Dr Alexander Faizí Rawháni, popularly known as Dr Smile, is definitely a force to be reckoned with as he is all about contributing to the betterment of other people.
He defined himself as a first generation South African-born Persian. He is a member of the Bahá’í faith, which he said is a world religion that focuses on unity, equality and no prejudice. He further went on to say that the big emphasis in the Bahá’í writings is to use your time to serve humanity.
“If you don’t use your time in this life to develop and acquire the virtues and attributes of God and use them to serve humanity, then you are wasting your time,” said Dr Smile.
Dr Smile is best known for being a multi-talented individual who juggles a lot of things, from being a dentist to being a musician, and a jeweller, and being involved in fashion.
While completing his community service in Ladysmith, the 32-year-old started a youth programme. This was after he studied dentistry at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) from 2006 till 2010.
“I actually enjoyed the idea of what I could do with dentistry. Before that, I didn’t even know what I wanted to study or do. After graduation, I applied to complete my community service in areas around the country which I knew had no Bahá’í activities,” he said.
He then joined the South African Defence Force and set about helping the people in the army and their families.
“During my stay in KwaZulu-Natal, all my free time was spent teaching the youth of the area. There was a time I even went to schools, where I did oral educational programmes, just to expand on my knowledge as a dentist and how I could contribute,” he explained.
He came back to Gauteng after completing his community service and started classes that run during the week as well as the weekends. He has 11 different classes for children, the youth and old people which he does voluntarily. Dr Smile explained that the classes are aimed at uplifting the communities by teaching them what generosity, wisdom and patience are.
“I run classes in Claremont, Riverlea, Zandspruit and Soweto. These were started because I have a specific outlook on developing communities. I wanted to go somewhere where I knew no one else was doing this kind of thing,” he added.
He emphasised that the classes he teaches for older people are aimed at teaching them how to start their own classes in their own communities.
Speaking to the Record about how his nickname came about, he said, “When I started going to kasi schools [schools in the townships], I realised that my real name was a bit of a mouthful, so I came up with the name Dr Smile. I thought it was a good name and stuck with it.”
He has worked with many well-known people such as Connie Ferguson, Nasty C, Babes Wodumo and Cassper Nyovest, among others.
When asked about his music career, he explained that he goes by the name Lex Leo for that part of his life.
“My music career officially started almost a year ago. My first single is entitled Bafun’ ukwazi, meaning ‘They want to know’. It was titled that because people would normally ask me questions about my life, so I decided to release a song with an accompanying music video about it,” said Leo.
He has 13 songs out currently. Towards the end of last year, he was on tour with Nasty C and released the Lex Tape, which is a five-track mix-tape. For the last seven weeks, he has released a song every week
“Every Friday night, I release a new song. I’m trying to release hip hop and rap tracks that are relevant, applicable and cool, but contain no immorality – tracks that you can play for your five-year-old children,” he said.
In between everything else that he does, he also finds time to work as a jeweller who crafts rings, grills and chains for rappers, among other things.
“It is very important to show the youth that being diverse is good – you are allowed to do various things, not just focus on one thing. People seem to think they have to be one thing or another, for instance, do I have to be a rapper or a doctor, but you can be both. The critical thing is to prioritise what you do in terms of service to humanity,” he said.
He concluded by saying that time management is very important.
“I work in minutes and hours, I don’t work in days. People will ask what am I doing today and I will ask which hour you are referring to. I make my scale smaller so that I am able to squeeze out more,” Dr Smile said.
