At live concerts, he gets mobbed by fans.
Some cry and thank him for the healing music. He has only been a household name for less than three years, but singer Mthandazo Gatya has changed many lives through his music.
He tells Drum that his calling is to heal people through music and he understands why his success took time.
“I needed to experience hardship in order for me to be able to appreciate what I have,” he says.
“I am not a sangoma. I don’t need to thwasa or do any ceremonies, but I have a spiritual calling and that is to help people.”
He has known this since he was a child and that is why he never gave up on his dream, even when times were tough.
“My talent comes from a very deep place. I don’t write any of my songs. I usually get behind the mic and songs come out because I have a calling,” he says. “And I am using my calling to heal people.”
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Mthandazo’s music is also about his life experiences and encourages those going through difficulty.
“I usually sing about my experiences. I am also all about positive vibes and encouraging people going through hard times. It’s all about speaking to the soul. I am using that to heal people through music. People always tell me how the song makes them cry. Sometimes people come to me and cry and that is when I know I am doing the right thing and healing others.”
Mthandazo says through his own hardships, he is able to motivate people.
“I have experienced poverty, judgment, and rejection by people close to me because of not adding value because I was unemployed. Just singing about another black child’s experience in the township, but mine was worse. People thought because of my love for music, I was lazy and didn’t want to work. They would ask why I don’t just get a job and when I worked, music always took priority,” he says.
After high school, Mthandazo worked as a cleaner at a communications company.
“I tried working. I had a decent job. I started off as a cleaner at a corporate communications company before they hired me as a communications officer. But it took time away from me making music. I then worked as a pizza chef at a restaurant, but I left my job for music because I was suffocating when I wasn’t making music.”
Everything he tried did not work out, all his attention was on making music.
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Mthandazo’s breakthrough in music came in 2020 just when he was about to lose the only place he called home, a shack he had been living in since 2011.
Born and raised in KwaMadyarhana in Grasmere in Johannesburg, his extended family moved to Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape while he stayed in Gauteng to pursue his dream.
“I started doing music when I joined the primary school choir. I was raised by my aunt after my mom passed away when I was still a kid. My dad was absent,” he says.
“But because I was not working and my dream of becoming a musician was taking long, I felt I was a burden at home. So, I left home in 2009 and stayed with a friend and his family for three years.”
Three years later, he felt he needed to be independent and moved into a shack until 2020.
“All the while, I was working on my music, and I released the song Senzeni. That is when things started coming together for me because I then met Jozi Entertainment boss Lebo Mlangeni who loved the music and he helped to turn my life around.”
Before meeting Lebo, Mthandazo was on the verge of losing his shack after hosting an unsuccessful music event and landed up in debt.
“I was owing a lot of money to people, and my life was in danger. I needed to find a way to pay the money, or I would lose my life and I had to give up the shack in order to pay the debt, not knowing that losing the shack meant that God was opening doors for something much bigger.
"And that is when my career took off,” he says. He shot his music video for the song Senzeni at the shack he used to live in.
“Going back there was emotional but also healing at the same time,” he says.
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Unlike his usual songs about loss, grief, and poverty he decided to release a love song titled Sizobambana, which will be in his latest EP, titled Journey to Infinity, that's due for release at the end of August.
“Sizobambana is about keeping your promises be it in love or marriage. It is one of the songs that will be featured on the six-track EP,” he says.
“The song is about sticking to your vows, despite any challenges. It’s a song about love, and perseverance.”
