In the past decade there have been few arrivals on the entertainment scene that have had as swift and meteoric a rise as Zola. In eight months he has starred in this year’s best TV series, Yizo Yizo, and he has released a debut album, Umdlwembe (Stray Dog) that has sold 95 000 copies. He has added to that a TV talk show and a chat slot on Metro FM’s Glen Lewis Show. Yet he does not seem to believe it is all happening too fast.
“I have been at this for some eight years now as an amateur performer, hanging around the Market Theatre looking for a job,” he says of his period as a stage actor. “When you are on stage you do not believe in TV — the stage is possessive.”
Zola broke away from his stage ambitions last year when he took over the role of Papa Action in the second series of Yizo Yizo from Ronnie Nyakale.
It was Nyakale who portrayed Papa Action as a marauding thug terrorising the children of Supatsela High. He callously executed rape and hijacking scenes and made Papa Action a figure to loath and fear.
In the second series, Papa Action spent the entire series in jail, making a few, lengthy appearances in about five of the 13 episodes, and fading out as the storyline worked towards a happy ending.
Zola took the character and imbued it with thuggish aura and seized the moment to emerge, in the short term at least, as the most visible icon to come out of the series.
On his debut CD, Zola enlisted the services of respected producer Kaybee to produce a work with lyrics drawn from rich and diverse sources. From his upbringing in KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, Stanger and Madadeni in Newcastle) he picked up deep Zulu and folklore. “I moved there to escape political upheaval in Zola [the suburb in Soweto]. Now I can speak proper Zulu, tsotsitaal and English. But it was not easy — being away from my mother at an early age was tough.”
His mother is a Zionist preacher who instilled a religious streak in his outlook. It comes through in a song on the album called Mzioni. There are times when he includes seemingly unneeded elements. For example, a phrase from R&B star Ginuwine: “Even though I am on TV I am still the same old G.”
Speaking of the African-American experience, Zola says: “I identify with those guys because they also came through hardships in the projects and produced engineers and doctors”. A tad unconvincing, I’d say.
The work comes out with mixed messages, at one moment celebrating thug life in the ghetto and at the next singing praises to the lord. “First, I am not a holy, holy person and I have to point out bad elements lurking in society. Also, I do not believe I can call myself a Christian. I am just a believer,” he says of this inherent contradiction, adding, “I have always been concerned about identity.”
The identity he remains concerned about has been denounced as pandering to the popularity and notoriety of the township suburb of Zola, and latching on to the name. “I have been using the name since I was an amateur performer alongside members of Chiskop and hassling M’du Masilela for a recording deal.”
His best lyrical performance though was in Yizo Yizo where, in a scene at the back of a police car, he broke into an impromptu tribute to his mother that appeared to ape Tupac Shakur’s Dear Mama and local DJ Oscar Mdlongwa’s Mama Wami.
Zola’s talk show initiation has not been easy. He started out being limited, sometimes failing to distinguish between his role as an objective mediator who assesses different viewpoints and, through no fault of his own, the celebrity who allows his persona to gloss over the argument and wallow in applause.
He has not forgotten the struggles of thespians, though, and uses his celluloid platform to invite on to his show groups such as the Alexandra theatre group Izishoshovu.
The talk show has also earned him the privilege of being immortalised in graffiti along Empire Road in Johannesburg.
The kwaito masses have rewarded him with three Metro FM Music Awards and have voted three of his songs — Ghetto Fabulous, Ghetto Scandalous and Umdlwembe — on to the Castle Loud Top 20.