South African tattoo artist Sibusiso Cele on how he has been leaving an impression despite the pandemic.



‘Stay home, avoid contact’ is the prevailing motto of our times.



But, as it appears, not for South African freelance tattoo artist Sibusiso Cele, who has actually been receiving more requests for home visits at this time.



Tattoo art is hugely popular in Johannesburg, and since the reopening of tattoo parlors in level 3 of the national lockdown, artists admit to increased interest in people wanting to get themselves inked, some even reportedly wanting to capture the historic pandemic with a tattoo. &nbsp;&nbsp;



“Personally, the lockdown has worked out in my favor in so many ways,” says Cele.



Known as ‘Inkboy Que’, Cele, now 24, was born in Johannesburg and raised in the Umlazi township in Durban, a coastal city in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, by his aunt who has been his greatest support. His older brother, Simphiwe, taught him to draw from a young age.



“Simphiwe played a huge role in the manifestation of my career. It is unfortunate that Simphiwe is now late and he can’t see my exceptional work thus far. Eventually, I put my all into drawing, to a point where I drew everything and anything in school; it was a passion,” recalls Cele.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;I already had a face tattoo and the corporate world regarded it as being unprofessional to have any visible tattoos.&#8221;</blockquote>



In 2013, with a good friend, Cele invested in his first tattoo kit. He traveled locally tattooing but worked mainly from his backroom at home in Umlazi. At the time, his family didn’t consider tattoo art a career, but he persisted.



“In 2015, I was admitted into Durban City College for an engineering course. It was an amazing opportunity to further my studies, however, it was affecting the family financially, also, I already had a face tattoo and the corporate world regarded it as being unprofessional to have any visible tattoos.&nbsp;That was more of a reason not to pursue that career, [so] during the third semester, I dropped out. Above everything at that time, I had invested so much into doing tattoos and the name ‘Inkboy’ was born,” says Cele.



Shortly after that, he moved to Mpumalanga where he had already created a clientele.&nbsp;In 2018, he joined the Soweto Ink family that helped mould his craft until early this year when he officially became an independent tattoo artist and traveled widely across provinces.



But with the coronavirus pandemic and South Africa closing borders and businesses, including tattoo parlors, and the country going into lockdown, Cele had to slow down on the travel. But that didn’t stop him from seeking opportunities locally.



“Firstly, I have financial control, I take my own decisions, and I am comfortable. Normally, I see one or two clients a day because of the traveling and setting up,” he says.



Before the lockdown, Cele mostly traveled to Durban and Mpumalanga, from his home in Johannesburg. His daily travel expenses to clients start at R900. But clients are considerate enough to meet him half-way; besides that, his tattooing rates start at R300, depending on size and detailing.



Cele says getting himself tested for Covid-19 is a big priority for him.



“I do it regularly. Actually, the last time I was tested was a few days ago and because my clients are mostly artists, their profession requires them to get tested too. Besides, I make sure I always wear my PPE for extra safety,” he says.



Since branching out on his own, Cele has been seeing professional growth and has worked with socialites and celebrities in the entertainment industry such as South African musicians ‘DJ Tira’ and Naak MusiQ among others.



Cele says he has learned a lot from the business and his art.



“I wouldn’t say I am making a lot of money but I am getting the hang of being financially stable and it comes with all the responsibility, but it’s a good thing, I’m getting used to this,” he smiles.



Clearly, leaving an impression is his specialty.

Sibusisi Cele InkBoy

Ink Is In: Tattoos In The Time Of Covid

Katlego Thwane has had to dip into his own savings, with the Covid-19 crisis, to fund his noble cause, teaching the underprivileged in a South African township.



He is in his twenties, yet turning around the destiny of underprivileged young people around him.



Katlego Thwane, a 28-year-old born and bred in South Africa’s lively township of Soweto, is an educator and founder of the Atlegang Bana Foundation here that caters to primary school learners who struggle to keep up at school and need additional help.



“Our foundation also provides for needy learners from underprivileged backgrounds. One of my biggest campaigns at the foundation every year is to give confidence and motivation to learners for the year ahead,” says Thwane.



He has bagged numerous awards and accolades for his work, as a 2017 Young Community Shaper, 2018 Lead SA hero and featuring on live television show Big Up on SABC Mzansi in 2018.



Growing up, he was a “naughty boy”, as he describes himself, but says many are now astonished at the serious, ambitious young man he has become.



“Teaching has always been a passion of mine. I love seeing change, transformation and grooming leaders, and value their education while being innovative in taking&nbsp;our country forward.”



Thwane has recently established a clothing brand, BANA, under the Atlegang Bana Foundation. He is also currently handing out food parcels to the needy in his community, in partnership with Hollywoodbets.



“The virus has affected us immensely with many parents losing their jobs or taking salary cuts, we are not receiving the financial support as before. This has led to me [dipping] into my own personal pocket and [using it] to buy tutors data for teaching virtually,” says Thwane.



Most schools continue operating online because learners haven’t as yet returned to school, however, this has come with its share of setbacks.



Makosha Masedi, a parent of a Grade 4 learner, says her challenges come with network issues and understanding the tasks given to the child.



“Some of the programs that the work is loaded on to is not friendly for all devices, so submitting and retrieving becomes a problem, as also understanding some of the work,” rues Masedi.



But Thwane powers on, hoping for a better tomorrow, for himself and his country.

Katlego Thwane

All For Grooming Future Leaders

After 14 days in isolation as a Covid-19 patient, this FORBES AFRICA photojournalist recovered to see the world with new eyes and realize he had the gift of life.



It was around 3PM on June 24 when a nurse called to tell me that I could now officially end my 14-day self-isolation period at home. I had tested Covid-19 positive three weeks before and now was in total disbelief that I had survived this particular physical trial and mental ordeal.



Before testing positive, I was like any other ordinary South African, pursuing my work from home, and as a FORBES AFRICA photojournalist, recording the impact of the coronavirus.



I had thought my face-mask and hand-sanitizer were my armour against the virus, but I guess one can never be too careful.



The first 72 hours of knowing that I had confirmed positive for Covid-19 came with its own set of emotions and experiences. Some friends, and even family, criticized and judged me for carrying the virus, but I also came to know about the ones who cared.



A group of doctors visited me at home to check if I needed hospitalization. They were young and not cloaked head-to-toe in PPE as I had thought. One of them was wearing a camouflage top and sported a few tattoos on his left arm. After his consultation with me, he spoke excitedly about the baby he and his wife were expecting, due later in the year. 



There was hope in the world.



I was confident my health was getting better until a nurse called me a few days later. She was the pin that burst my bubble, as she stated things I didn’t want to hear at the time. They were facts, she clinically warned, as she sees people dying daily of the virus. 



My mind raced to the previous two nights, when I experienced mild short breaths and thought how the attack could have been worse. I could have died at night all by myself, just trying to breathe. I shed tears as she spoke.



Soon after that, an old friend of mine, who had been shot (and injured) in the spine during an armed robbery attack, called. His timing was perfect. He encouraged me to live on and smile, and told me that the nurse was only doing her job, in advising me to keep to a healthy diet during this time. He brought a smile to my face.



A week later, it was my mother’s birthday. Every year, I visit her with a gift and a cake. This time, all I could do was video-call her; she was both happy and sad not to be able to see me. Two days later, it was my own birthday. I felt low and lonely, but was glad to be alive as my two weeks in self-quarantine was going to be over soon.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;I asked if I would be added on as a statistic to the official recovery numbers, and she laughed.&#8221;</blockquote>



I was reluctant to leave the house, but on June 24, the call by a lady who identified herself as &#8220;Nurse Nomsa from the Department of Health&#8221; liberated me. She was following up on my health status for the previous two weeks and I had ticked all the right boxes. I asked if I would be added on as a statistic to the official recovery numbers, and she laughed. She told me I had recovered, but should continue maintaining a healthy lifestyle.



