His disqualification from the Britain’s Got Talent competition did not mean the end of the pursuit of his dreams. In fact, it opened doors for him.
As he received a hero’s welcome back home, three of the wishes he made when e.tv’s The Morning Show visited him in London were ready to come true.
“He mentioned three things that he wanted to do when we were in London. One of them was to get an Audi, one of them was to get flown in a helicopter and [another] was to be in a movie and ironically, these are all the three things I could help him with," CEO of Cheeky Media and executive producer of The Morning Show, Yusuf Stevens, told Drum as he handed over Musa Motha’s sexy red 2023 Audi A3 sportback that he has dreamt of driving.
"I’m a helicopter pilot so I’m taking him up next week and we spoke to our friends from Audi [who] came to the party.”
Although Yusuf is unable to cast him for a movie now via The Cheeky Studios, he will be giving him an opportunity to be on a movie set.
“He’s doing action training, he’s doing some stunt work on his own, it has got nothing to do with me and I said that I’d put him in our next film so he’s prepping for that. He’s just an incredible, remarkable being,” he adds.
Before he steps into his new joy ride, Musa’s face beams in excitement but spares a moment to talk to us.
“I feel good man, I feel the love. It’s really great to be home. It feels like I am still in the dream that I don’t really want to wake up from. It’s different from when I was back home a few months ago so it’s one of those things I’m adapting to.”
Within the month that he’s back home for the first time since he moved to London in February 2022, Musa will be gearing up for even bigger and greater things.
“The company that I am working for is actually doing good, we have projects that are going to tour internationally soon from September to November.”
The amputee dancer has been working at a UK-based dance studio since he left South Africa and is now part of an organisation that aims to make dancing inclusive to all.
“Since they saw me in like main [stream] stages, they want me to perform one of the big productions of the big ballet like Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet and I’ll be working with one of the classical ballet companies. It’s more like we’re trying to build a curriculum for amputee dancers for classical ballet.”
Even though he’s an international superstar now though, he tells Drum that his family still treats him like the regular Musa who left the country for work over a year ago.
Chuckling, he says his mother still tells him to go wash the dishes and do his chores even with the first ever golden buzzer from the competition under his name.
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“I don’t get those things of family and relatives [being] around, taking pictures. When I’m at home, I feel home, I don’t get reminded of the [stardom]. It feels good be home, one of my dogs even has puppies so now I’m a grandad,” the amputee says.
Over and above all this though, Musa is proud to have made his family proud, despite life’s hardships.
Speaking about how he navigated life as a child after being amputated and still striving for greatness, he says, “People just know my story after amputation, my story before amputation was very traumatic. That’s the darkest time I’ve had [in life]. To an extent that when the results came from the biopsy and they came back positive of cancer, I got a relief because I know at the time what was wrong. Instead of like being sick but not knowing what’s going on, going from doctor to doctor and they don’t know, you go to specialists, and they don’t know.”
“So, I mourned my leg before it got amputated,” he opens up to Drum.
After being amputated, Musa says it didn’t take him too long to adapt to a new life with only one leg because he was grateful for the journey that followed his diagnosis.
He reminisces about how chemotherapy literally turned him to a baby again as “it kills everything in your body [but] I was grateful that I went through that because there was hope. I could see some of my peers getting healed, finishing that treatment and they go back to school so in my mind I was like, ‘I have to be fine, I have to go back to school and play with other kids’. That’s what kept me going. I was positive before everything else happened.”
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It is this determination that secured him a deal with Audi.
Alex Nietz from the vehicle centre says, ““At Audi, we believe in bringing progress to life and that’s why we chose to collaborate with Cheeky Media Group to surprise Musa with his dream car, especially because despite being differently abled and all odds against him, this young man keeps pushing with determination and moving forward towards his destination.”
After posing with her new whip, Musa drove out of the Audi Sandton garage with the biggest smile on his face.
