Sho Madjozi has announced that her upcoming album will be here last. Picture: Supplied
On Thursday morning. Sho Madjozi announced that she’ll be releasing a new song, nothing strange here, I thought.
But the latter part of her sentence was more fascinating; she shared that the song would be part of her final studio album.
Speaking to The Citizen, parked on the side of the road en route from Limpopo to Johannesburg hours after the announcement, Madjozi expressed her exhaustion with the industry.
“The way that the music industry is set up at the moment, you spend more time trying to get attention,” she said.
“I want to do a lot more work in the areas that I really love.”
ALSO READ: Sho Madjozi delivers keynote address at UCT as Swahili Studies added to curricula
Madjozi cites the tedious work that artists must do to sell the music, which involves an incessant output on social media.
“You have to spend so much more time just to post things that are gonna trend, you have to dance this on social media, post this, do this public stunt. It just feels like more energy is spent in this kind of attention economy than in actually doing anything creative,” said the Huku performer.
Real name Maya Wegerif, Madjozi said she doesn’t have the energy to play to the gallery.
“I don’t have the energy to play that game and constantly be performing for attention or calling for attention. I’m not really good at that,” the 32-year-old said.
“I was not enjoying the industry anymore. I was not happy with being signed, I was not happy with what my label was expecting me to be,” she said.
She said she’s been contemplating the decision for a while now. She last released an album, What A Life, in 2020.
ALSO READ: Sho Madjozi launches hairline brand inspired by her young fans
In 2020 Madjozi jubilantly shared news of being signed by US label Epic Records, making her the first South African artist to join the company’s line-up that included Mariah Carey and Travis Scott at the time.
“You’re looking at the newest signee at Epic Records US!! Iyah,” read her caption in a post on an Instagram post that’s no longer available online.
But four years down the line, Madjozi has experienced the classic artist versus record label tug of war where the latter wants to change the former with ambitions of reaching bigger markets.
There’s a sense of pain when she speaks about how her experience in the industry has contaminated her love for making music.
“I’m being told I need to add more English or I need to wear less clothes and I’m just like ‘this was not part of the plan, this is not me, it was never me’.”
When speaking about the international company, Madjozi says she didn’t understand why the label wanted to change her when she’s a person who proudly represents her Xitsonga roots.
“I’m like ‘What you’re asking me to do is so clearly not what I have been doing, so how did you manage to not see what I am?’” she asked.
“And I’m also not going to be sexualised, like ‘how did you not see that?’ It’s not like I was nobody before this, I had a whole career in which I was myself,” she said.
According to the John Cena singer, this is not an attempt at slandering Epic Records but “I think what they were looking for is something different than what I am,” she said.
“They wanted a star that they could Americanise and I couldn’t be that. I don’t think they had sinister intentions, I just think it wasn’t a good match.”
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In October Madjozi celebrated being unshackled from Epic and tried doing things independently.
“I realised that it’s actually gonna be a lot of work to be trying to do things [on a daily basis] — competing for attention online and I was just like ‘I actually don’t want to do this’,” Madjzoi shared.
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When you listen to some of Madjozi’s music and the market that the music is sold to, it’s contradictory to who she is.
It’s commonplace bumping into the muso having a beer at Melville pub Xai Xai with friends, or seeing her at an art gallery with some of her bohemian buddies.
She hangs out at places that wouldn’t dare play her music, which is not a criticism of her music, but one is more likely to hear ditties from Thandiswa Mazwai, Erykah Badu or Zoë Modiga in the spaces she chills at.
To celebrate her 31st birthday last year, instead of popping bottles at nightclubs which would easily attract her music fans, she hosted an African Union-themed birthday party attended by Samthing Soweto, folk singer Muneyi, Langa Mavuso and choreographer Litchi Hov among other creatives.
“It’s true that what I do, where I’m seen or where I hang out is so contrast to that [her music],” Madjozi said.
“Nothing I did was trying to be mainstream or trying to be pop,” she said noting that she actually did the opposite of being popular by singing in Xitsonga, wearing xibelani (colourful fabric worn by Tsonga women).
“That was not the goal. I’m somebody who is kind of alternative and [likes] exploring stuff and it [music] happen blow up in a mainstream way that nobody was expecting and I was not even trying for. It’s gotten to a point where I can’t be myself anymore,” she said.
She’s unsure whether this is a hiatus or a permanent break.
“Right now, I think it’s too painful at the moment. Right now doesn’t feel like that is best for my peace of mind, at all,” she says about prospects of still making music, even only for the love.
ALSO READ: Sho Madjozi debuts children’s book dedicated to her late sister
Toiling for attention and being emotionally drained by industry games is one thing, succeeding in it is another and Madjozi experienced both.
It’s true that singing music in Xitsonga and rocking xibelani is not in the industry’s standard starter pack of how one becomes a pop star.
Madjozi acknowledges that she’s also benefited from the perks of being a pretty and light-skinned damsel.
“I think that’s very possible, I think being light-skinned and you know, slender or whatever, it’s very possible that people then took me [and thought] ‘oh she can be a pop star’ and only to find out that this person is actually very alternative.
“Maybe that wouldn’t have happened if I looked different.”
ALSO READ: Sho Madjozi’s hit-song Huku sampled by US rapper Gunna
She said people’s eyebrows might take a stand when they start seeing her following her other passions.
“When they see me doing things that are more myself going forward, they are gonna be like ‘oh, she’s changed’, but that’s actually not true.”
In 2023 Madjozi delivered the keynote address as the University of Cape Town (UCT) officially added Swahili Studies to the academic programmes now offered by the institution. She wants to be involved in work and projects of that ilk.
She is also expected to focus her energy on her hair brand Sparkle Braids and go into animation whilst also working on the children’s book.
“I also want to explore writing for film,” she said. Madjozi was a resident at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS) before being a fully-fledged muso.
“I was working on a film and this literally pulled me away and I never got to finish it. So I’m very excited to fix that film.”
She was also recently named a National Geographic explorer and her work will be showcased in a documentary for the entity.
NOW READ: PICS: Sho Madjozi celebrates birthday in African Union-themed party
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