Today, I can stand outside my home in Soweto and watch the neighbors’ kids play, shout and scream, asking from their yards, “Malume (uncle), are you okay?”



With a gentle laugh and nod, I acknowledge my story of survival to them.

T 610

The Test, Trial And Triumph

Data from South Africa has shown that&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/health/sa-a-growing-nation-of-obese-adults-1763279" target="_blank">over two thirds of young women</a> are overweight and obese. This predisposes them to non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. Most women are not exercising enough, and consumption of processed and calorie-dense foods and high amounts of sugar is common.



It was this knowledge that sparked the establishment of the&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="http://ahd.ca/research/helti-south-africa" target="_blank">Health Life Trajectories Initiative</a>. It’s being run in South Africa, India, China and Canada and aims to provide interventions that can help young women stay healthy before, during and after pregnancy. 



In South Africa, this randomised controlled trial will provide one-on-one support as well as peer group sessions to over 6000 young women. The idea is provide them with information, and to help them set and maintain goals for healthier lifestyles.



Researchers from the Medical Research Council and Wits University’s&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.wits.ac.za/dphru/" target="_blank">Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit</a>&nbsp;are running the South African arm of the study. We wanted to start by better understanding our target population – that is, young women aged between 18 and 24 living in Soweto. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Local Solutions Can Boost Healthier Food Choices In South Africa (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/health/2019/03/15/local-solutions-can-boost-healthier-food-choices-in-south-africa/" target="_blank">Local Solutions Can Boost Healthier Food Choices In South Africa</a>



Soweto is a large, densely populated urban township which comprises one third of Johannesburg’s population. Soweto is becoming rapidly urbanised, but the majority of people are still very poor and struggle to provide food for their families.



<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404619301782" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">We conducted</a>&nbsp;a series of focus group discussions and in depth interviews to unravel health behaviours, barriers and facilitators to wellbeing and health with young women from Soweto who had not yet had a child. We also asked them about what sorts of interventions they’d prefer to support and guide them.



The women offered important insights that showed it’s not enough to simply promote healthy eating and exercise without considering the very real environmental and structural constraints present in South Africa.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Barriers to healthy choices</h2>



The 29 participants spoke about many different facets of health. These included happiness and mental wellbeing, faith, social support, body image, and lifestyle behaviours.



They identified many barriers to healthy eating, among them the cost of and access to healthy food options. Some women also said they had little access to exercise facilities such as gyms and were afraid to exercise on the streets because they feared being assaulted or harassed. One woman said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">No, I don’t feel safe because we have drug addicts, traffic, women trafficking: it’s not safe for us to walk in the streets.</blockquote>



The women we interviewed painted a picture of an environment in which healthy behaviours are difficult to implement or sustain. One said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Small businesses that are opening up in my community and they all sell fries, literally they just all sell fries…</blockquote>



Women told us that cheap and unhealthy fast foods are on every street corner: “bunny chow” – hollowed out bread stuffed with curry – vetkoek (a fried dough bread stuffed with different fillings) and fried chips are affordable and available within a few steps of most houses. As a result, women did not want to go out of their way to purchase healthier, more expensive foods.



Our interviewees also didn’t feel able to demand that healthier food be bought for their homes, because many were not contributing financially and were therefore not in a position to control food purchases. Women reported being financially dependant on relatives and male partners.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="New Ways Of Thinking On Health, Arts And Humanities Are Emerging In Africa (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2019/05/10/new-ways-of-thinking-on-health-arts-and-humanities-are-emerging-in-africa/" target="_blank">New Ways Of Thinking On Health, Arts And Humanities Are Emerging In Africa</a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Exercise</h2>



They also said that opportunities for physical activity were neither provided nor prioritised for women in Soweto. Some women said that a lack of facilities made it difficult for them to participate in any exercise, as they did not have access to gyms or fields to exercise.



Other women told us that there were gyms, sports grounds, parks, and even free aerobics classes at community halls in their area. However these facilities often get vandalised quickly, and can no longer be used. More importantly, they didn’t feel safe enough to exercise on the streets, perhaps by jogging or running. They also felt unsafe walking around in leggings or tights. Women were fearful of human trafficking, sexual assault, and violence –&nbsp;<a href="http://www.samj.org.za/index.php/samj/article/view/12218" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)">very real issues in this community</a>.



Crucially, our research found that young women did not see obesity as a sufficient reason to change their behaviour. But they said they would be motivated to exercise and eat better if they were diagnosed with a non-communicable disease like diabetes.



This suggests that obesity has become normalised in South Africa – and this needs to be addressed.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Policy interventions</h2>



These findings are now being worked into our interventions, and we are cognisant of the contextual realities that may affect young women’s ability to change their lifestyles. We hope that this research, along with whatever findings emerge from our interventions, will inform policy makers and motivate them to implement necessary changes in this community.



Women in Soweto and in South Africa in general need support to live healthier lifestyles. This support needs to come from policy makers. If South Africa does not step up and support young women by providing them with access to safe spaces and affordable healthier foods, and by controlling the oversupply of unhealthy options, the country may not be able to curb its ever increasing rise in obesity and related non-communicable diseases.



-Alessandra Prioreschi: Associate Director and Researcher at the Developmental Pathways for Health Research Unit (DPHRU), University of the Witwatersrand



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Young women in Soweto, South Africa, say healthy living is hard. Here’s why

A recent soccer clinic in Soweto had former Liverpool F.C. player John Barnes coaching young girls to become the future stars of Africa.

