Sjava SZN

Image by Gift Dick

Bad Hair has a good run. Thandiswa makes jazz, bringing her mother into public consciousness. Anatii barely loses his composure to respond that, actually, the beat is 150. 

‘Ngud breathes new life into quarts. Mandoza dies, reportedly from cancer. Black Coffee bags a BET and SAMA back to back. 

Politics goes pop when Mabala Noise signs a dozen media personalities and musicians. Nadia Nakai introduces us to Bragga and Babes Wodumo catapults Wololo into catchy lyrics — and the lexicon — for all ages.

The year is 2016 and South African music has no shortage of ones to watch. I’m 28 with “senior” in my title, presenting radio in my dreams and a hashtag music journalist IRL. We make our plans but the Lord determines our steps, you know. 

Sjava’s steps that year included a start at Ambitiouz Entertainment, then home to a roster of writers and rebels intent on bridging trap with the traditional. Think Sjava, Emtee, Saudi, Fifi Cooper, A-Reece, Miss Pru, B3nchMarQ among others and, of course, Ruff changing the soundscape one beat at a time.

Led by songs like Uthando, Sjava’s debut album, Isina Muva, became the most significant part of his career then. So much so that, eight years later, it has spawned a tour that is literally called the Sjava 2016 Tour, kicking off in Johannesburg in September.

The artist tells me it’s “for people who were there in 2016. People who’ve been there from the beginning of my career!”

On a wintery Jozi morning, I head to the Joburg Theatre to watch Sjava rehearse for the last leg of the Isibuko tour, which supported the release of the deluxe version of his fourth solo album of the same name. 

At the theatre, stage savant, Nivo, pops his head into the production office. His phone flashlight is on and he’s half-listening to something on the device while simultaneously announcing Sjava only wants one image projected. He returns to the office less than 30 seconds later, shaking his head, to say Sjava now wants three visuals to appear.

Sjava leads rehearsal with equal parts decisiveness and detachment. When I catch him on stage, the moon is projected behind him as he sings, then asks for level adjustments and lets the pianist listen to his in-ear piece to validate that he’s hearing a strange sound he can’t quite place. 

I see him warm his stone rehearsal face is when The Qwellers, who are featured on new track, Typhoon, step on stage. He daps them up while the band continues to play and then… hits the griddy? It’s giving how do you do fellow kids but is endearing because they’re giddily hitting it with him. 

Another time he's genuinely exuding warmth is when he gestures to fellow 1020 Cartel label owners, Nothando Migogo and Ruff — who’ve been watching him from a dark side of the theatre — and asks them “where’s my ni99a Hustle?” The band is playing Roll Up and Sjava starts singing Emtee’s verses.

There’s still a lot of love between Sjava and the friends-turned-family he started his career with. Take for instance, his bond with A-Reece. The latter appears on Hlasela off Isina Muva but that wasn’t always the only rap feature on the song. 

“That song was made specifically for a TV show called My World,” Sjava remembers. “I was going to be interviewed and the song was meant to play only on that episode. It was me, DJ Citi Lyts and A-Reece. Then after we made the song, the label heard it and, I don’t know what deal they had with Live Amp but then they decided to do a remix and they sent that song to Nasty C, Riky Rick, Reason, Gigi LaMayne, Emtee....”

“So, we all performed that remix on Live Amp — even before the original had been released. The original ended up not going onto the TV show and we kept it for my album. So, I re-added Reece and I didn’t want all the other guys on it so it was just Reece,” he laughs out loud. “I just believed in him so much. And he delivered.” 

Reflection Eternal

Eight years later, the pair collaborated again on Race, one of four new songs added to the Isibuko deluxe. I tell Sjava it sounds like the future post-Hlasela. That in the past, they were motivating each other and their fans to attack opposition to their success and now, they’ve succeeded and are intent on defending their respective lanes. 

He is quiet for a beat before he says: “I always choose to create music based on langisuke ngikhona mentally, emoyeni and in reality. I wasn’t even looking at it the way you put it but manje, when you say it, it was exactly that. When we made Hlasela, we were both really in those positions where we wanted to hlasela and fight for our future.”

“We fought for it and made it and there are people who are jealous about it but we’re the types of artists who like to focus on what we’re doing. That’s why I say run your race, own pace, get paid, okunye it’s whatever. And his verse explains that too. We don’t just record just because we know each other. We’d been trying to make a song but time is what decides what needs to happen.”

The naysayers don’t get a pass from Sjava though. The final track on the deluxe is Could of Been You (sic) — my mention of which sees him laugh and um and laugh and um as ihawu from vulnerability. 

“There are good people and bad people in life,” he says, finally. “Most of the time, abantu ababhedayo abafi. It makes you question if karma really exists. So, this song is about a person who just messes up a good time or if they are there, they come between friends. Honestly speaking, bad people also listen to our music so when they listen, I hope they ask themselves if they are meant to change their ways”

Another new song is Ngibongiseni — half on which he’s singing and half on which he’s not. It’s interlude-size and feels like the listener is intruding on a conversation where some words are said out loud — through Sjava’s vocals — and some are intuited through the instrumental devoid of vocals. 

“That was the point,” he exclaims. “It’s like how we did Ikhandlela (featuring Bongane Sax and Tshego AMG, off his 2018 album, Umqhele) too. There are some instrumentals that really need to be left alone. I know sometimes, people feel like these specific songs are short or I should’ve said more but I believe I’ve said what truly comes from inside me but the instrumental playing on, is giving you an opportunity to pay attention to what you want to say, think or feel during that time.”

Image by Gift Dick

“It’s not about me saying a lot. Angithi the album is called Isibuko, so all those songs give you an opportunity to reflect on what’s happening with you as the song plays. Remember, it’s two people talking on Ngibongiseni. It’s me and my mother. It’s uMama saying ngibongiseni that she’s able to live like this now because of her son and also it’s me remembering how we used to live when I was younger and all that happened in my life and now, the things I’m able to do for my mother.”

I offer that the quiet parts lend an intimacy to the instrumental because it’s like silently saying something to the individual while withholding it from the collective — like a secret. He smiles, says ngiyakuzwa then is silent — effectively giving a lot by taking away his voice from this conversation. 

Bling Bhinca 

Sjava also allows his aesthetic to speak for him. At rehearsal, he dons a crystal ‘mqhele — looking like a bling bhinca. He’s hype to tell me: “It looks like that because I wanted to swag it out! I bought jewelry from Swarovski, actually. Then broke all of it into pieces and started from scratch to make that ‘mqhele.”

He tells me he was intent on making this signature of his culture into something he could blend with hip-hop culture. “I was adding my own thing,” he says. “In their time, uShaka or ibutho did not have umqhele in the way we know it today — that was someone else’s design. Someone sat down and said let me design it like this. So, that shows that for some things, there’s nothing wrong with evolving our things and adding whatever we want to.”

He explains that historically, imvunulo was worn for different seasons and reasons. “But it got to a point where that knowledge was lost to us and then everyone just started adding what they wanted to. Not everything on imvunulo of today has anything to do with our traditions but most of it is to look good and about you taking pride. And even my ‘mqhele… it’s someone’s design and it’s not like it means anything and there are a lot of different designs these days.”

“When you add to it though, someone may look at that and say you’re messing things up,” he chuckles. “But for me, it was like: yes, ngingumZulu from eNatal but coming from hip-hop as well, it was more about connecting the two. And those Swarovski chains cost me a lot so I put it away properly because it was a lot of money!”

I’m curious to see how the aesthetic and his artistic expression evolves. 

Stream Isibuko (Deluxe) on your preferred platform