I sometimes get a little resentful of our Cape Town brethren. One of my bones of contention involves the fact that they can effect an escape from their city with alarming ease.
Now, thanks to Kamo Mphela, I have a workaround for my lingering ill will.
We had lunch at The Terrace at Ground in Muldersdrift and it will do very nicely as a Joburg escape, thank you very much. Plus the skinny lamb chops and snazzy kataifi pastry spanakopita paired with the sunny Mediterranean atmosphere inspired further mood upliftment.
Kamo descended from her 10-seater black all-purpose music star conveyance in a velvet tracksuit with her nickname, Kiki, emblazoned on the back. She was draped in gold, embracing the full effect of the amapiano star that she is.
Naturally, she travels with an entourage — I would expect nothing less. But she tells me forthrightly that every person at the table next to us is a hard-working team member, including her dad, who introduces himself and whose early influence as a producer on YFM exposed her to a world she soon came to dominate.
Kamo grew up in Emdeni, Soweto, and took transport to school in the south of Joburg. It was on those trips to school that a pretty little girl actually called Pretty encouraged everyone to pray and read texts from the Bible.
“She used to say, come tomorrow morning and read a scripture, you know? And I just felt like I was too cool for it, (but) people around me started doing it, and that’s how I started getting into it. And from there, that's how my life changed. I actually prayed for everything. So where I'm at right now, everything that's happening is something that I prayed for, and that's how I got to experience God in my life. So blowing up at 19, having the lifestyle that I want, everything, basically, that I prayed for I got.”
Blowing up five years ago took the form of a viral dance video on Instagram that she made to promote an MCing gig she was doing while studying at Boston College and realising that she did not actually want to act after a stint as an extra on a national soapie.
I wonder what that felt like at such a young age. “I can't explain it. It just came at the right time, and I was the only girl at that moment within the industry that was kind of viral. So right time, right place. And the crazy thing is you don't necessarily have to plan it, you know. And that's how I got into music.”
Last year her song Dalie propelled her into a league of her own. She is the first female South African artist to have a song receive more than 100,000 daily streams on Spotify (Adele was the last female artist to achieve this, in 2021).
A lot of my biggest hits I write myself. It's a bit nerve-racking, mainly because I transitioned from a dancer into an artist and I never necessarily trusted my own writing. I've always been doubtful
“A lot of my biggest hits I write myself. It's a bit nerve-racking, mainly because I transitioned from a dancer into an artist and I never necessarily trusted my own writing. I've always been doubtful.”
What is she expressing in her music? “I am just more of a vibe girl. For me, it's just, like, will I dance to it? If I'm not gonna dance to it, I'm not writing it. It's just more of an energy thing. I'm very energetic. I like a lot of energy. The beat is number one. The beat needs to make sense, then I'm happy everything will align.”
What does amapiano mean to her? “It's a lifestyle, it's changed so many people's careers, including mine. I feel it's such a blessing, especially for the youth of South Africa because, with hip hop, it is very like levels and static. There was a hierarchy in hip hop, whereas with a piano, anybody can blow up any day. And I just like how unruly it is. It's very hood, like Soweto, very rough but amazing. It's just what we live. It's who we are.”
Her “pinch me” moment was performing at the O2 Arena in London to a huge global audience. “I was like, what? How did we get here?”
She whips out a Maybelline lipstick to reapply her perfect make-up — she is going to be shooting content after our lunch and she is now a Maybelline ambassador who gets product made in her image. It’s part and parcel of her personal ambition to grow her business. She wants to build her Kiki brand, she explains, pointing out all the merch she is sporting.
What would she advise her younger self — that girl praying on the school transport?
“Yoh! I've learnt a lot — but I've also learnt to not rush things. I think that's my biggest lesson right now, because when you're young you just want things to happen. But I've realised, like, just allow things to take their own time. I would definitely advise her to learn more about the industry before going into it. These schools, I wish they would actually teach artists about what they actually gonna do in the industry.”
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