Mbabane: The show must go on – is the very mantra showbiz is defined…. singers got to sing, dancers got to dance, the masses must be entertained.
Keeping the industry code so-to-speak in mind and keeping a cool, calm head as well through the current global health crisis brought on by novel coronavirus is none other than Eswatini’s gem DJ Zoe (real name DJ Zoe). A name widely known in the Eswatini’s entertainment circuits; she commends much respect for being very well the first female DJ to emerge onto the Eswatini music scene during a time when the gender ratio behind DJ booths tended to lean heavily towards male selectors.
Zoe who is clearly used to defying the odds isn’t losing any sleep over any uncertainty about the future and is instead, upbeat about what’s yet to come and the opportunity availed by this time to self-introspect as well as venture and explore new avenues in music spheres. Granted, the origins of this deadly coronavirus also known as COVID 19 can be traced to a part of the world that none of us thought we’d even hear about or know, talk less, make travel plans to visit before February.
Fast forward four months later, and the disease is all anyone talks about.
The world economy is in absolute freefall. Travel is out of the question as a majority of countries entered into lockdown as the virus’ death toll continues to climb. The world’s hotspots closed down restaurants, bars, and nightclubs out of fear that the disease may spread further. This has all culminated to an era of enforced physical alienation known as social distancing. Surpassing the impact on human health are the myriad of catastrophic secondary impacts a global pandemic can potentially have. Undoubtedly, feeling the brunt is the live events industry.
The live events industry as a whole has taken a nosedive.
The DJ world has been absolutely rocked by these developments. From platinum-selling artists to the DJ at your bar, shisanyama or ekasi, most full and part-time DJs are currently unemployed. All the more unperturbed, Zoe who admits that the year 2020 has been one curveball after another states that she hopes that the lockdown will help people reflect and look at things differently. She, however, will not stop dreaming and believes that there is still time to attain her dreams for 2020.
“Even though, I began this year with big dreams for 2020 and I still have them. I have a lot of things in the pipeline and I just hope that we will able to beat this coronavirus so life can go back to, I don’t want to say normal but I want to say I hope that we will be better than we were before,” she says. In her opinion, it is the music industry that has been hit hard by this pandemic.
“The music industry and our careers as artists and DJs have been affected much more. I think we have felt the much pinch,” she adds.
Nonetheless, she maintains that the show must undoubtedly go on. She reveals that spinners are still very much spinning but only virtually. As humans have had to adjust to a life of social distancing and adhering to a healthy lifestyle and personal hygiene, businesses have had to do the same. Cognizant that the pandemic still rages on, Zoe concedes that there is nothing they can do but embrace new age ways of reaching their fans. “We are still facing this pandemic and there is nothing much we can do, however, behind closed doors, we do online parties because we have to keep the industry going, people still need to be entertained so I have been doing online parties myself. Everything has now gone digital. It has changed because now, we doing something we never dreamt of doing. I used to see people streaming but I always wanted to see the actual DJ playing. It’s a new experience. I am learning and enjoying it. I am hoping this pass so we can start 2020 afresh because I feel it hasn’t even begun,” she reveals. Livestreaming which is the new frontier has become the centerpiece of the music industry. Livestreams of DJ sets have long been a staple of underground dance music culture but have known become a widely accepted phenomenon in the face of the coronavirus.
Zoe is nothing short of a ‘one-woman army’ and rightfully so.
Simply because she does everything with an air of elegance and grace, ‘not a hair out of place’. Over the years, the female spinner based in South Africa for the past 12 years earned her stripes, rising up the ranks to become among the recognizable names in the South African music industry. She has since grown to become a sonic powerhouse at the helm of Redamancy Lifestyle and Entertainment. Apart from music, she is an entrepreneur, businesswoman who finds time to still host her own events as well as dabble in artist empowerment. She is a mentor for the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) in South Africa. In an era where female DJs were fairly nonexistent, Zoe cemented her place in the industry and has held it down for over 10 years. ‘Till today……well until recently, she could still be found on the ‘ones and twos’, making it pop on the dancefloor and making crowds rock
with her skills and passion for music. Post-Lockdown, she looks forward to realizing a lot of the plans she has lined up.
