Panache Boyz have stepped onto the music scene with nothing but goals and a dream to become one of the best house music duos in the country. Quite a difficult title to win considering that there are the likes of Black Motion, Twinz on Deck, and Major League DJ's already gripping the nation. However, as the saying goes: there are enough pieces of the pie to go around.
Our street journalist, Itumeleng Phiri, managed to get a hold of the gentlemen and find out who the people behind the music are.
For those who might be reading this and not know about you, please give us an intro on who the Panache Boyz are?
Panache Boyz is a DJ duo consisting of MlaMza and Mzu. We initially met at the UKZN Campus Radio as radio presenters while still students back then at the University, we then moved to JHB from DBN after graduating and played separately as individual DJs.
In 2012, we collaborated and started a weekly event called Panache Thursdays. Months later we started getting bookings together as DJs from the success of Panache Thursdays, this naturally progressed to the inception of Panache Boyz as a DJ duo. In 2013, we started experimenting with making music and dropped our first single Dreamer. Later this the year, we plan to drop our debut album, titled Panache Music Escapades.
You both have great educational backgrounds. What made you decide to pursue the music industry instead of pushing on with the education and getting into the corporate world?
We both multi-tasked between music and academics in varsity - MlaMza had a House Music Show on our Campus Radio Station and started being a House DJ while Mzu had a Hip-Hop Music Show and was a Rapper. We both pushed on with our academics and after we both graduated, we became full-time club DJs and at the same time got into the corporate world and perused our corporate professions full-time. For now, we still do both the music and the corporate grind full-time until both our own individual businesses ventures take off.
After being booked for a lot of the same gigs and always bumping into each other, why did it take so long to get together officially?
Becoming a duo is kinda like getting into any partnership, it took a lot of gelling together and together shaping the vision of how we saw the music scene and how we wanted to present ourselves now as a duo musically to the scene.
How did it feel when Dreamer started making waves in the country? Did you put it together thinking “this will be a hit”?
It was the greatest surprise of all. Never in our wildest imagination did we ever think that our first ever attempt to music would do so well. We were never ready for it... honestly!
What’s the key to being a successful DJ duo? Is it because you have the same musical style and taste, or do your differences help you guys blend together better?
We have a lot of similarities in terms of our vision for the music. However, our personalities are still different and striking a good balance between the two and never restricting each other has resulted in a great blend of styles and has worked very well for us.
The duo closed off by mentioning that they draw a lot of inspiration from the likes of Black Coffee, and that their plans for the rest of 2015 include dropping a new single, which is to be titled Angel. They'll also be releasing their debut album, Panache Music Escapades, which is to be released under their own record company, Panache Entertainment. And just when we thought that was just about it, the duo is also working on doing Panache Events soon.
Image credit: Supplied
