Apart from the odd football kick-about while growing up in Bolobedu, Limpopo, music was always Nathaniel Paledi Malatji’s number one passion.
He relates how, as a boy, he approached his father, a Zion Christian Church moruti (priest), and asked him if he would buy him a keyboard.
His steadfastly religious father handed him a new khaki uniform instead, with the snow-white manyanyatha shoes worn by the all-male mkhukhu troupe of the ZCC church.
Mkhukhu, which literally means a shack, is the name used for male members of the church’s choir who are considered soldiers of faith.
‘He told me to forget about the ‘evil thing’ called music and urged me instead to focus on church affairs,†says an animated Malatji.
Although not entirely happy about the turn of events, Malatji says singing in the troupe helped to hone his vocal skills and formed part of myriad musical influences that culminated in his debut album The First Prince.
The album is a fusion of traditional tunes, such as Khelo Kheela, which is adopted from a traditional sound called khekhapa, to African pop typified by the track Cherie.
We are sitting at the popular Capello restaurant next door to the Sophiatown bar-lounge in trendy Newtown. Malatji sports a pair of jeans, a simple black shirt and fashionable black-and-white leopard-skin patterned shoes. His first album, he says, is the inevitable climax to a long and hard journey.
Born 32 years ago in Bolobedu, Malatji found himself living with his no-nonsense father when his parents split when he was 10.
Hampered by the rigid home environment, but spurred by the need for musical expression, he walked 5km one night to join his mother in the neighbouring village of Kgamatipane where the promise of a musical heaven beckoned. His maternal uncle, Phillip Mohale, led a band that played popular disco and bubblegum tunes of the time.
‘Ah, I got there to find that he had sold his instruments and the band was gone,†says Malatji, recalling his shock. As it turned out, Mohale not only dissolved the band but went to seek his fortune in Gauteng.
Not one to be easily demotivated, Malatji formed a pantsula dance troupe and started composing his own music in Xitsonga.
A few years later, in a moment that he describes as ‘a giftâ€, he picked up a melodica while walking next to a river.
So began the journey of self-taught musicianship. (He was once described by music critic Gwen Ansell as a ‘wünderkindâ€).
‘Nobody can claim to have taught me music,†says Malatji.
It was during this learning phase that he became grateful for his days in the mkhukhu where he learned to discern the different musical notes.
He joined his first band, Ruffa Band, playing the keyboard and was soon composing music and jamming at community functions and music competitions.
A pastor, who was also a relative, recognised Malatji’s talent and convinced him to play in his church band — he was thrown into the deep end and quickly had to adjust to playing a new genre in front of a packed church, but he soon felt at home.
In early 1994 Malatji made his way to the informal settlement of Orange Farm to join his uncle and was enrolled at a local school called Voice Education Youth Centre.
‘I was this shy guy who spoke only Selobedu,†he says.
One day while watching TV he saw one of his schoolteachers conducting a choir. He approached the teacher and told him he was musically inclined. He asked if the teacher could put in a good word for him with a local band. The teacher promised to show him where they practised and told him the rest would be up to him.
After what he says was an easy audition — he played the South African national anthem on the keyboard — he was accepted into the band.
They dabbled in various projects, including a deal with Don Laka’s Bokone Music that produced an album which ‘bombedâ€. Malatji and band mates joined a competition called the Puisano Jazz Programme.
Malatji’s band did not win the tough competition, but one of the judges, legendary jazz guitarist Selaelo Selota, took notice of Malatji’s ‘interesting voice†and the rest, as they say, is history.