It’s high noon but the skies are overcast in Soweto on this Wednesday afternoon in October. It is business as usual in this urban Johannesburg township but as we approach Meadowlands, it starts to drizzle.
But rain or shine, at the Fiat Sports Centre here, a group of over 40 girls aged between 12 and 14 are oblivious to everything around them. Their eyes are trained on the ball as they make the most of the day out on the field with visiting retired Jamaican-born professional footballer John Barnes.
It’s a soccer coaching clinic with the star and the girls are wearing big smiles and bright red outfits.
The well-maintained field is separated into rectangles so the groups are smaller and easier to manage. Each section has a coach, balls and marking cones for the different skill-building tasks planned for the day.
Barnes pays close attention to the teams, occasionally offering advice to both the coaches and players.
<blockquote>“It is about empowering young girls and making them feel confident about expressing themselves. It is about making them feel confident that there are no barriers that stop them from achieving their goals,” he says.</blockquote>
The former Liverpool Football Club player and English Football Hall of Fame inductee has been playing football for as long as he can remember., so he only knows too well the preoccupations of these young minds.
He moved to England at the age of 12, and joined the professional ranks at 17 when he signed for Watford in 1981. Barnes later moved to Liverpool F.C. in his early 20s where he played for a decade.
Today, in Soweto, he motivates the girls on the field, goading them on to perform better than boys.
“You have to separate football when you talk about it in South Africa, into men’s football and women’s football. Men’s football is really well-advanced, they have huge support, lots of money, great players, but women’s football is just starting out. It is pleasing to see that young girls are now given an opportunity because young girls in Africa are told that they do not play football but they actually do,” says Barnes.
<div id="attachment_37650" style="width: 750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37650" class="wp-image-37650 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JohnBarnes_GL-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JohnBarnes_GL-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JohnBarnes_GL-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JohnBarnes_GL-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JohnBarnes_GL-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JohnBarnes_GL.jpg 1654w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />John Barnes. Photo By Gypseenia Lion</div>
The girls receive coaching as part of the Goal global community initiative by Standard Chartered Bank. In South Africa, the program was launched in Tshwane in April 2015 and has since reached over 6,000 girls. The target for 2018 is just over 3,000 girls between Tshwane and Soweto.
In partnership with Altus Sport, an NGO developing youth and sport, the 2018 Soweto program includes this special interaction with Barnes.
Former Banyana Banyana player, Thando Dlamini, started coaching at the clinic this year. She says some of the girls lack discipline, and stresses how support from family members and the community can go a long way to help.
“You hardly see any of the parents coming to support the girls. I think if they came to the games and watch the girls, they will realize it is not about the misconceptions. The behavior has changed in some of the girls I worked with. Soccer teaches you discipline,” says Dlamini.
The star of the day at the soccer clinic, Mosima Magome, a Grade 8 student, agrees. She says she has been feeling more confident since starting soccer.
“People would always tease me because I am the shortest in class,” she says. The teenager looks up to global icon, Lionel Messi, because “he never quits, even when he misses a goal”.
Commenting on the general lack of interest in skills-building programs, Altus Sport’s Operations Manager Samantha Pennells says local professional sportsmen should give back to the community as well.
“You got a guy from Liverpool, like John Barnes. He is here in the community; it is not his community but he is here giving advice, giving tips. It was not just about sport, it was about life,” she says.
South African football veteran Steve Sekano, a guest at the soccer clinic, and Barnes share jokes on the sidelines.
The former Moroka Swallows Football Club midfielder runs a foundation within the community that aims to get the youth involved in sport. With hopes that sport will keep them out of trouble, Sekano advocates the need for more facilities in the area. He says that as a former professional, it is his duty to give back.
“People ask me why soccer is not the same as when you guys played. I say it is the same. But when you talk about soccer today, you talk about money. Because our players are earning a lot of money today. Those days, we were not earning a lot of money, we were committed. But our players need to up their game; our game must grow,” says Sekano.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-37649 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JBGirls_GL-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="740" height="494" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JBGirls_GL-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JBGirls_GL-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JBGirls_GL-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JBGirls_GL-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/JBGirls_GL.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px" />
For Geraldine Matchaba, Head of Corporate Affairs, Brand &amp; Marketing, South Africa and Southern Africa, at Standard Chartered Bank, the corporate world too has a responsibility to prioritize community-based issues. “Those are people who are your future employees, they are your clients and they are future leaders. You have to play a role. It is what we are doing with the Goal program,” she says.
Thoko Phakati, Sports Field Manager, is in charge of operations at the Fiat Sports Centre. The space that used to be a dumping site is now accessible to the community free of charge.
“We believe they also deserve a chance, why is it that only places like the Wanderers Stadium are supposed to look beautiful? So we are doing as much as we can here to give kids a chance. We have people like Steve Sekano who grew up here and became successful but if he were to tell you his story, you will find that he also had challenges growing up,” she says.
Soweto truly is the home of South African football, and the young girls here prove they too can chase a ball for 90 minutes. There is a long conversation to be had about policies that prioritize men over women in sport, but in the meantime, programs such as Goal and footballers like Barnes continue to make sure that new stars are born on the muddy fields of Soweto.
&nbsp;

SoccerClinicGirls_GL

Giving Girls Goals; Soweto’s Soccer Coaching Clinic

It’s not often I find myself driving past the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in Orlando West, in Soweto, an urban township in Johannesburg.
But come June every year, I inevitably steer my car to the site, mentally revisiting the carnage that happened here in 1976; the student protest and the police firing that led to an iconic photograph the world came to associate with South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime.
Two years ago, one of my assignments with FORBES AFRICA was to pursue a story on the ‘Soweto Uprising’. Thankfully, the museum gave me three vital leads to reconstruct the events of June 16, a day etched in blood in South African history.
It was a Tuesday when I met my first contact, Oupa Moloto, who then was a student at the Morris Isaacson High School in Soweto where it all started.
“On the day of the event, the school started a little earlier; the mood was different, the students were excited but the teachers couldn’t pick it up,” recalled Moloto of the first stirrings of the protest against the mandatory use of Afrikaans as a language of instruction in black secondary schools.
After the interview, I visited the school and walking around, could sense around me the nervous excitement of the students like it was 42 years ago. I could hear their voices, singing and chanting as we stood where the last assembly was held, before the shots were fired at them.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/06/04/soweto-burning-june-16-remembered/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Soweto Burning: June 16 Remembered</a>
I photographed Moloto at their then assembly point and his face was a picture of sorrow. The school has been renovated since but in the older building, are still some vestiges of that time – broken windows and furniture.
A few weeks later, I met with Barney Mokgatle at his home in Alexandra, another township. He was one of the students who went into exile after the tragic march.
“The police were hunting for us, we could not sleep in one place for two nights because there were people selling us out,” said Mokgatle.
Mokgatle was the right hand man to Tsietsi Mashinini who led the march and later died in exile. 
He talked me through every detail; he also said Pieterson was not the first student shot at the march.
Perhaps more intriguing was his recounting of their escape and journey to Botswana through the bushes without fear of the wilderness, with their other friend Selby Semela.
He started singing, the masculine man had a voice of the angels; it was remarkable. As soon as the humming started, I almost shed a tear, I could feel their struggle and strength as they dodged bullets and teargas in the Soweto streets wearing blazers and ties, some running with missing shoes.
But at that moment, they were crossing serene bushes unaware of the hungry beasts around them lurking in the dark all the way to the borders of Botswana.
A few days later, we met again for a shoot where a statue of his friend Mashinini was erected not far from the Morris Isaacson school. He didn’t come to Soweto often but when he saw the statue, he paused, staring at it. He finally turned and we continued walking to a wall where he showed me a collage of his two friends and himself.
The story wouldn’t be complete without speaking to the ‘girl’ in the iconic photograph of Pieterson taken by Sam Nzima. Antoinette Pieterson, the older sister, who is 58 today.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sometime-in-africa/2017/04/01/soweto-boy-afrikaner-haven/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Soweto Boy In An Afrikaner Haven</a>
“I saw Mbuyisa [Makhubu, the boy carrying Pieterson in the famous photograph] coming from nowhere; I didn’t know him at the time. He was running towards me, he passed me. I saw he was carrying a person and I could recognize Pieterson’s shoe, I ran with him,” she recounted.
Today, as I walk the streets of Orlando, I think of the privilege I enjoyed of choosing between either isiZulu or Afrikaans as a second language in school.
Thanks to the class of 1976, we had the freedom.

