Tsenoli was born to perform

Midrand resident, John Tsenoli left Lesotho as a 17-year-old in pursuit of stardom. Although the road travelled wasn’t all smooth, Tsenoli said he hadn’t planned on taking on performing arts when he got to the City of Gold – but was rather on a mission to find himself.

“I was trying to figure myself out and why I’m in Johannesburg. I had a lot of internal things that I was dealing with that I had to get over,” Tsenoli said. Singing John Legend’s Ordinary People, Tsenoli took a chance and submitted an audition video for Born to Perform in 2016 and three years later he is one of the fans’ favourite.

Tsenoli’s touching audition video even got him a full-ride scholarship to Stageworx School of Performing Arts where he honed his talents – a combination of musical theatre and performing arts. “Starting my journey at Stageworx and going through the things I went through, it straight up humbled me and made me realised that life doesn’t work the way you want it to.

Sometimes you have to just roll with the punches – that’s sometimes that I always try to understand,” he said. Tsenoli said the past three years thought him to take on challenges that connect and speak to him – an indicator that he was on the right track. “You need to stay true to your journey – everyone has their specifically tailored journey that is going to work for them and help them become who they want to be.

I believe that I have my journey as well and I think that the hardest thing for me was being aware that I’m walking my journey and if I just stay true to that then my things will work out,” said Tsenoli. Joining the Born to Perform platform in 2016, Tsenoli captured the audience’s hearts with a solo performance.

The performance was Tsenoli’s first time on a big stage and an actual glimpse of what the future holds for the young performer. “I thrive off good vibes and good feelings. I haven’t experienced anything quite like being on stage and performing. There are a lot of great things that I’ve experienced and that, for me, is top notch.

My experience with Born to Perform I’ve learnt so much about being on stage and performing,” he said. Last year, Tsenoli performed his original song, Long Road on the Born to Perform stage. The performance proved to be the showstopper number for the show. Since last year’s show, he has been hard at work on his original music and has been delivering sizzling performences around Johannesburg.

He is set to release his debut single and music video on 28 September. “I want people to take in my story, the song is really an introduction. This is John and I’m going to be here a while,” he said.

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