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Haem- o lives, breaths music

18/08/2013 09:36:00 BY THOBEKA MANYATHELA

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I was born and raised in the countryside to a Zulu father and Swazi mother. I grew up with my cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles and all. Life growing up wasn’t a bed of roses but we had love in abundance. We had plenty of fun playing soccer with my homies.

I was raised by my grandmother, a very loving woman who made me the man I am today.”
“My grandfather had to play the role of a father because both my parents were away working in Johannesburg. I have an elder brother and two young sisters. I’m the second born child. I went to Ngwazini Primary School and Ekukhanyeni High School.”

“My grandfather is a pastor, so I grew up in church, we had a boys choir with my uncles, cousins and brothers and my grandfather used to take us to the different branches our church had around Swaziland and everybody showed us love. The funny thing is, I was the youngest and I was leading that group with my uncle. I guess that’s where it all started because by the age of 12 I was writing my own songs and started bothering my mother asking her to get me a record deal in South Africa.”

“She didn’t know much about this music thing. In high school when I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, nothing made sense but music. I just wanted something different and bigger than what I grew up around. Music is all I do, with few businesses like events organising, a clothing label and other projects that are still in the pipeline, I will be doing all that through the company, DBHOB, that I have just started with my friend Dino Bone. I’ve been studying music production since the beginning of this year (2013). It’s just music and business in my mind. When I recorded my first song in 2007 at Tiger City in Manzini with my boy Slim-G. It was an amazing experiance, a song came together and everybody who heard it back at home loved it, so it was a good start.”
“I finished my high school in 2007 and stayed home the whole of 2008 because my mother didn’t understand when I told her I wanted to do music, so in 2009 when I visited her with my sisters in Johannesburg I refused to come back to Swaziland and told her I wanted to study music, I started recording professionally and I was looking for a record deal. I had to find myself a way to finance all this.

I got a job at a nearby mall in a hip hop shop and I got enough money to start recording. I recorded a few tracks and shared them with friends on Facebook and I got a positive response. I wasn’t recording using my own beats because I couldn’t afford them, so radio wouldn’t accept the music.”

“One guy who owned Bantu Beat Records at the time asked me to do a track for his mixtape because I had recorded a song with my friend in their studio before and he liked what he heard,so he gave me a beat from one of his producers, KnifeBeatz who I’m still working with today.”
“I wrote the song,we recorded it and it turned out big because more than 20 remixes were done by different artists including Buffalo Souljah and Ice Queen.Mzansi Magic and Africa Magic loved it so much that a show was made just based on the song and the message it carried. A video was shot and it’s currently playing on One Gospel.

I was then offered a record deal but I turned it down because I didn’t feel I should be signed to anybody, I wanted to be independent and do things myself. I went on recording, using my own beats then I sent one of my songs to DJ C-LIVE on 5FM and he loved it so much, I made my way to national radio. I then went on auditions for ‘U CAN DO IT’ on SABC 1 and I made it to the Top20.”

“The show is still on, every Tuesday at 10pm. My inspiration is the place I grew up in. I just wanna show the people there that it doesn’t matter where you come from but its where you going. I wanna inspire young people to chase their dreams not just sit around and complain about the situations we were born into. I’m inspired by J.Cole through the message of hope and courage that he spreads through his music.”

“In 10 years time I will be a mogul, legendary status on my name and a whole lot of lives changed through my music and whatever else God choses to do through me.”