The past two years haven’t been the easiest for him and his family.
For as long as his brother has been in the music scene, they’ve had to share him.
Even in his brother, Riky Rick’s passing, they have shared the mourning burden with his biggest supporters.
Over time, he’s learned not only to make peace with everything but to handle the heat from people outside of their family.
“I've been feeling carried by the spirit of all that we're doing to honour Riky. It's been a difficult road, dealing with grief and loss and people's expectations of what they expect Riky to be and as a family what they expect to keep upholding him,” says Themba Mdladla.
For them, it’s a personal battle that they’ve had to fight behind closed doors while continuing his legacy in public.
“The one thing that I can say about Rikhado is that there is a big absence, a big loss that is felt by all of us, individually and collectively. I feel like a huge piece of me is missing and in some moments the pain brings us together.”
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In addition to the Cotton festivals that they have continued to host in Riky’s memory and the Riky Rick foundation that stands for mental health and artivism, the family has kept his musical beats alive.
After his foundation was launched last year, a song based on his last tweet “I’ll return a stronger man” was released. Now on Friday, 8 March 2024, a song that he had recorded and kept close to his heart in his last days was released.
When he recorded Ilanga, Themba was with him. He tells Drum how it made Riky feel.
“I was with him when he was making the song. He played it for me many times. He sent it to me way before. He used to play it for us. He used to love it, he used to love dancing to the song. He used to love playing it everywhere he went, even at shows. He played it a number of times at gigs we had. He was that proud of it, really proud. I hadn't seen him this excited for a song in a long time,” he recalls.
“He had planned to actually release the song next. He was excited and really happy and I'm sure he also had a little bit of anxiety about dropping it because one thing people don't know is that Rikhado sings, they don't know how good he was at singing. I could even say maybe he actually preferred singing, he always wanted to explore that other musical side of him and bring that to the world and he never got that opportunity to really do that.”
Although he has listened to the song with him a number of times, after the 34-year-old lost his battle with mental illness on 23 February 2022, the song hits different.
The 30-year-old brother shares that Riky had a lot of foresight and in this particular song, he spoke of love; craving it, finding it, struggling to keep it and wanting it to come back
“It's him having experience with deep love. When you have your person, you don't even want your person to go to work, you don't want your person to go anywhere, you just want them to spend their time with you. And that's the type of love he speaks of, that type of love that makes you whole.
“From how he reacted to the song and how he would smile from ear to ear to the song, that's how the song made him feel,” he adds.
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Depending on his mood, Themba listens to different songs to feel closer to Riky even in his absence.
His number one, though, is Fuseg where he featured Anatii and Cassper Nyovest.
“When I'm feeling down and I need to get up, I need to get fresh, I need to get fly, I need to show the world something."
Themba has even gotten on stage in one of Riky’s iconic looks to perform the song for his supporters at a show.