Barney-031

The Class Of 1976 – Soweto Uprising

Khothatso Laurence Tsotetsi’s office in South Africa’s capital city Pretoria, is a profusion of pink – a beaded pink flamingo stands tall on his desk that’s draped in a pink table cloth; also here are grey couches with pink patterns and a pink mat adorning the floor.
His spacious studio with multiple rooms is just the setting for our photoshoot and interview.
Millennial fashion designer Tsotetsi has made a name for himself in South Africa’s fashion industry with his sophisticated, elegant pieces for women particular about their look, and has had his creations showcased at a number of fashion weeks.
Born in Soweto, a township in the southwest of Johannesburg, in 1988, just before the apartheid era ended in South Africa, Tsotetsi moved around a lot as a child.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2018/05/07/from-football-to-fashion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: From Football To Fashion</a>
“My father was a politician, that’s why we moved from one place to another. We moved from Soweto to the Free State [a province in South Africa]; we lived in the Vaal for some time until I eventually moved to Pretoria in 2009, and since then I’ve been practicing from here.”
As a young boy, he says, his behaviour was peculiar compared to other boys his age. Where they played football, he played with fabric.
He was interested in dress designing and started with some needlework; all this evolved in high school when he figured out that designing was what he wanted to pursue. In tertiary school, Tsotetsi started showcasing at fashion weeks every season.
After graduating with a BTech degree in 2012, and with a National Diploma in Fashion in 2013 from the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), he lectured on construction, patterns and creative design at TUT for a few years.
By then, he was already involved in the eponymous business he had started in 2012. Tsotetsi KL, his brand, was doing well.
“2012 was when I got my big break at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Johannesburg when African Fashion International (AFI) brought Alek Wek to walk for my show; from there, I did Black Fashion Week Paris,” he recalls.
This meant hard work, sacrifices and the relentless pursuit of his passion.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/08/01/sweet-fashionable-life-boss/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Sweet and Fashionable Life Of Being Your Own Boss</a>
As an assistant, Tsotetsi packed scraps of fabric for South African fashion mogul Clive Rundle for six weeks, coordinating scraps by color and fabric. Tsotetsi knows it as Rundle’s aesthetic. Rundle has sold womenswear for decades and showcased his work on ramps across the world.
“I taught art and design at a high school in the Vaal for a month and on the weekends, I would work at Clive Rundle’s; after that month, I worked permanently every day at his Johannesburg studio in the [central] business district. That’s when I started helping with the clothing and the shows, and then I worked with David Tlale in 2014 under a mentorship program, the AFI Next Generation,” says Tsotetsi.
The young designer had to shadow famed South African designer Tlale for three months before Tlale’s first New York Fashion Week show.
From both designers, Tsotetsi learned a lot and infused it with his own method, understanding the business side of fashion and not just the creative aspects. He developed a clientele base and streamlined his business into what it is today.
<div id="attachment_36562" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36562" class="wp-image-36562 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-158.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Tsotetsi in his spacious offices with model, Fath Mncube. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla</div>
Over the years, he has learned a great deal and gained a lot of experience in the industry, showcasing his creations yet constantly questioning himself about what is more important: money, fame or social media likes.
“Still, why showcase,” he asks.
“As soon as it’s a company, it’s an entity with different principles: human resources, finance, graphics, photography and all of that, but as a small business, you cannot afford those services, you have to step in as the owner and play those different roles, ask for favors, manipulate people, lie, and do all of those things. So for you to be able to maintain the business, you need to be making money and paying staff. Those are the dynamics that have been in place from 2014 until 2018.”
In the eyes of the young creative designer, growth meant making money.
Among many other rich and famous names, Tsotetsi has dressed the likes of Hulisani Ravele, a radio personality and former YoTV presenter; Precious Moloi-Motsepe, a fashion entrepreneur and philanthropist, who runs the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week; and Rorisang Thandekiso, a South African actress, presenter and musician.
“I know Khothatso from high school, so he’s been making me stuff since but my real first was my first SAMAs [South African Music Awards] in 2010, it was amazing and futuristic. This year, I’m at the SAMAs in June doing the red carpet and presenting an award; he’ll be dressing me for both. We did the SAFTAs [South African Film and Television Awards] together. That dress took everybody by storm, and everybody absolutely loved it. It was just beautiful to look at people respond to it,” says Thandekiso.
Tsotetsi KL caters for a market that is distinctively chic and sophisticated.
“It is women that are of a peculiar kind who want to portray classiness in an elegant way. They want to stand out, they have exaggerated style and thoughts and they are one in zero,” says Tsotetsi.
The brand does bespoke and high-end garments and is currently working with Luminance, a fashion and lifestyle concept store present in the upscale Hyde Park Corner mall in north Johannesburg.
<div id="attachment_36563" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36563" class="size-medium wp-image-36563" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Tsotetsi-101.jpg 1366w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Faith Mncube of Fabulousdotcom Models. Photograph by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
The garments seen in the photos are from the 2014 fashion weeks from different seasons. Tsotetsi’s favorite is a ruffle dress.
“It was a highly publicised look from the SAMAs’ [edition] 21. It was a dress that Kelly Khumalo [South African singer, actress and dancer] wore and it was one of its kind at the time; it was bigger than what it is in the image. It was 180 meters before it was tailored. It is one iconic look that we photographed for the feature,” he says.
Tsotetsi KL will be turning six years old in August and is slated to have a spectacular fashion show for Women’s Month, observed in South Africa every year that month. Tsotetsi employs four permanent staff and three interns. They are all hard at work in his studio preparing the next line.
For the lad from Soweto obsessed with needlework, he has his work cut out for him.

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From Packing Scrap To Dressing Up Alek Wek

His face contorts slightly as he, slowly, but painfully, returns through the murky mist of 42 years. His hands tremble with emotion as he relives horrific images lodged in the corners of his mind. The birds singing in the blue sky over the idyllic garden of his family home in Roodepoort, Johannesburg, contrasting with the moody, mean, streets of Soweto of yore.
Eightythree-year-old Enoch Duma lived the slaughter of scores of schoolchildren on that fateful winter’s day in Soweto in 1976. It was his job to be there as a reporter for a Johannesburg newspaper and he had his own car. He knew serious trouble was building. Many of the schoolchildren involved used to call him “Bra E” and held him in high esteem.
“I just knew the previous night the people were uneasy as if something was going to happen, some people didn’t go to work. You had people like Tsietsi Mashinini, Seth Mazibuko and other student leaders coming to your house. I was always ahead of what was happening,” recalls Duma.
On the morning of June 16, Duma was out driving through the tense streets of Soweto and saw a big crowd approaching.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2013/12/01/rose-soweto-rose/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: How The Rose Of Soweto Rose</a>
“They ran to my car. Tsietse said ‘hey! Soweto is burning – it is bad, it is very bad, just stay ahead of things. Hide if you can hide because there is going to be trouble tonight. If the police shoot we are going to answer with petrol bombs’. This was something new in Soweto.”
The mood turned ugly when news filtered through the crowd in Orlando that police had shot dead a young student, Hector Pieterson – a bloody killing captured for eternity by the famous photograph by Sam Nzima that he smuggled out through police lines to make the front pages everywhere from New York to Sydney the next day.
“When people heard it was Hector they were very angry. They armed themselves with Molotov Cocktails and started throwing these petrol bombs recklessly. They were just mad,” says Duma.
The birds outside tweet, incongruously, as Duma’s face darkens with the deepening story.
“I can still see the madness in their faces and their anger. They didn’t know what to do,” he says.
“I saw a burning body thrown into a dustbin. I couldn’t stand it I had to drive through. There were moments when I thought I wasn’t going to make it. It was difficult to see where the students were coming from. They were coming out of buildings with Molotov Cocktails and some carried dustbin lids as shields. Among the leaders were very young people. The real fighters were the little girls – they were ready to die.”
Among them, Susan Shabangu who spent months on the run in the clampdown that followed; like many of the survivors, she escaped into exile to fight the struggle and ended up as her country’s mining and social development minister.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/06/01/walking-day-horror/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Walking Into A Day Of Horror</a>
It was a horrific chapter of a rich career that saw Duma, the son of a Baptist minister, born in Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, work his way from reporting the courts in his hometown to working on a national newspaper. He joined The Post in Durban through a friend, who was a reporter on the paper, called Duke Ncobo.
“The newspaper wanted a young cub reporter and suggested I should write two stories for the editor. He read them and looked at me and read them and looked at me and said ‘did you write this or did someone write this for you?’ I said ‘no’. He said ‘go to Mr Ncobo’, who said ‘I think the editor likes you’!”
His first arrest came in bizarre fashion. Ncobo invited the young Duma to a party in a block of flats in downtown Durban belonging to the leading lights of the African National Congress including Fatima Meer and journalist GR Naidoo.
An elderly woman living below called the police complaining of the noise; the police, who suspected the party was a front for a political meeting among people of color, encouraged her to press charge. They arrested 27 partygoers including Duma and threw them in the cells.
The court case turned into farce. The elderly lady, in her 70s, complained that the partygoers had banged the floor above her as they danced. In court, the judge asked the lady to demonstrate the dance. There were titters in court as ushers cleared the chairs away and the lady did a high-stepping dance. The judge ruled she hadn’t made sufficient noise to convince him, yet Duma and his colleagues were held to have been a public nuisance.
Duma secured a job on the City Post, amid the bright lights and jazz of 1950s Johannesburg and arrived at Park Station with nothing but a suitcase. A van from the newspaper picked him up to take him to the newsroom buzzing with young journalists.
“You must pretend to be one of them, otherwise they will give you a hard time,” chirped the driver.
These were colorful and chaotic times for young black journalists at the City Post. A regular caller with stories was a young and vivacious social worker called Winnie Mandela.
“Winnie Mandela, she was very young used to come to the office and was very friendly with reporters. The gangsters respected Winnie,” says Duma.
Gangsters and guns were another part of newsroom life at the City Post. Gangs ruled many of the Johannesburg streets in the 1950s – the Spoilers, the Americans and the Msomi gang.
Their leaders used to waltz in off the street with wide-brimmed hats and long fine coats looking more Chicago than sub-Saharan Africa. Often, they carried small “baby brown” pistols, sometimes concealed in a bandage, to intimidate journalists for a number of sins. 
It could be to force them to stay away from their girlfriends or stop writing about them or start writing about them. Often a gun up the nose proved mightier than the pen, until one day.
“One day, they came and they found the deputy editor having a meeting with the reporters. The gangsters introduced themselves and the deputy editor Henk Margolis, an American brought in to work on the paper, says: ‘Gentlemen, can I help you?’
“They pointed a gun at him, Henk noticed this and was not scared. ‘If you think you can intimidate me you are wrong, I was born in Chicago, so I have not time for small fry’. That day we thought there was going to be a showdown. Henk grabbed hold of the leader and pushed him outside. That was the last time the gangs came to the office,” says Duma with a smile.
It turned out that gangsters with police uniforms on proved to be Duma’s downfall. He was arrested numerous times and ended up spending nine months in prison. He went into exile in the United States (US) and with his wife of 56 years, Kitty, he was a prime mover in the divestment campaign – encouraging US firms to pull out of South Africa – that helped usher in the end of apartheid.
A system that stoked the fiery horror of June 16 that people who were there will never forget.

