I am told my late grandmother held me up to the sky and spat on my forehead at birth; she said my death would never come from the hand of man, and that I was too blessed to be cursed. In the hierarchy of birth, considering all my father’s children, I was tenth in the pecking order. So I started this race of life at 10th place.
The day he arrived at the centre, there were no saxophones to play. Observing his crestfallen face, the music teacher quickly suggested that Mandla try his hand at the trumpet he had in his car. Mandla remembers thinking – a trumpet? What am I going to do with a trumpet? It only has three buttons! But these buttons were his only options, because if he didn’t take up the trumpet, he would have to wait for another six months for a saxophone to be available. Above all, the love was for music, regardless of where it was coming from. And so, he took the trumpet from the boot, wiped it down, and begun his musical journey.
When I think of how many times I hid my pads from the rest of my classmates, I cringe. I would throw them into a bag and hide them in a bush next to our toilets, so that if I had to leave class to change my pad, I wouldn’t have to carry anything with me
Sometimes I think about them, you know? The other half of my family. I think about the ones who left and wonder about what they’d think of us now.
Heal yourself. Where does music come from? And how is it that someone knows how…
The first time I heard Luther Vandross’ ‘Never Too Much’, it was from my father’s prized radio system. I must have been about 8 or 9. It was a grave mistake, because all our radio listening privileges had been taken away for a whole month.
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