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Rising jazz sensation releases full body of work

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Spha Mdlalose
Spha Mdlalose

She has performed with two Grammy award-winning artists – Josh Groban and Israel Houghton – as well as legends Oliver Mtukudzi, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Neo Muyanga, Zwai Bala and Sibongile Khumalo.

Hailing from Umlazi in Durban, Spha Mdlalose (30) says initially jazz was not something she particularly liked.

“I didn’t quite understand it. However, when growing up my father often played jazz and I suppose that triggered my interest,” says Mdlalose.

After her family moved to Cape Town in 1996 she joined the school choir and later her high school’s jazz band where her interest in the genre grew. In 2006 she enrolled for a Bachelor of Music degree, majoring in jazz vocal performance, at the University of Cape Town’s SA College of Music.

Mdlalose describes sharing big stages with legends as “evidence of what can happen when you put your dreams out there”.

She considers Jill Scott, Siya Makuzeni and Thandiswa Mazwai as some of her sources of inspiration. She also hopes to collaborate with Sjava and Mondli Ngcobo in future.

Mdlalose says her career has not been a walk in the park, but it’s been filled with challenges and the “blessing of making meaningful connections along the way”.

“I didn’t have money when I moved to Joburg. When I look back at the great artists I have performed with, I feel blessed because I would just inbox [email] them and offer to audition and their response was just great.

“Sibongile Khumalo was going to have a show in Johannesburg and she was looking for people to join her.

“I was in Cape Town and I inboxed her team asking to audition via Skype. They said she was in fact in Cape Town and asked to meet me over coffee.

“We just had a conversation and close to the end [of the meeting] she asked that I sing for her and she joined in,” she said. “By the end of the song she said ‘well, I guess I’ll see you in Johannesburg’.”

Mdlalose has been featured on numerous albums, including by SA Music Award nominee trumpeter Lwanda Gogwana; Mbokodo award-winner Thandi Ntuli; virtuoso bass player Benjamin Jephta and dexterous saxophonist Sisonke Xonti.

No stranger to the Cape Town International Jazz festival, she has performed there on numerous occasions as a solo act at its free concert and alongside US soul singers Allan Stone and Patti Austin. Her global footprint includes a performance at the Oslo and Arendal jazz festivals in Norway as a part of the Andreas Loven trio, which features renowned saxophonist Buddy Wells.

In April last year, Mdlalose started hosting her own radio show on Kaya FM’s online jazz station called Jazzuary.fm.

Her debut album Indlel’eyekhaya will be launched on Saturday.

The album speaks of her life experiences, something that Mdlalose says she is intent on sharing through her music.

She says she hopes to disrupt the narratives that “young artists should not be making music and that jazz was created for older people”.

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