“I am planning big, big things. I wouldn’t want to talk about them for now. There will be a lot of exciting and big news and projects in the pipeline. Otherwise, it’s the Music Creative Workshops that I have been doing for the past three years and its actually getting bigger and better this time around. We are going to be taking our artists to Zanzibar which is one of the many things that are going to be happening this year. I am quite excited about it for my artists. More events from Redamancy Diamonds and Lifestyles and more from DJ Zoe the brand,” she further says.
With a thought for those who will follow, Zoe leverages her status as a veteran DJ to empower others. Paying it forward is something Zoe strongly believes in. The DJ has found ultimate fulfilment in giving hope to aspiring artists in the music industry by hosting music creative activation programmes as part of her Music Creative’s Workshop aimed at developing, educating and nurturing talented youth in the arts and the creative industry. The target audience are artists, DJs, vocalists, choreographers and producers.
“With my 13 years’ experience in the industry, I thought it would be ideal to give back to the community by sharing the knowledge I have acquired and impart my skills to others who want to make it,” she explains. She is pleased with the progress that has been made thus far. “I realized that it is also recognized in other countries as well like Swaziland, Botswana, Mozambique which made me feel that I am actually doing the right thing and I am moving towards achieving my goals,” she says. The direction her life has taken is exactly what she had envisioned.
According to Zoe, her vision is to touch as many lives as I can through music and too change people’s lives. “I don’t just want to be a DJ and play music but I want to touch lives,” she points out. Through her involvement with the NYDA as a mentor, they are able to create platforms for young and upcoming musicians as well as conduct market linkages. She states that right now, it isn’t about deejaying because she has been in the industry for quite some time and therefore, she finds it necessary to share her knowledge as well as enlighten and empower people and artist development. Zoe looks back incredulously at how far she has come from the time she remembers growing up in Mbabane.
A former pupil of Mater Dolorosa Primary and High School, she recalls that she had a normal childhood but the only thing that stands out was an insatiable love for music. Although Brenda Fassie was an enormous hit with the young ones during her time, Zoe gravitated more towards old school music, the likes of BlackBox ‘Get Down’ and Robin S ‘You gotta Show Me Love’. An avid fan, she remembers recording and tape top 20s when they were played on radio and that is how her love for music especially House music grew all the more ‘til she decided that she wanted to make a career out of music. Soon after high school, she enrolled for a course in Project Management at Damelin and landed a job as Store Manager at DISCOM, but prior to that, she was a cashier at Clicks.
It was when she landed the managerial position that realized that she had reached the top of the ladder and wondered what was next and it is within that realization that her love for music was awoken which also intensified the desire for her to do something about it. Fortunately, she regarded Vinny Da Vinci and Christos as her heroes and she followed them a lot and she recalls that she never missed a show featuring them in Swaziland.
She remembers that there was a guy who was part of their entourage who noticed that she was always present during a show. he approached her and suggested that she take a leap of faith and become a DJ. According to Zoe, she made all manner of excuses to stop her from realizing her dream but it was that conversation that stirred up a deep desire to chase after her dreams. That stranger believed in her so much that he told her that if she reconsidered, he would link her up with his contacts. “So that’s how my journey began. He gave me contacts in Pretoria. I called and later enrolled and did the course for three months. I came back and that’s how my journey started,” she says. It was in 2005 that she eventually enrolled at Foreal Records in Pretoria. She also did a course in beat matching and Phase mixing.
She moved to South Africa permanently in 2008 in pursuit of her deejaying career and rocked private parties, clubs and corporate events. Her work as a DJ has taken her around South Africa packing dance floors for top-tier entertainment events. She was a resident DJ for the Jika Majika show and played alongside DJ Fresh, Vinny da Vinci, Christos, Black Coffee, Sdunkero, China, Zinhle, Dino Bravo and others.
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