Enoch-Duma-306

Soweto Burning: June 16 Remembered

On a scorching hot day, we travel to the Zola area of Soweto, a township south of Johannesburg in South Africa.
Despite the soaring mercury, the trip is worth it.
Zola was known to be home to some of South Africa’s greatest musicians including Brenda Fassie, Mandoza and M’du, as well as soccer players John ‘Shoes’ Lesiba Moshoeu of Orlando Pirates and Mongezi Joel ‘Ace’ Mnini of Moroka Swallows.
Now, it’s also home to a promising fashion designer.
The small town, with a rough population of 44,000, is where self-taught South African designer Zamaswazi Nkosi crafts his creations for the city’s catwalks.
Nkosi greets us by the corrugated gates of the entrance to his compound dressed in a blue golf shirt featuring an African print pattern – the same shirt he showcased at the South African Fashion Week (SAFW) Spring/Summer 2017. His pants complement the look, along with blue loafers and a white fedora.
Ushering us in, he politely offers to carry some of our equipment. The genial, soft-spoken Nkosi then shows us around.
His workspace, which was once a garage, is attached to his bedroom. Clothes hang on a rack next to the door. Two sewing machines sit at the corner of the room with fabric, needles and thread neatly stacked beside them. Next to them is a table where he irons his garments. You can tell he is a one-man army.
The wall on the opposite side of the room is filled with a collage of photographs, newspaper clippings and awards. A headline from The Citizen reads: “A daring designer”.
“My love for fashion started the day I had no clothes to wear,” Nkosi opens.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2015/04/01/new-kids-on-the-fashion-block/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: New Kids On The Fashion Block</a>
Growing up with a single mother and as one of six siblings, he was forced to improve his circumstances at home. He developed the art of restoration.
“It started with reviving the old to new. Sometimes I would take my sisters’ clothes and redo them so that I could have something to wear,” he says.
Little did he know at the time his innovations would one day be part of the fabric of high fashion in South Africa.
Nkosi began by sewing clothes using his mother’s old sewing machine. From there, he would piece together fabric lying around the house.
“I took my mother’s tablecloth, I stole it actually,” he admits.
Nkosi then crafted the tablecloth with a shirt of his to create an entirely new piece. He enjoyed reinventing things and it’s evident in the clothes he designs and puts together today.
However, Nkosi wasn’t always into fashion. On the wall with the photos, are also the trophies and medals he has won, not for fashion, but for football.
They all date back to the time Nkosi was into soccer. As a teenager, he was a midfielder.
“I was called ‘Teko’ from Teko Modise,” he says.
He imagined becoming a world-class football player in his 20s limbering up preparing for soccer war in the stadiums.
But that dream was shattered when an injury changed the course of his life forever.
This happened when he was 16, playing football in Soweto.
“I got tackled from behind. That was when my knee twisted,” he says.
He didn’t see a doctor, and continued to play. Only now does he regret not going for treatment.
“I thought that maybe if I felt better I could play. Only to find out that I was damaging it and it became worse. Then there was a point where I realized it was no longer working.”
Nkosi was devastated that he may never get the chance to play football again.
He was grieving the loss of his first love not knowing he would find something he would enjoy doing, again.
His sister consoled him and encouraged him to start something new. That’s when he did some serious soul-searching. After weighing his pros and cons, he started thinking of himself as a fashion designer.
“Being a fashion designer, it’s somewhat like a calling. Because I didn’t just wake up and decide to be one or be inspired by someone,” he says.
Fashion taking over his life came as some sort of divine intervention. He says he has never looked back since.
<div id="attachment_36175" style="width: 209px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36175" class="size-medium wp-image-36175" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-199x300.jpg 199w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-600x903.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-768x1156.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/291_KM.jpg 1361w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />Zamaswazi Nkosi. Photograph by Karen Mwendera.</div>
He accepted this calling and hosted fashion shows within his community, in Zola. It seemed the needle – in more ways than one – was turning in his favor.
His first show had only 10 people attending, but that did not discourage him.
Nkosi then attended a SAFW event with the hope he could one day showcase his work on the platform. He watched closely the designs of one of his favorite South African designers, David Tlale, on the runway.
“I told myself ‘no man, I can do this’.”
There was just one hurdle. He had no academic qualifications for the job.
“On big platforms like SAFW they normally require fashion qualifications like a diploma or anything that relates to fashion. So, as Zamaswazi, I had nothing on paper. I only had skill,” he says.
After countless rejections, he one day garnered the courage to speak to the founder of SAFW, Lucilla Booyzen. A nervous but determined 24-year-old Nkosi walked up to her after one of the shows.
Booyzen told Nkosi to do what he had already done before. “Just apply,” she said.
But Nkosi was not having it. The young boy from the township was determined.
“I was like, ‘no if you need paper [qualifications] and I’m dressing my own clothes and it’s proper, why can’t you let me showcase’?”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/04/19/designs-africa-michelle-obama/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Designs For Africa, And Michelle Obama</a>
She then told him to come to her office and talk about opportunities. And the rest was history.
He had to prepare a proposal and showcase his work to a number of top fashionistas. It included creating a fashion portfolio, storyboard and designs of his pieces.
“It took me two weeks to even know what ‘portfolio’ is. That’s how I learned,” says Nkosi.
He was then shortlisted for the ‘scouting menswear collection’ in association with GQ magazine in 2015.
The platform brought his designs to life and Nkosi got his first break at SAFW.
Nkosi has showcased his designs at SAFW events, designing clothes for men that are modern with an African twist. His signature is the hemmed-in African print on to modern clothing. Much like the shirt he is wearing at this interview.
Nkosi relates this to his heritage and humble beginnings that forced him to merge different kinds of material into one. Unlike some of the other designers at sought-after fashion showcases such as SAFW, Nkosi says he designs and sews his clothes himself.
In his hometown Soweto, his friends and neighbors still can’t believe the boy who once played soccer swapped the ball for a sewing machine.
After the interview, he courteously helps us again to carry out our equipment.
Parked outside his house is his red vintage Beetle car with the word ‘Zamaswazi’ engraved on it. He bought the car last year.
Even though the engine doesn’t run he says he plans to work on it so he can do the six-hour drive to attend the annual Durban July.
The trendy man in the white fedora riding a red vintage car through the scenic green landscapes of South Africa to attend a premium horseracing event – it’s a pretty picture indeed.
<div id="attachment_36176" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36176" class="wp-image-36176 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/357_KM.jpg 1902w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Zamaswazi Nkosi designs and sews his clothes himself. Photograph by Karen Mwendera.</div>

