The Soul Man in House Music (Bantu Soul)
By Quibell Ramantswana , 09 Jan 2009The Soul Superstar reveals all about his solo success and the future of Khalil.
Bantu Soul; Metro FM award winner, songwriter and a chart- topping solo success, there’s not much the 29 year old hasn’t done in music.
Known of course from Khalil, Bantu Soul decided to bring his soul
to House Music.His first solo single ‘Having You Around’ topped the Metro FM Top 40 Charts.
“…I don’t think is something that’s gonna die”
“Over 10 years we’ve been trying to get into the Music Industry and eventually I decided I am gonna try it alone, the guys gave me their blessing and it just broke like that so I was quite surprised and ecstatic.”
Bantu Soul, birth name Tshepo Motshegoa is very patriotic. Inspired by
Steve Bantu Holomisa in ‘History Of South Africa’ Tshepo created his artist name, Bantu Soul (of which he has a tattoo of). “It’s amazing
what inspired artists to change their names” he observes.
His patriotic nature even extends to his songs. “When I write
music it’s important for me to include the ‘Kasi’, the loxion element in my songs.What I do is, I wanna make the song universal. I sing like 70% in English, but 30% I make sure that I come back home [so] I use African languages as much as I possible can”.
“…that shows that south african music is growing everyday.”
Now a solo success what’s the future for him in Khalil? “Khalil
is a strong RnB vocal band and we’re not going anywhere. [I] am still with Khalil because Khalil is a brotherhood. We were friends before we are singers, in the same band we grew up together from when we were 15 years old. It’s more friendship than anything else and I don’t think it’s gonna die”.
All eyes are in South Africa for the World Cup 2010. The soft spoken Bantu updates us on the developments. “South Africa is waiting, there is preparation almost everywhere. People are building this and that… we’ll provide them with the right music,enviroment and everything. South Africa is a beautiful country, I don’t wanna lie”.
Sharing the stage with the likes of Erica Badu and Kenny Latimore
and with the remix of his song released in France, Bantu Soul is on his way to international stardom. Indeed being on the UK Mzanzi Show reinforces this for Bantu Soul.
“I was excited to be part of the show, that shows that South
African Music is growing everyday”.
The Mzansi Show is aired on futureradio every Saturday between 17:00hrs and 19:00hrs.
If you missed The Manzi Show with Bantu Soul catch up at www.kwaito.co.uk/themzansishow
