Jamati: How did you begin to get interested in music and, especially, in singing?

I loved music from a very young age, so it is almost impossible for me to remember what triggered the love, I have a feeling though my mother had something to do with it. She has the calmest voice.

Jamati: Overall in the first album, Zandisile, the influence of gospel in your way of singing is very strong. If I’m not mistaken, when you were a child, you began to sing in the chorus of East Cape’s church: What did you learn by studying gospel so intensely?

From a young age I associated music with reaching the Divine and, thus, reaching myself. So I learned that it’s not music unless it takes you to another place–a place where every feeling is intense.

Jamati: According to South-African press that specializes in jazz, you are the best thing that happened to Afro-Soul music after the artistic birth of the most famous singer in Africa, Miriam Makeba: how does this comment make you feel?

It is an honor my shoulders are too small to carry, so I try to pay it no mind. I love her and her peers (Dorothy Masuka), I am their legacy, I’m continuing the journey….my own way.

Jamati: For your young but already charming and mature voice, you have been compared to Dorothy Masuka and other important African singers of the golden age: What relationship do you have with the great tradition of South-African music and in particular with Xhosa traditional music?

I always say that my Africanness is defined by my being um….Xhosa. That is what I grew up knowing from the moment I opened my eyes. It has defined and shaped me and how I interact with my environment, even rhythmically. I could not be in denial about it for long.

Jamati: Apart from gospel and African music, in Zandisile, you also blend other musical styles such as pop, R&B, soul, hip-hop and jazz, in a suggestive modern African soul. What relationship do you have with jazz tradition and especially with two legends–Lena Horne and Sarah Vaughan?

Legends indeed. I love music; I love good music from anywhere. Those two are amongst artists that I love….I wouldn’t say they deserve more mention than other artists I love though.

Jamati: Also in the second album, The One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street, the lyrics of your songs often speak about the rule of tradition in the African society and focus their attention on the strong struggle for existence, affirmation and freedom of African women and men after Apartheid. How much is it difficult to be an African artist interested in social problems and their urgent solutions today?

It is not so hard because it is an everyday experience; what we go through. It is also hard because we’ve been here for so long that people are de-sensitized. They don’t see that it should be better any more, they see it as our lot. So they would rather forget their problems than be made to face them.

Jamati: Apart from the social texts in African Xhosa idiom, in this album there are also love songs in English: do you think that love can be a real answer to world problems or it is only a wonderful “palliative treatment”?

Well, love breeds selflessness.