365_KM

From Football To Fashion

As soon as I heard of my aunt’s death, I knew straight away that I had to make a plan to fill my petrol tank and attend the funeral. I hadn’t seen her in months and felt bad about not getting her the mobile phone I had promised her months earlier. Guilt was flowing through my body with the blood pumped by my hurting heart.
Back to the tank issue – I was broke and could barely afford to get enough petrol to drive 175kms to Ledig, in the North West province. After fetching my uncle in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, and with just a 1.5-liter bottle of Valpre water in the car, we began our journey.
Fifty kilometers into our trip, we drove through Hartbeespoort, a scenic holiday spot in the North West known for its dam. We were stunned to see the narrow bridge in the area; it was like being in a different country for the first time, looking at everything with a new eye. It looked like one of those bridges from the movies depicting ancient Europe. It was beautiful.
We didn’t have time to stop and take pictures; it was 6:15PM and we didn’t want to drive in the rain, especially as it was getting dark.
After driving past the Sun City resort, we knew we had arrived. Far from home, our Tswana dialect wouldn’t go unnoticed by locals; they would know we were from Johannesburg.
At Ledig, we were greeted by three men who were expecting us. I was interested in learning more about the guy wearing the white Marikana mine overall with an X marked at the back. He was loud and funny, but also useful. He helped carry the chairs and tables from the van to the house.
The only thing I found out about the guy is his age, his jokes and that he is known in the area for his pantsula (a culture originating from black townships during apartheid) dress sense. He also wants to go to Johannesburg; a common desire among many youths in the area.
On Saturday, the day of the funeral, I couldn’t hear a word at the service. What was strange was seeing people waiting at the graveyard for the burial. Even stranger, men were not allowed into the graveyard if they weren’t wearing a jacket; to be fair my parents had warned me about that.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/07/10/pain-business-death/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Pain Of The Business Of Death</a>
At most black funerals, there is a culture that has evolved over the last couple of years where music is played and alcohol is consumed after the burial. It is called ‘after tears’ and is done as a celebration of life for the deceased.
This ‘after tears’ ceremony in the rural area of Ledig was no different from the one we have in the townships, where I live.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2018/03/09/slice-africa-durban/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Slice Of Africa In Durban</a>
It is now Sunday morning and I have just enough petrol to get us back home to Soweto. It wasn’t the most pleasant drive back to Johannesburg because we had nothing to nibble on, nor drink. Just a dry mouth, a hangover, and a dirty car.
Finally, we get home. I freshen up while my uncle heads to bed. I was tired but felt it was important to go to church with a friend after what was a sad weekend.
I never heard the sermon – I was too tired. Instead I took my shoes and socks off, rested in the car and passed out. I was woken by a knock on the window; my friend told me I embarrassed her because people saw me sleeping in the car outside church.
I didn’t care – I had rested and was officially back in Johannesburg.

SIA-795

The Sad Road Trip On An Empty Wallet

Tourists in Soweto, the township southwest of Johannesburg in South Africa, now have more options for staying in the same neighbourhood that was once home to two Nobel laureates, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Here, through accommodation app Airbnb, locals are increasingly turning entrepreneurs throwing open their homes for visitors wanting to savor Kasi life. As many as 20 Soweto homes are listed hosts on the Airbnb search engine – and the list is growing.
Take Nelson Tiko Mashele, a 33-year-old born and bred in Soweto, who founded Vilakazi Backpackers on the famous Orlando West street with his father, and which is located five minutes from the homes of Mandela and Tutu, and 10 minutes from the Hector Pieterson memorial.
Mashele is one of the youngest Airbnb hosts in Soweto, and his establishment one of the newest in the area. He says 70% of his guests are locals, the rest international, and business is looking good.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/06/sharing-economy-400000-guests-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Sharing Economy: 400,000 Guests At Home</a>
The day we visit, we are ushered into his spotless living room. A coffee table in the middle of the foyer is laden with sightseeing pamphlets. Hip hop music is playing in the background. The seven-bedroom house is well-appointed and Mashele charges R299 ($25) a night.
<div id="attachment_35881" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35881" class="wp-image-35881 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom-768x510.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/rooom.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />A room at the Vilakazi Backpackers costs R299 ($25) a night. Photo by Karen Mwendera.</div>
That’s not a bad bargain for the local life that his guests, who he says are mostly from America, Germany, Brazil and France, want to experience.
According to Airbnb, most guests choose to live like locals. Mashele says they would rather walk to tourist destinations and buy local food from the outlets on the famous Vilakazi Street.
One of Mashele’s partners is Soweto Outdoor Adventures run by Kgomotso Pooe, also his long-time friend. Their collaborations offer his guests quad-bike tours, paddling and boating rides, trips to Orlando Towers and indulging in local cuisine such as magwenyas (deep-fried dough balls) with atchar and white liver and kota (half loaf of bread filled with curry), ending the day with a shisanyama (meat cooked over an open fire).
On the opposite side, in Orlando East, is a bed-and-breakfast in operation for over 16 years. TDJ’s BnB is a home-owned business catering for local and international visitors. Their aim this year is to start using the Airbnb services to help increase their profits.
“We are looking forward to getting new guests from all over the world,” says TDJ’s manager Nomthandazo Ntshingila.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sometime-in-africa/2012/08/01/staying-in-hotels/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Staying In Hotels</a>
She says joining Airbnb will give her an edge moving her numbers higher than the average 30 visitors she receives per month. Currently, a room at TDJ’s costs R454 ($38) a night.
For a more authentic experience, tourists can taste African beer brewed at the guest house. Another hotspot guests can visit is Sakhumzi, a Sowetan shisanyama restaurant and bar.
A key difference between Mashele’s and Ntshingila’s businesses is that the former has Wi-Fi on site allowing him to stay active on social media.
“One of the requirements to host with Airbnb was to offer Wi-Fi services to potential clients. We then got Wi-Fi before listing on the app,” says Ntshingila.
Hosts need to be constantly connected to an online platform and keep the most updated information on their availability and business.
The accommodation hosting platform tells FORBES AFRICA they are working on refining their offerings and making “regular updates to ensure people get exactly what they are looking for”. It’s clear that for the app to take off in townships like Soweto, homeowners need to be empowered with technology.
Airbnb says it’s planning to invest $1 million from 2018 to 2020 to promote and support community-led tourism projects in Africa. The project aims to support training in hospitality and technology for township residents.
Indeed, such investments will also help upskill those living in less-developed areas within Soweto such as Kliptown and Pimville, and as a result, reduce the barriers for entrepreneurs wishing to rent out their homes and bring in precious tourism dollars, much-needed in today’s difficult times.

