SOUTH AFRICA: NINE-YEAR-OLD SBONISO DLAMINI'S MUSIC IS TAKING SUTH AFRICA BY STORM

Record ID: 391754

  • Title: SOUTH AFRICA: NINE-YEAR-OLD SBONISO DLAMINI'S MUSIC IS TAKING SUTH AFRICA BY STORM
  • Date: 1st July 2001
  • Summary: DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA (RECENT) SBONISO PERFORMING BEFORE CROWD AT SOCCER STADIUM JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA (RECENT) (REUTERS) SBONISO IN SOUND STUDIO RECORDING A TRACK WITH MZAMBIYA VARIOUS OF PRODUCERS AT THE SOUND MIXING DESK (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 16th July 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SOWETO, DURBAN AND JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
  • Country: South Africa
  • Topics: Entertainment,General
  • Reuters ID: LVA9XOZO3U2CXG6933YXCIT06RFO
  • Story Text: A nine year old school boy is taking South Africa's music scene by storm. Soboniso Dlamini is known on stage as Musawawa and he's just cut a chart topping CD in the Kwaito style of music now the rage in the country. He says his act has been inspired by one of the most famous boy bands of all - the Jackson Five.
    Friday morning and Sboniso Dlamini, wearing his uniform of neatly pressed grey trousers and a royal blue sweater, sets off for school. The last one out the house, he has to make sure the main gate is securely locked. Swung over his right shoulder is a trendy rucksack with the Channel O logo.
    Channel O is a popular music television station.
    St Matthews Primary School in Soweto, South Africa's largest township, has 700 pupils.
    The grade 6 classroom has 45 boys and girls. Today they're learning how to do maths equations using fractions. Taking them through their lesson is Margaret Nyembe. One by one they have to answer the questions she puts before them.
    Sboniso is a star pupil, and is always ready to tackle the academic challenges thrown his way.
    He always gives his best in his work, says his teacher Margaret Nyembe. His work, she says, is excellent.
    Sboniso also excells beyond the classroom. An avid athlete hes always ahead of the pack on the sports field.
    Although it seems he's a natural leader the school principal Beatrice Diphoko admits that she was rather reluctant to admit him into her school.
    "You know, at first I was a bit hesitant because he's a musician. I thought he was going to be missing a lot of lessons but he is not. Whenever they need him they make arrangements. They phone me in time and then he is just out for maybe one day. He is never absent from school. He is a very good boy. Well disciplined. You can never say he is a celebrity. He's so famous," says principal Diphoko.
    "Even during break, I thought maybe I was going to have chaos during break because you know how children become excited, but never.
    He's just like any other child."
    But he's not. Out of school Sboniso is Msawawa a child musician who's just released his very first CD. The video for the song Bowngakanani - a remake of a 1970's hit - is packed with groovers in big Afro wigs, bell bottoms and platforms.
    The pint sized Msawawa has modeled himself on the Jackson 5.
    "This is my talent. I have to train myself, prepare myself and do the best I can," he says speaking in Zulu. Also known as the Hurricane from Soweto and famous for the number seven (7) red and white soccer jersey he likes to wear, Msawawa says that although music is his first love, he's putting his education first.
    "I don't sing during school days but when school is out I can sing. When people call during school and ask my manager for a gig we tell them to organise it for a Friday. That way I can go," he told Reuters Television.
    A hero's welcome awaits him everytime he goes back to his hometown Claremont in Durban. One of his top fans is his uncle who's always trying to copy his dance moves.
    Not only is Msawawa an extraordinary singer, he also has amazing rhythm and has put together dance moves that leave audiences thrilled.
    He threw a concert to celebrate his ninth birthday. One of his cakes had the message 'Have a bright future'. If the number of people who flocked to the show was anything to go by, it seems Msawawas' birthday wish is well on its way to becoming true. The crowd didn't phase the young star at all.
    Shaking hands with his fans, posing for pictures and dancing have all become second nature to him.
    Msawawa's music is called Kwaito. A distinctively South African sound that has its roots in the traditional Mbaqanga and Pantsula sound of this country. Part of Kwaito's appeal is in the manner it infuses elements from RnB, rap and hip hop music. It also speaks the language of the townships or Tsotsital - a mixture of slang mixed with words taken from some of the country's 11 national languages.
    In the recording studio he sings alongside another child musician, Mzambiya. The two are signed under Bulldawgz Entertainment, a small independent black music label that wants to export the Kwaito sound and its meaning to other countries.
    "It tells a story of where you're from, you know. The kind of life that you live. Your energies, your excitiments, your sorrows. Like any music really," explains Nimrod Nkosi, producer at Bulldawgz.
    He feels Msawawa has genuine talent and as long as he can balance his school books with his life as an entertainer, he'll follow in the footsteps of some of the world's greatest musicians.
    "If anyone told Mozart not to play, I mean, we wouldn't be able to appreciate Mozart. He started at an early age. If anyone didn't tell Michael Jackson you know...if anyone said go to school don't sing we wouldn't have experienced the Jackson Five and Michael Jackson," Nkosi says.
    In the studio Musawawa is every bit the professional musician, working harmoniously with his producers.
    "We were not afraid you now. It was a 50/50 thing," says Oscar Mlangeni.
    "If we lose its fine. But this is our artist and I mean more than anything, we believe in our artist, you know," he adds -ends-
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