Thandiswa Mazwai
Thandiswa Nyameka Mazwai (born 31 March 1976) is a South African musician, and is also the lead vocalist and songwriter of Bongo Maffin. She is also known as King Tha.
Quotes
[edit]- Soul music is memories, it’s everyday life, it’s easy to consume. I think it’s that the soul, the spirit, resides in Africa so soul music here could also mean the beating of a drum because that’s how we invoke our soul.
- Award-winning artist Thandiswa Mazwai brings ‘A Letter To Azania’ to Cape Town,20 February 2023,By Bongeka Gumede
- The processes are different for every album. Nothing is ever deliberate. Making art for me is one step in front of the next. You don’t begin with a full art work, you begin with one stroke and then you go. And you ask what else can I do until it’s a full picture.
- Award-winning artist Thandiswa Mazwai brings ‘A Letter To Azania’ to Cape Town,20 February 2023,By Bongeka Gumede
- A love for the people, a love for country, and a love for justice. They form the basis for what the production is about using audio visual elements to stimulate imagination and explore history while moulding a new world.
- Award-winning artist Thandiswa Mazwai brings ‘A Letter To Azania’ to Cape Town,20 February 2023,By Bongeka Gumede
- I always knew that there were people who sang better than me, I never thought I would make it to this level.
- Thandiswa Mazwai: Here to to stay,15 July 2015,By Priscilla Malinga
- All I noticed was that something would happen to people when I sang, I found that people noticed me more when I sang.
- Thandiswa Mazwai: Here to to stay,15 July 2015,By Priscilla Malinga
- People associate my work with their traditions and culture and maybe there isn't enough of that in the music industry. The music industry does sometimes become a little poppy and more about the accumulation of things. My work is about memories and identity
- You cannot want to live in other people's expectations Your only intention should be to tell your story and tell it authentically. That is the only culture an artist should have. I don't have a desire for popularity or a desire for anything that people think identify you as a successful person. My success comes from finishing my work. So, as soon as I finish my work, I feel like I have succeeded. Anything that happens after that is out of my hands
- I have a lot of band configurations. I have a jazz band. I have the band I have been playing with for 20 years
- I saw army tanks while walking to school ensuring us natives were ‘well behaved.’ It was impossible to miss those things
- I was interested in something different and followed radical pathways to making art
- Music gave me a natural medium to express myself and all I was seeing
- Struggle didn’t need to be a bad thing, so long as we knew what we were pushing towards
- Having grown up so un-free, there was a euphoria hearing Nelson Mandela was being freed and that we could get an ID and be a true South African with the rights of any other citizen
- We were kind of swept away by this idea of freedom
- In spite of having a Black-led government, we quickly realized we still needed to struggle, protest, and fight
- We were trying to wrap our minds around neocolonialism and the way power corrupts
- Even as I sing in my own language about a South African experience,she says, I also see it as pan-Africanist music that speaks to the Diaspora as well. I create work that is interested in connecting us and bridging gaps
- Money draws people in and takes away agency
- Learn when to say no to the money, because it comes with so many complications and people who feel entitled to steering your career