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Living Like Mandela

Muzi Mkhize is determined, short and very presentable. The glasses fit the stereotype of a nerdy app developer. We meet at The Wine Bar, in the famous Vilakazi Street in Soweto, once home to two Nobel Prize winners, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The businesses there have the QR code to Mkhize’s app on their tables. Through it you can download the app and connect with the establishments.
Mkhize was born, and lived most of his life, in Soweto, about 30 kilometers south of Johannesburg. After completing high school in the east of Johannesburg, Mkhize moved into the Information Technology (IT) sector.
On graduation, in 2005, Mkhize worked for a few big companies. That is where he decided not a lot of black graduates are given opportunities to grow within the IT sector.
It led to Mkhize starting his own organization, Nobane Thunzi Capital (NTC) – named after his grandmother – which became a breeding ground for young black graduates, exposing them to the three tier sectors within IT.
“Tier one encompasses the service desk which is the log and despatch, that is the first line of contact, and that is where black employees get stuck. Tier two is more desktop support and tier three is specialization; specializing in security, network, app developments,” says Mkhize.
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All too often black graduates stay on tier one, for five frustrating years, watching fellow white employees, many with fewer qualifications, move up, says Mkhize.
He had only worked in tier one and two, until he got a job that changed his life. He was entrusted with a site to handle, which allowed him to be a specialist in server administration.
“Now I am growing, now I’m handling an entire site with 300 people… all I was doing was reporting back at the head office. That was a big eye opener to start looking outside and start looking at opportunities, like what’s available,” he says.
<div id="attachment_34882" style="width: 509px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34882" class=" wp-image-34882" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/SoWhereTo-app-e1513757358434-300x172.jpg" alt="Muzi Mkhize SoWhereTo app" width="499" height="286" />Muzi Mkhize&#8217;s SoWhereTo app (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
In December 2010, Mkhize handed in his resignation and started his own organization with the experience he had gained in eight years.
“From January, I started from the bottom. All I said to myself is I need enough to pay for my car on a monthly basis. If it means I have to move back home, so be it, but I need it to get from one client to the other,” he recalls.
Luckily for the enthusiastic Mkhize, he knew a human resource (HR) manager from the previous job; also an entrepreneur, who took the risk with him.
The HR manager offered him a contract for his company and that’s what paid for his car. That was the birth of NTC. The company has since grown from zero turnover to about R10 million ($705,000) in the space of five years, without any funding, nor marketing, just word of mouth.
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In late 2015, Mkhize’s business partner and wife, Patricia, told him about a mobile application that had just been named the MTN Business App of the Year; it gave him a sleepless night, followed by a long, thoughtful morning shower. Mkhize called up his staff to tell them about his idea to create a mobile application like a business directory. The app, SoWhereTo, was created, developed, changed and finally rolled out to app stores on April 27, 2017 – Freedom Day in South Africa.
“We wanted to disrupt the likes of [South African property website] Property 24 because they don’t cater to the township market. Break it down to events, break it down to media that now engages the audience, it gives the audience exclusive content on what’s happening in the township. We then moved on to businesses. The whole app is for business, to empower and make awareness of what exists in townships,” he says.
The app is broken down into blocks: events; food and restaurants; media; businesses and tourism, marrying each other to create the multi-faceted app, hence the name SoWhereTo; derived from Soweto.
“So if someone asks ‘so where to?’ Kasi (townships) always,” says Mkhize, referring to townships across South Africa.
The app is growing and this year it was nominated for the same MTN Business App of the Year award which inspired it. A circle that began and ended in Soweto.

The Developer Who Quit His Job To Build An App

It’s a Sunday morning at home, in Dobsonville, Soweto; the day after my little sister’s 10th birthday party. The mechanic, who’d come to replace my car&#8217;s brake pads, could tell, by the empty beer cans in the boot and the stench of cigarette smoke, the size of the party my friends and I pursued after the little ones left. I knew at that moment that I had to go to the carwash to cleanse body, car, and soul.
A carwash is that place at the side of the road, not only for cleansing, but also eating, drinking and socializing. There are thousands in Africa and most Sundays they are packed.
I was not alone. My neighbor had a similar hangover. He looked like he had slept in the car when he rolled up his garage door. It turned out, he had.
“Sho magents” (hi gentlemen) are his first words when he sees us busy with the car. We answered back in laughter talking about the previous night and discussing the schedule for the day. All roads led to the carwash, the most important job after breakfast – after filling the cooler-box with beer in case there was a long queue of cars.
The first person we see is the owner, Thethani – meaning talk in isiXhosa. He is nicknamed Titanic because it almost sounds the same. He named the carwash after himself. Around five cars are waiting.
“Botle bo” (that beauty) is the greeting from Titanic as we drive in, it&#8217;s his business slogan. He is loud and bubbly and customers enjoy his company – one of the reasons they come.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/09/25/money-witchcraft-beer-metal-soweto/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Money, Witchcraft And Beer &#8211; This Is Metal From Soweto</a>
On this sunny Sunday, we are lucky, there is no queue. We park and take a bench in the shade before buying tripe for breakfast. We meet an old man, sitting alone, looking like he’s in his 60s; his face looks unfriendly, but respectable. To break the ice, we ask if he didn’t mind us lighting a cigarette.
It opens a can of worms. The man tells us about his life, including smoking cannabis, spending a few years in jail and having affairs with younger women. He tells us how he handles being a family man, being the head of the household and marrying off his children. The carwash, at that moment, feels like a classroom, while cars and taxis are hooting as they drive past on the busy road with loud music playing.
We are seated with folded arms listening to the teacher and asking questions, trying to understand his life and learn from it.
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The man with the stories sees his car is clean. We stand up, taking turns to shake his hand. We are now friends with the old man and talking about meeting up next Sunday for another wash and maybe a story. The employees whistle to move our car as well.
Our cooler-box is emptying fast. It is time to leave and the next stop is the barbershop, just a short drive on the long road; we have to look good for Monday to mask the weekend revelry. All for $17 on a Sunday.
The haircut done, the cooler-box empty, the car clean and the stomach full, it is the end of the weekend and time to head home. A lovely Sunday indeed.

