Mshoza knows what she wants. Ice cream, she says emphatically. And a slice of cake. And a glass of juice. Oh, wait. Bring some water, too. When it is all brought to the nook of a restaurant where we’ve settled, she giggles that it is quite a spread for one person. I ask if she’s having a sweet day.
“Always,” she responds. But lately, it looks like the kwaito artist has an appetite for positivity. Born Nomasonto Maswangayi, this 30-something who, along with Oskido, DJ Sbu and Bricks, is one of the headliners of this weekend’s 100% Pure Kwaito event, has no more time to be bitter.
“I’m in a more mature space,” she stabs the air with her dessert spoon.
“In life, you can’t always be happy. Even when life isn’t smooth, you choose what to take and what to block out. I know what I want. I’m choosing to be positive about life.”
This choice is reflected in her latest single, Abantu Bam’, which means “My People” in Zulu. This will also be the title of her upcoming fifth album. Produced by an up-and-coming producer called Squire-4-Hyre, Abantu Bam’ is a feel-good jam that sees Mshoza reflect on her tribulations and honour her fans – her people, as it were – for sticking by her through it all.
“On the song and throughout the album, I’m talking about my real experiences,” Mshoza tells me.
“I’m talking about my truth because I realised this is what builds me. It’s what made me. My experience in life has got me to where I am right now.”
Mshoza’s experiences include her start in the music industry – featuring on Mzambiya and Msawawa’s jams in 1999. She signed to Oscar Mlangeni and Nimrod Nkosi’s BullDawgz and released her triple-platinum-selling debut album, BullDawgz First Lady, in 2001. That album featured Kortes – a song that defined that era in the genre. With its rise, came a set of challenges young Mshoza hadn’t anticipated.
“We were still learning to have money and when you saw six figures in your bank account, you just didn’t know what to do,” she reflects.Then she released Bhoza in 2003 which included hits like uMshoza Bhoza. Mshoza parted ways with that company, signed to Ziyawamo Productions and brought out The Return – an album that had songs like Hlaba Lingene – in 2005.
“That album did well, we went gold,” she confesses.
“But the industry was changing and CDs started not selling.”
Then Mshoza suffered a knock harder than declining CD sales. One of her closest friends, the inimitable Lebo Mathosa, died in a car crash.
“The day she passed on, she called me on Sunday afternoon to say: ‘Don’t forget, we’re meeting DJ Cleo tomorrow. I spoke to him to create a single for you,’” Mshoza remembers.
“This was after I’d left Ziyawamo. So when I woke up the next day, I was late and Lebo didn’t like late people. So I get up, I’m in a hurry and my sister is like: ‘Sonto, come listen to this’.
“I can hear that it’s a Lebo song playing, so I tell my sister: ‘Ja, ja, ngiyeza. (I’m coming.) I just need to bath first’. When I was ready to leave, I put on my backpack and was rushing to the car and my sister stopped me at the door. She said: ‘Uyohlangana noLebo? (Are you going to meet Lebo?)’ I said ‘yes’ and she asked me to listen to what was playing.
“And I was thinking, ‘me listening to Lebo on the radio is not going to help me not be late to go and meet her’. But I waited a little and heard the radio say: ‘Rest in peace’. That was the end of my world. I felt like it was just destruction. Everything stopped. But God has a different way of working with people.”
She is referring to how, years later, she met her now-ex-husband, Jacob Mnisi, who “put me back in line”. Together, they started Mshoza Bhoza Entertainment and she released her fourth album, Vimbani. “The album didn’t sell because I didn’t market it. So I disappeared and did wifey duties until now. It’s almost a decade and now I’m ready to come back.”
Her comeback includes songs like the romantic – or as romantic as kwaito can be – Ngithandana Nawe by Professor. Mshoza was tasked with coming up with the concept for the song and she wrote it in 10 minutes. “Ngithandana Nawe reminds me of Kortes. It’s a really polite song,” she smiles.
On the Abantu Bam’ album – which is released under her new Fresh Money Family Productions imprint – fans can expect to hear a collaboration between Mshoza and the late Mandoza. She remembers how it came about: “It took us the whole night to make. He would write a verse and I’d feel like uyangihlula (he’s better than me). So then I would go and write again and he’d feel like mine was better so then he’d go and write again and so it went on until the next morning. I can challenge anyone in kwaito; I’m a good writer.”
Mshoza’s pen game is strong. On Abantu Bam’ she says: Have you checked emaphepheni basabhala mina?/some nywere nywere bathi ngishincha amacolour mina. So naturally, if it’s in a song, it’s fair game. I have to ask if she’s really bleaching her skin?
“I think I like to let people assume,” she smiles mischievously.
“But it has nothing to do with me not wanting to be a black person. I’m a proud black woman. And those who are crying cried too early. This thing is not going to stop. It’s going to keep happening, so they must just accept Mshoza looks like this.”
• Catch Mshoza, Oskido, DJ Sbu and more at the 100% Pure Kwaito gig at Taliban in Pretoria on Saturday.