Ntsika Ngxanga is a member of the award-winning a cappella group The Soil but like many others, his journey to becoming the man you see today on stage was not always smooth sailing, so we caught up with the singer to delve deeper into his adventure as a musical director, producer, actor, and now solo artist.
Growing up playing soccer against renowned soccer clubs by the likes of, Wits and Kaizer Chiefs as a midfielder or defender, Ngxanga says that he thought that he would become a professional soccer star one day, however, his dedication to his studies led him to become one of the brightest students and allowed him to study chemical engineering at Vaal University of Technology where he met his wife - which sounds like the beginning of a perfect story of a rich man - but it was while he was completing his course that Ngxanga felt a soft but profound calling to change gears and pursue music.
“I went to Varsity to do chemical engineering, but music was also there in everything that I did. When I was in varsity nearing finishing my course, I then started having these surges of yearning for something bigger and it was truly the music calling me to do it. I remember I used to break down in the exam rooms while writing my exams and I would cry 'cause I would get these songs and a tiny voice would tell me, this is not your place you belong on a stage healing people’s souls with your voice,” he said.
During the process of finishing his studies, Ngxanga and his blood brother, beatboxer, Master P (who is also a member of ‘The Soil’ ) met Samthing Soweto and now lead vocalist Buhle at Protea Glen and formed a friendship that later sparked gatherings every Friday for jam sessions and it was around that time that the four friends’ love for music inspired a musical group.
"Samkelo and Buhle were in Soweto and I was in varsity and Master P had visited me in varsity we. We were in Sharpeville in the Vaal, I wake up from this dream, I tell P that I found a name for the group, the name is ‘Particles Of The Soil’.
"As I’m telling him this, a call comes in. It's Samthing Soweto, he says: 'Gents, I have a name for the group' and then he went: “The Soil”. It was so freaky, a telepathy of the highest accord and then we took it from there, we ran with it. In 2004 we started to officially do gigs, we got our first paying gig in Orange farm, gave us 500 bucks, we split it amongst the four of us."
Ntsika Ngxanga not only has the gift of singing but has the gift of seeing into the spiritual realm, which is where he says he extracts his music, it might sound a little absurd for some people, but the multi-talented musician literally dreams his music, and it was in his dreams that he saw the birth of his solo career.
“The reason why I did the solo album was because of a dream I had in June last year, I was sitting across a table with my great-grandfather and we were just sitting there without talking to each other, but there was a song in the background and it felt like he was playing it to see if I could hear the song or not.
Then when he was aware that I could hear the song, the dream just ended. When I woke up I remembered the song, I recorded it on my phone, straight to the studio but after recording the song I realized that it was just me and him in the dream. And in other dreams, when the song is meant for The Soil there’s Buhle in the dream, if a song is meant for Vusi Nova, I’ll see Vusi Nova in the dream and this time it was just me, and when I acknowledged that fact I froze because I realized it was time, it was time for my solo album.”
Although Ngxanga is adamant that he will never leave The Soil, the mellifluous vocalist is set to release his debut album titled ‘I write what I dream’, which is a play on Steve Biko’s ‘I write what I like’, connecting to his prophetic dreams, he gets candid about his life story.
“It’s not just a compilation of track one until twelve, it’s a story, my personal story... I’m not big on social media, I always live in the moment and find my joy when I’m with my family, and I thought that really as an artist I have to give a piece of myself and if there is something that I want people to know about, it’s my family, the spiritual relationship that I have with music and this dynamic relationship that I have with God.
All of that is in that album, I can’t wait for people to swim in that story, it will listen like an autobiography, it will hit people like a prayer and fit it seamlessly into people's lives, and trust me, the birth rate will just skyrocket after my album because people will make love to these songs, make babies to these songs.”
With his album dropping early next year, Ntsika Ngxanga, launched his solo career by releasing his first single, Awundiva, as a solo artist featuring award-winning singer, Vusi Nova :“I’ve written songs for him, his first single ‘ndizakulinda’ I wrote that for him, we’ve always had a strong musical connection, and I feel he is more than just a brother to me, he belongs in my creative tribe and I thought let me just share this moment with him.”
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Main image credit: instagram.com/@ntsikamusic