The Joys Of An African Carwash

It’s a midweek afternoon and I meet up with an old friend in Dobsonville, Soweto. We used to go to hip-hop shows together. Now Trevor ‘Paranoia’ Macupe is a black man who pounds out white music. He’s a member of a black metal band, from Soweto, the urban township to the south of Johannesburg; his music is kicking down barriers.
Black metal is fast, with high-pitched piercing vocals and distorted guitars. It grabs you by the gut. The artists often appear on stage with painted faces, looking like corpses; a dark look for black metal.
The members of this metal band have taken the aggressive guitar music from the northern hemisphere and made it their own.
<div id="attachment_33625" style="width: 325px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33625" class=" wp-image-33625" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-729-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="473" />Trevor ‘Paranoia’ Macupe playing guitar at Arcade Empire. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The five musicians met through skateboarding and hip-hop and now they spill black metal into the African night.
Macupe is the guitarist; Thapelo ‘Bellicose’ Mokoena, the bassist; Modiba ‘Belgaroth’ Rabothata, the drummer; Siyabonga ‘Thronum’ Mngadi is the other guitarist. Dreadlocked Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene, the vocalist, lives up to his name on stage. They are known as Demogoroth Satanum and they are the first all-black, black metal band to come out of South Africa. They have been playing together since 2012.
The band’s technical skills have earned them fans in faraway places like Botswana and Germany. They didn’t have money, nor equipment, nor resources, to go to music school but they practised hard and taught themselves to rock hard.
“Upon discovering it, we didn’t understand it; we dived into it and upon exploring it we found the sound that we are known for today,” says Mngadi.
They acquired the taste while skateboarding and playing video games, with rock ‘n’ roll and punk music playing in the background.
The band usually meet at Mngadi’s room, in Zola, Soweto, sometimes to listen to what they have produced or to write songs before they head out to a community center to rehearse. Passers-by are stunned when they hear metal churning out in a place where township music is the beat of the streets.
“Not just our families, but the whole black community had a very negative view on what we&#8217;re doing because it’s not in the Sowetan comfort zone. They would say it&#8217;s witchcraft or Satanism with the corpse paint and the loud music and screaming,” says Kunene.
<div id="attachment_33626" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33626" class=" wp-image-33626" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-596-e1506084307148-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="332" />A fan takes a photo of Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Kunene says that the younger generation accuse them of playing “white-boy music” and say they are trying to be white people. The older generation just say it&#8217;s witchcraft.
Mokoena had a bad experience while sitting on a train bound for Johannesburg. He was wearing a black metal t-shirt with dark imagery and there was a gentleman sitting in front of him and staring.
“He eventually had the courage to say something. The first thing he said was that I am ‘evil and Illuminati, you’re the one poisoning our children’. He attacked me and didn’t get to know my name. I let him vent because it was a scary situation because of mob justice. If half the train thinks he’s right, I would have got my ass kicked for wearing a metal t-shirt. I didn’t want to engage him in case I incite a violent situation,” he says.
On August 4, the band was in a safer place. The gig was in Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa, about a 91-kilometer drive from Soweto – in cultural terms, it could have been on Mars – at a pub called Arcade Empire peopled by whites. On the night, the only black people there were the members of the bands, the waiters and myself. Nothing unusual for Demogoroth Satanum.
<div id="attachment_33629" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33629" class=" wp-image-33629" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-743-e1506085087815-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Trevor &#8216;Paranoia&#8217; Macupe (left) and Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene thank the crowd for its support. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Four bands are playing on the night; Demogoroth Satanum is the only one playing black metal. An ear splitting kerrang from the lead guitar announces them on stage with a swagger.
“This song is made out to two girls who tried to make it to hell but, unfortunately, they made it to heaven,” says Kunene before one of their numbers.
The audience cheers and the mosh pit – an area on the dancefloor where fans jump into each other as the aggressive music plays – comes to life more and more with every song. Before the song had finished I had to be careful with the camera; it was raining beer as the crowd jumped with bottles in their hands.
“As the mosh pit is happening and the crowd is going crazy, I know we’re doing the right thing,” says Kunene.
<div id="attachment_33627" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33627" class=" wp-image-33627" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-732-e1506084625760-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Fans show their appreciation for Demogoroth Santanum by making devil horns with their hands &#8211; a traditional metal symbol. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The last song ends and the lights go up. It was like the calm after the storm. The guys had just performed yet another show for free and didn’t mind because they love the music.
The band wants to play more international shows, especially in Europe, where metal is popular.
Demogoroth Satanum sustain themselves with day jobs. Mngadi works as a retention agent, Kunene trades online, Rabothatha recently left his job as call center agent to focus on the music, and Macupe freelances shooting and directing videos. When he is not playing the bass, Mokoena does street cleaning and sweeps bus stops.
“Metal is not one of those genres you’d get into for the money, because you going be sorely disappointed. Trust me, you’re not going to <a href="https://luckycasino.co.za/how-to-make-money-in-south-africa-online-for-free/" style="text-decoration: none; color: inherit;">make money for free</a>, not in this country,” says Macupe.
Just as well. With all the negative commentary from the township and stereotypes about the genre, the boys have turned their most unlikely fans; their families, into their greatest supporters. Their long-term aim is to get more black people into the mosh pit.
<div id="attachment_33630" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33630" class=" wp-image-33630" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-700-e1506085238591-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>

Money, Witchcraft And Beer – This Is Metal From Soweto

It’s a busy Thursday morning in South Africa’s famous Vilakazi Street, in Orlando West, in Soweto with tourists roaming about. This street was not only home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but also legendary musician Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse.
On this day, at a wine bar, Mabuse leans on the table to make his point. He feels up-and-coming musicians should be wary of exploitation.
“If one is not stable then you lose your mind and values. When you’re young, starry-eyed and ignorant you get so exploited by promoters, record companies; everyone takes advantage of your naiveties. If you don’t have resilience you end up an alcoholic or a drug addict just to numb the pain of what the industry can inflict,” he says.
Mabuse started playing the drums at the age of eight, an instrument that he would master so well that a fellow band member, Condry Ziqubu, gave him the nickname ‘Hotstix’.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5606 alignright" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Hotstix-020-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" />
His journey began 50 years ago, when he formed a band, The Beaters, at high school in Soweto.
“We were adored by the media and everyone. The Beaters became popular among the students in universities and high schools. We toured to neighboring countries like Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia.”
In the 1970s, they visited Zimbabwe as an Afro-funk group and named themselves in honor of the future name of the capital city.
“Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia back then; we were influenced by the grounds of black consciousness. We were conscious of our surroundings and interacting with the struggle itself. It was imperative for us to change the name to Harari.”
In 1982, the band split. A devastating moment for Mabuse. He likened the split to a beautiful marriage that suddenly crumbles.
“I had put so much energy, love and commitment in the band. I felt like all my efforts were in vain.”
Mabuse launched his solo career and produced the hits Jive Soweto, Rise and Set Me Free. His funky township disco-jive jam, Burnout sold 500,000 records.
“A band member passed away while we were in Harare. Before his death, I made a promise to him that because he made fire when the cold wind was blowing I’ll keep the fire burning. One of the things I did was to go to studio and record a song Set Me Free. I don’t know if it was somewhat a paradox that was I refereeing to the split itself or allowing myself to go solo,” he says.
Staying on top is hard.
“To stay relevant, one has to be inventive. My music evolves with my age. I performed at some event recently and I was amazed at the response. When I started playing, the response was just overwhelming. I get goosebumps because I didn’t imagine that people would still remember the music I did 40 years ago. After I performed they kept asking for more,” says Mabuse.
“Music has provided me with things that I never imagined I could have. I managed to build homes, raise my children, and travel the world. If it wasn’t for music I wouldn’t have had the privilege of meeting the late Nelson Mandela or Bill Clinton.”
All of this didn’t come easy. For black musicians under apartheid, performing was a struggle.
“It was difficult to make music freely. I remember we were performing with Percy Sledge, an American artist. Black musicians were curtain-raisers and we couldn’t play in certain white venues so that white people could not see us. If we were found in town after 12AM, we had to state why we were there. If we say we’re a band, they’d ask what is a band? For them, black musicians were nothing but vagrants.”
With fluctuating royalties, Mabuse says it’s difficult to save money.
“The music industry is fickle. We don’t get jobs that continuously pay us. It’s important for us when we get money to plan around it but we cannot have a saving plan. Sometimes musicians stay for two to three years without getting royalties.”
According to the 66-year-old Mabuse, a retirement annuity is a must.
“People don’t understand how important it is. If I knew what I know now about money 40 years ago, I probably would have been a billionaire.”
Mabuse and his band members dropped out of school in Grade 11, for music. He says fame made them lose focus.
“In high school we dropped out without realizing it. The pressure was too much, so was the music, the money and women,” he says.
In 2012, at the age of 60, Mabuse joined an adult basic education training program at a school in Klipspruit, Soweto, to get his matric.
“Now that I’m older and wiser I know that education is powerful. I am grateful that I was able to get education, otherwise I would not be getting royalties because I wouldn’t have the knowledge of what music means in terms of financial and economic gains. I still get royalties for all the music I released,” he says.
He recently produced a documentary about his song Jive Soweto for the BBC. He also plans to study anthropology at a university away from home.
For musicians, maybe it’s better to remember his parting words rather than his songs.
“If they do not have expertise, it’s better to invest with those that have expertise. First of all, find a good lawyer, manager and pay them. If you don’t have money, get them into some kind of a deal because then you will be protecting yourself for a lifetime. Stay focused and don’t believe the hype.”
Maybe young musicians should print out these words and put them on the wall.

Tag: Soweto

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