From meeting in the music show Clash of the Choirs to signing with The Soil’s Ntsika Ngxanga music label, Soulphiatown aims to show the world what authentic music is made of
Take us back to your childhood, what attracted each of you to music and how did you meet?
From a very young age, music has always been a centre of our universe having grown up in families that loved to listen to music and singing and also being in the schools that always offered music as an extra activity, and that’s how we were introduced to music. In 2014, we met in Clash of the Choirs where we started becoming friends and after we won the competition we spent a lot of time in our friend’s studio and Soulphiatown was formed in 2015.
Tell us the meaning behind your stage name Soulphiatown
Our stage name Soulphiatown is inspired by Sophiatown and its rich historical culture of music. Our sound is a mixture of both old school and new feel and the soul in our sound is what Soulphiatown is all about.
Take us to your experience of making and releasing your debut album in 2017, what were some of the challenges and highlights you experienced?
While recording our debut album there were challenges because we were transitioning from bedroom studio artists to being signed under Nomadic Tribe, owned by Ntsika from The Soil. That life-changing moment got us scared but we overcame and conquered, and we are glad people are loving it.
How were you signed into Ntsika’s record label, and what does that mean for your career?
We met uNstika through a mutual friend of ours, Allen Cathro, from Scotland who was visiting Durban. When we visited Allen in his apartment we played him our music and he loved it, so he sent some of songs to Nstika and he flew from Gauteng to Durban just to meet us and he told us he wants to sign us under his record label and that was a life-changing opportunity we got there.
How would you describe success and do you feel you have reached it?
Success is reaching and touching the lives of people globally through our music. No, we haven’t reached success yet but we are on our way there.
Covid-19 has negatively impacted many industries, especially entertainment, how did you manage to stay afloat and push your music?
Through the grace of God, we have our studio to keep us busy and work more on our EP coming out later this year. We are also theatre actors, so the shows that we were part of are now streamed online and that gets us a little bit of money.
Tell us about your new single, Abupheli, what inspired the song and what message do you want your listeners to take from it?
What inspired our single was mainly the beauty of African women, we wanted to celebrate their internal and external beauty. Even though we are facing the problem of gender-based violence, we are letting our women know that through all of that they still remain the most beautiful part of our existence.
Tell us about your upcoming EP, who did you work with and what will people enjoy about the EP?
On our upcoming EP titled There is a Zulu On My Groove we worked on production with Ntsika, Ave Songsmith, and also did some of the production ourselves. The project will also feature Tresor and Ntsika as well in some songs.
READ MORE: Keeping Up With Tresor Riziki’s Success Motion
What are your goals and plans post Covid-19, and who would you like to work with one day?
Our goal is to fully introduce Soulphiatown to the world, for our music to reach many people, and mostly to sell platinum. We are open to working with whoever we vibe with at that time but for now, a feature with a big artist is fine with us!
What are your success tips for young people?
Our advice to young people is that nothing in this world happens overnight and staying consistent and believing in your dreams is more important than anybody’s thought or opinion. Dreams do come true, just trust the process.
