black people all the way to the back there, and I got the microphone and I can hear them scream, I think I know exactly how soccer stars feel when they score goals, when people scream, when you’re in the final or maybe you’re Coby Brian (?) and you shoot the last basket, and your team wins and takes the league, I feel exactly that. And my struggle though is a very political one and a very spiritual one. We are doctors of the soul. And everything around us is guided and protected by God, otherwise I would have died at birth, I wouldn’t have survived. So the reason I am here is mainly to serve. And we strongly believe in one verse in the Revelations that says behold for a powerful nation shall rise in the South. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we do this. And if we get paid while we’re at it so be it because I’d like to say that the God that I worship has got the most expensive account ever. He’s more than a billionarie because he created all matters and all treasures. I refuse to be poor because there is this thing that if you believe in God and if you follow God you must be poor. There they hit us off guard. Because that’s how other people got rich and other people got very poor, right? And the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I believe that if I drive a big nice car, if I live in a house that makes every boy want it as a dream house, that means I shift the mind of a four year old or a ten year old from looking at a drug dealer as an example to looking at somebody who does something good. So if you’re Christian or whatever religion you follow and it’s associated with God and you’re rich and you got money you can stand up and testify that I’ve got all of this because of God. You don’t have to do crime, you don’t have to kill another person. If I get money and I ended up being rich one day for me it would be testimony that God gave me kwaito as talent here I am and anybody can follow me instead of my young brothers and sisters looking at drug dealers as examples. I dream for a day when Christians and Moslems and all the people who do good will own all the houses and the big cars because basically this is god’s testimaony that a man who follows God can live a clean life. King Solomon, King David, they were billionaires of their time. And they were given their powers by God. Why shouldn’t we live like that now? My biggest bank is up in heaven.