kagablog

Saturday 15 February 2003

kabelo: Basically growing up I’ve always been a keen music lover and throughout my schooling life I was always involved in the choir. It was when I got to high school that I met the other two TKZ memebers, namely Tokollo and Zwai, we were all at the same high school. We all sang in the same choir. And because I didn’t do so well in my matric I had no other choice but to find a job and I was pretty skilled when it came to writing lyrics and I had a good ear for music, so it was suggested between the three of us that, let’s form a group and that’s how it started. It was quite easy to start because we already had that whole gang feel from school, so it was tight.

aryan kaganof: Zwai Bala was the first black member of the Drakensberg Boy’s Choir, a bastion of European colonial high culture.

kabelo: Yes he was. He’s also been a keen music lover and it was the best thing for him to take him to a school which was renowned for its singing. He was the hands on producer of TKZEE, but we were all involved in production. He’d produce the music, we’d produce the vocals, but the end product would all be produced by the three of us. Musically I feel we were quite arrogant in a way cos we knew we were good. I mean from the onset we knew we had something, it was just a matter of time until someone heard it. And I feel the secret behind Halloween was that we had songs, we had written songs, unlike what was going on in the scene at the time, it was just repetition of gimmicks and stuff unlike what we were writing about which was more real and was dictated in song form.

aryan kaganof: What is kwaito in its essence?

kabelo: You know to keep it simple it’s dance music, but it’s definitely got an influence of jazz and hip hop but it’s got that drum and bass, that African drum and bass sound. It’s distinctively African music. They all say the drum belongs to Africa right? And to get into the global market in due time we must get our production intact. There are people out there who are doing it, who are making waves overseas, like the BOPs, TKZEEs, Mandoza as well. You see our music is very easy to groove to.

aryan kaganof: How did you evolve into a solo career?

kabelo: I suppose spending a life with two other guys for like five years nearly every day it got a bit sick, everything got a bit entertwined you know. We had had enough, honestly, we just said let’s take a break, we stopped recording for about three years and in that three years because of the roller-coaster ride we’d been going through, cos I was more calm then and I just took the time out to find out who I really was you know. And explore myself musically and lo and behold I found something, something I didn’t expect I’d find and something to the syurprise of a lot of people. I found myself doing what I do, what I love, and that was the birth of my solo career.

aryan kaganof: Pantsula For Life?

kabelo: Basically it’s saying I’m a ghetto boy for life, you can take me out the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetoo out of me kind of thing.

aryan kaganof: You’re talked about as the bad boy of kwaito.

kabelo: Ag it’s all about drugs and rock ‘n roll you know what I mean? When you’re involved in the drugs scene you just don’t behave like a normal person you know what I mean? And I mean I was heavy into the cocaine and the ecstacy and the alcohol and I was a rock star at the same time so those things just didn’t go together. I thought I was the be all and the end all of the world and that wasn’t true cos it landed me in a whole lot of trouble you know? I’m not blaming it on the drugs I mean I was also involved, but I think the drugs had a major part to play. I’m clean now. Been to rehab an’ all and I’m trying to start all over again cos I mean that whole bad boy image is not so cool you know. It’s bad for business.

aryan kaganof: What is different about you is that you have come forward and talked about this problem openly. Of course one of the most sleazy aspects of the industry is the managers who supply the artists with their drugs in order to keep power over them, managers operating as pushers and dealers in fact, instead of looking out for their artist’s best interests.

kabelo: Yeah in fact that’s one of the many pressures you have to handle. And I opted to medicate myself with drugs and oppress any feeling I had to anybody, any feeling of resentment I had towards the music scene or my friends or whatever and I used the drugs you know. Which wasn’t the way to go. But I’ve learned my lesson and with God’s blessing I hope I don’t go back.

aryan kaganof: Does kwaito have as much of a political stance or function as hip hop as we know it?

kabelo: You know I think kwaito is still in the early stages, I mean at the beginning of kwaito it was about the rejoicing of having a free South Africa. And then now because everyone’s learning a bit more about what’s going on in the country and stuff, and kwaito therefore is getting more politically inclined. But hip hop’s been around for longer so I feel if kwaito is around for that much time it will get politically inclined. The production side of kwaito is going to improve a lot. It’s going to have to. There are certain people who are setting a standard and people will definitely have to meet that standard in order to compete overseas you know. Same as the content, you know people must just talk about their normal life in general, you don’t need to lie and talk about someething that you’re not. Just be real and straight to the point.

aryan kaganof: Who were the kwaito artists that you were listening to when you were coming up, your heroes.

kabelo: I had a lot of respect for Mandla Spikiri from Trompies, M’du Masilela. Those are the guys that I basically grew up on in terms of the kwaito scene but obviously as a kid I listened to Brenda Fassie.

aryan kaganof: There is a lightness, a kind of four dimensional spatiality that distinguishes your productions from any other kwaito producer’s. Where does this springy texture come from?

kabelo: don’t know…(struggles for words) … I feel your music should be happening. I believe in electricity and energy flow. I feel my music does have that, a lot of energy flow and it seldom drops from where it starts, it goes up, higher. I’m really finnicky about that in the studio, the energy flow should be the same in the beginning as at the end, I feel that’s my formula.

aryan kaganof: Who is Bouga Love?

kabelo: (chuckles) Bouga Love, when the name started it was all about being a ladies’ man you know. But Bouga Love’s now a one lady’s man. I kind of evolved from a crazy rock and roll superstar on drugs and alcohol to a responsible member of society. But it’s still the same person in a way.

aryan kaganof: We’re here at the Melrose Arch, you’re sitting in your BMW Z3, you’re obviously everybody of your age’s idea of success. You’ve made it. You’re there. Is that not a terrible responsibility?

kabelo: My job does come with a lot of social responsibility but I mean I urge people not to look at how I’ve done things but to look past it. Cos success is not judged by material things, and what you have. Fine yes in the music industry it’s cool to sell a couple of hundred thousand units, stuff like that. But you shouldn’t judge success like that really. You should always judge success on whatever goals you set for yourself and achieve at any given time.

aryan kaganof: What’s your personal favourite of your own songs?

kabelo: (thinks for a long time) Gee whizz. I could say on my first album there’s a track I did, Amasheleni. I produced it with a late friend of mine, Moses Molelekwa, he was a brilliant jazz muso. And he’s actually one of my icons. He passed away sadly. It’s one of my favourite songs cos it had a lot of jazz influence in it and I love jazz and I’m just looking forward to incorporating jazz with my music more and more and more.