There are no millions in his bank account, he no longer has a crush on Minnie Dlamini, but he’s still determined to give iingoma ezimnandi.
Dressed in grey tracksuit pants, a black golf T-shirt with bongo dreads, Ifani is a far cry from the rapper that was popular back then in the day, who dressed more like a nerd who was discovering his coolness.
This time around the image has changed and he says it tells a story.
He is back on the music scene after his last release in 2021 with Big Xhosa.
Drum sits down with Ifani in downtown Jozi in Maboneng. We meet him in a concept shop called Moad, which is filled with art and fashion pieces.
Sitting with one of his producers, Ifani, real name Mzayifani Boltina, says he’s looking forward to people hearing his new music. This is yet another attempt to come back to a space that has played a pivotal role in the person that he is today.
He is calm, and humbly introduces himself. But before the interview starts, we listen to his two new tracks - Intro produced by Vise and Vice, and Lidlozi produced by Vise. We then took a tour of the store where he shows us what the concept store offers.
In one of the pieces of clothes that were hanging in the clothing rack was a torn suit that catches everyone’s eye and then we go outside in the sun to chat about his comeback and why he made the decision now.
He says he made a conscious decision to stop working because he wanted to experience life and grow spiritually and spend time with loved ones, especially his three kids.
In the time that he was away from the music scene, he was taking care of himself and spiritually he was growing.
“I have grown, and I am currently in that grown state and when it comes to working, I am recharged. I wasn’t working, I didn’t wake up to go to any job and that is where I learned and experienced a lot of things. Things I wouldn’t be able to learn, and experience had I been busy. I had time to go to imisebenzi yesiXhosa (traditional ceremonies) which I never had time for before but now I can attend from the preparation until the end.”
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Ifani says he previously missed a lot of birthdays and milestones and he used the time to be present for school activities and was able to watch his youngest child grow.
“When I was still busy, I had one child and I couldn’t spend time with my child because our times were clashing.” They could only see each other for an hour, he says.
“But now to make up for lost time, I was absent in music but present in real life.”
He has consciously decided to come back because when he watched pop idols and saw people sing and he thought to himself that he can do exactly what they are doing and even better because he has something to offer.
“I am at a space now where I can offer things into the music scene again. I have a space, and I am coming to fill that space. In 2013 when Ifani Haymani popped into the music scene, that time was different and now we are at a different time again and I must plug myself in that space. When I first came onto the scene, I jumped into the sound that was popular at the time and even now I will do the same because we can’t run away from the fact that our current sound in the country is not Kwaito or house but Amapiano.
“The image shows you where I am in music and it is not a good space, my streams are way low, everything is way low. I still use the formal nerd who turns into a rapper but maintains the old classic style but now I went out and the whole thing died out. There have also been comments that I have died out, so this image is me coming back, the clothes are torn because I have been through a lot. The outfit tells the story that I am coming back from being bitten by the dogs and everything else.”
He will be releasing an album called the 3rd Quadrant and Intro and Lidlozi are singles from that album. In the album, he is telling a story of what has been happening to his life since he left the music. The song Intro is about his first two years after he has been at home and not doing anything.
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“The entire album will be stories of what was happening when I was absent in music but everyone I have been present with know this. That is how I make music, I tell stories of my life sonically, I planned to release four albums which I called Quadrants, and they will be based on the cycle of my life. This current story is picking up from the previous album and telling the music lovers where I am currently at in life.”
He is currently not under any pressure, therefore, he can’t wait for people to hear what he has to offer. He says he is not trying to outdo his previous work but telling the story of his life.
“I must release the 3rd and 4th Quadrant regardless of what is happening in my life and how the albums perform. I feel like when I am 60 years old, I want to be able to give my children my music and my diary for them to know what happened to me. That is why I don’t have any pressure to perform on the charts.”
And Lidlozi is a song that changed his perspective about spirituality as a guy whose background was science and who believed that when a person dies their life ends.
“My understanding of life was very scientific but the time I had gave me a chance to explore and use the same mind I used at school to decipher everything that I know for myself. Through this time, I have come to change my position about life after death and I believe that we continue to live on. I lost my mother in 2010 and father in 2020 and I believe they are still present as amadlozi and when I pass away, I will be present as idlozi.”
