STUDIO83

As we’re driving home on a Sunday afternoon, I get a call from Siyabonga Ngwekazi saying that he’s at home the whole day today, and I can come through for a chat. We do a detour and drive straight to his house in a nondescript, almost kasi-like surburb in Joburg. When we get there, he greets us with a smile – he seems genuinely happy to see us, jumping up and down on the long broom he’s carrying. His house has a peaceful aura, and is surprisingly clean for a guy who stays on his own. A mix of old-school and modern furniture is stylishly scattered all over the place – and each piece has a story to tell. From his grandmother’s couch, the lounge’s centerpiece, to the piano he brought from Port Elizabeth to Joburg on a train. Just from his furniture, you can tell this guy has an old soul. But looking at the way he’s dressed – red skinny jeans, a crazy disco-funk Tee and loud sneaks – you know that he’s a contradiction of many complexities; an old soul with a young heart that wants to spend forever in his Never-Never-Land.

In the midst of him telling us about his travels and more plans to see the world, he also let’s slip that he’s a traditionalist, revealed by the concept he thinks we should shoot him for the cover of the Modern Man issue: “I think you should put me in a classic suit, with no jacket or shirt – just traditional beads and umnqayi [a stick older Xhosa men used to carry back in the day].” We’re not completely sold on the idea, but it does reveal something about his character and how he juggles his many backgrounds and identities – a Xhosa man-child intent on experiencing the world to its fullest. So much so, he doesn’t even want to have kids, lest this responsibility disrupts this dream.

“Unless my girl falls pregnant, even though I’m using condoms and she’s on contraceptives, then I’ll know that I had to have that child,” he says slamming the broom on the floor to drive his point home.

But more than that, his decision not to have children is based on his fear of what bringing a child into “a fucked-up world” would mean, and the fact that our generation, and the one after ours, is somewhat lost. Later, as we speak about Studio83; how it started and its journey to now. He speaks about self-preservation, something which resonates with me. For me, it’s working hard and going back to the hood to hang out with my family and friends. For him, it’s not owning a car and having to walk or take a taxi everywhere.

“That forces you to interact with people. And, in a way, when they see you at a taxi rank, taking taxis, it makes you more real. Even when people don’t notice me though, I’m cool.”

The other way that he keeps in touch with himself, is by shutting the world out and spending entire days on his own. “It’s important – especially in the industry that I’m in. Because we come across so many things that aren’t real, it’s important to define what’s real for yourself. Sometimes, to see how real a person is being – I’ll speak to them in Xhosa (regardless of what language they speak), and then as soon as I take it home like that, they retreat, because they want to see the twanging Siyabonga.” It’s interesting that he makes these comparisons of his character, because a few weeks after meeting this soulful world traveller, we’d heard that he’s just signed a contract to copresent the biggest celebrity gossip show on Mzansi TV, The Real Goboza. Shocked about this choice and wondering what it’s going to do for his cred amongst those who remember him from Street Journal days, where he redefined presenting and style, I remember what he said about his motivation to work so. “When I was younger, my father lost his job and, for the first time, we lived in poverty. Though we were poor, we were also happy but I knew then that I didn’t want to die poor. I want to be able to give my cousin R3 000 cos he needs it, and not have to worry about getting it back. So yes, I think wealth is important. That and leadership. We are the leaders of the future,” he said, almost as if the thought was scaring him as he was realising it.

This vulnerability and near-disbelief of the magnitude of his talent becomes  more evident. At 26, he’s travelling the world, having been chosen to document Akona Ndungane’s Smirnoff Experience-sponsored trot around the globe. He also owns his own fashion label – AmaKipKip, which imports A Bathing Ape gear into the country, as well as having its own budding T-shirt range. In the space of two years, since the label grew from a stall at The Zone in Rosebank, to a flagship store, fronting YFM’s studios. The AmaKipKip craze has become a firm stamp of cool, with everyone emblazoning streets, parties, malls in multi-coloured AmaKipKip hoodies, Tees and sneakers.

Yet, while the Jay-Z’s of the world will even spit about Rocawear in their rhymes, you never really see Siyabonga wearing anything from his range, or even speaking about it. “I don’t think it’s necessary. On the show [The Real Goboza], I love that half the stuff they dress me in, I’d never wear in real life. It’s unexpected.”

Unexpected is certainly a word that fits a wide vocabulary that describes Siyabonga. He was unex-pected in the media industry, yet he came and changed and shaped the way everything was done. At his age, and with his hippie aesthetic, it’s unexpected that he would own a thriving fashion label. It’s unexpected that as soul-ful and as real as he is, he spends at least one hour a week, trashing celebrities and their misdemeanours on The Real Goboza – and people still love him. It’s unexpected that a humble, Xhosa boy from eBhayi would be taking over the world, country by country, as he’s doing. As we leave, I wonder, if the world is his oyster and he is already playing in it like it’s his backyard… What other unexpected things can we expect from Mr Ngwekazi?
 
Writer: Lelethu Lumkwana