A Clown Who's Plugged Into Youth Culture
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) http://www.sundaytimes.co.za April 17, 2005 Posted to the web April 18, 2005
Kerry Cullinan Johannesburg
Democracy for the airwaves brought opportunity to Ashifashabba, who has his roots in Venda and is now an icon for the 'born-free' generation, writes Kerry Cullinan
'Because I tell jokes, girls think I am a fun person. But that is not so. I am often a very sad person. I tell jokes for a living, but my life is not a joke'
ASHIFASHABBA is doing a slow, tight-bodied jive. He leans over the microphone as the song ends, channelling energy from his slender body into his smooth, powerful voice. "Ehh, that song really rocks," he declares, his tone playful, upbeat.
There's a window between YFM's deep blue studio and The Zone mall in Rosebank, playground of Jozi's aspirant youth.
Some can't help lingering at the glass longer than cool decrees to gaze at Ashifashabba, an icon of youth aspirations in Gauteng and Limpopo.
Shonisani Aubrey Muleya, the young clown from Venda, has been eclipsed by his stage persona, "Ashifashabba", which in turn, has been crafted into a brand with massive youth appeal.
Offstage, Shonisani is serious and deeply sincere. But onstage, Ashifashabba is larger than life: a caricature with his trademark wide-open eyes and a powerful voice tinged with laughter. He is, says his creator, "always a happy person. With him, everything must be fun."
When I ask whether his is a schizophrenic existence, he replies: "Exactly. There's a thin line between Ashifashabba and Shoni." Then, as if to confirm that the brand is now bigger than the person, he adds: "But I, as Shoni, would lay down my life for Shabba."
In Ashifashabba Productions' modest Rosebank offices, Ashifas - a self-confessed perfectionist - draws a diagram to illustrate "Ashifashabba the brand".
Under a block saying "Ashifashabba", he draws many smaller blocks. One is TV, comprising the Ashifashabba TV show on SABC 2 (a new series starts in May) and Simon, the character he plays in the TshiVenda soapie, Muvhango.
Another is radio (the two four-hour prime weekend slots on YFM radio).
Then there are stage performances as an indigenous-language comedian, during which Ashifashabba assumes the delivery style of a village priest as he unravels intricate stories.
Ashifashabba Education Foundation supports 20 kids from his old primary school, Mmbara, sponsors four cyclists and is helping to support 40 Damelin students studying music management.
"At times, I feel that everyone wants a piece of me and I think how the hell do I do it," admits Ashifa. The attention of women can be particularly "overwhelming".
"Because I tell jokes, girls think I am a fun person. But that is not so. I am often a very sad person. I tell jokes for a living, but my life is not a joke.
"Some [of the girls] want to live out their fantasies. But no one can hold me as a trophy. I would not allow it."
He also warns that he's "not yet in that stage of going home to a wife and child. I need to go home alone to think and rewind". Home is a modest place in Mulbarton, Johannesburg.
When the demands of fame get too much, he contacts his mentor, "Bra Mike" Muendane. A former secretary- general of the Pan- Africanist Congress, Muendane is now a powerful motivational speaker.
He's had a stabilising effect on the 30-year-old, and Ashifa's conversations are anchored by motivational phrases such as "discover yourself to destroy failure".
On YFM's website, other DJs chit-chat about first dates and farting. But Ashifa says his aim is to "decolonise the African mind". He refuses to discuss sex in public as he says that it's against his culture.
"We need people to understand that they have been brainwashed by movies and videos from America. We go to global forums to beg, instead of telling the world about Africa. We don't see value in our assets."
One asset he's passionate about is indigenous languages. " We can't say we have changed as a country if we are not proud of our languages, if every school student does not learn an African language. If we really want to find one another, we need to learn each other's languages."
Ashifa's Africanism has its roots in his upbringing in Makwarela, the township alongside Thohoyandou in Venda.
His childhood was governed by strict rules in a family that emphasised self-development, their Africanist beliefs running alongside Christianity.
By higher primary school, Shoni's idol was DJ Razzmatazz, a "crazy joker" on Radio Thohoyandou who became the prototype for Ashifashabba.
Natural clowning won Shoni popularity at school. But there was always an emptiness. For his own father paid him no attention at all, turning his back on the family when Shoni was barely three years old and his sister, Jackee, a baby.
The pain of growing up fatherless still resonates within Ashifa. He says can really get into the character of Simon, the man he plays in Muvhango, "because we were both not catered for by our fathers."
But if the bond between father and son is non-existent, the bond between mother, sister and son is very strong.
Shabba also has his own son, Mukundi. Although they don't live together, he spends every Wednesday with the five-year-old and sees him most weekends.
His grandfather, a driver for former Venda "prime minister" Patrick Mphephu, became "Papa", his male role model.
At Thohoyandou Technical High School, young Shoni joined the cadets - although it was the chance to be drummer in the cadet band rather than the military trappings that attracted him.
"On Fridays, when school closed for holidays, a Hippo [anti-riot vehicle] would come and fetch us cadets. We would jump on and go to a military camp of the Venda Defence Force right near the [Zimbabwean] border."
I n 1993 Shoni left Venda to study civil engineering at the Technikon of Northern Transvaal (now Technikon Northern Gauteng) in Pretoria.
A few weeks after setting foot on campus, Shoni entered the first years' "Mr Fresher" contest dressed as Jamaican pop singer Shabba Ranks.
"I still wanted to be this monkey, this clown. I had the Shabba Ranks hairstyle, the round glasses, and the crowd was loving it."
When he started to deejay on the campus station shortly afterwards, Shoni took the name "Shabba" "so that people would connect me to the guy they were shouting for in the hall".
The "ashifa" part came later - a combination of SeSotho and SeTswana meaning "here is". It was part of "Shabba lingo" developed by Ashifashabba and another student, Louis Ngwenya.
YFM CEO Dirk Hartford describes Ashifa as "a genuine original. He's one of the station's biggest successes. He's grown bigger than us even."
By 1999, he had abandoned civil engineering and done some computer courses. But radio fascinated him.
Acting as a consultant to Radio TNT, Ashifa helped the station to get a licence from the then Independent Broadcasting Authority.
He would arrive at Y with little more than a return ticket to Pretoria. Luckily, Ashifa's technical knowledge soon ensured that he became an indispensable part of the YFM production team.
"But every time he opened his mouth, he made us laugh," says Hartford. "So Greg Maloka, the station manager, suggested we try putting him on air."
The rest, as they say, is history.
For a time, he lived the wild life. He would move straight from his show at 2am to the nightclubs. Then at 5am one morning in 2003, he was woken by a truck driver. He had driven into a truck, written off his car- and remained asleep.
"I went home and told myself this was really not cool. I realised that I was going to destroy everything I had been building if I did not hold myself back."
The death last year of friend and fellow DJ Fana "Khabzela" Khaba of an Aids-related illness also had a sobering effect.
Ashifa's main aim is to "make a difference and build my communities".
"For me to be effective now, I need to be here. But I really want to go back to the North and open a commercial radio station to plough what I have learnt in Gauteng back into Limpopo.
"I have proven by a large margin that we can have something going on through our languages. We, as African people, need to entertain ourselves. Why not a SA-llywood?" _______________________________________________ Ugandanet mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet % UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/
