Siphe Tebeka

Siphe grew up in Gugulethu, Cape Town, where he discovered the need for music education in the townships. He further got involved as both an artist and went on to be a lecturer at NGO Music school, ‘Bridges for Music’, based in Langa. Through this collaboration his career grew,  which saw him perform at  Awakenings Festival and Tomorrowland, release music on ‘Be An Ape’ and ‘Get Physical Music’. A grand step now as he joins the Kunye Family which promises to connect South African talent to the global audience of electronic music. This starts with French Duo, Mozaïk take on the remix of the original song ’Ndiyekene’ with the haunting vocals of award-winning Toshi, who has been previously hailed as Traxsource no 1 Afro House Vocalist in the world. The EP has already picked up early support from Black Coffee, DJ T, Djeff Afrozilla, Sef Kombo, Stereo MC’s and more. DMCWORLD gets a mouth watering world exclusive with the main man…

 

Siphe a huge welcome to DMCWORLD! What first inspired you to get into the music industry?

Thank you DMCWORLD for having me! I grew up playing games and I used to get home and basically do nothing after school. A friend of mine (Thando Tilela) used to make music and he gave me the software to learn – I enjoyed playing around with sounds and I decided to make my own music so I could play my own sounds.

What was the next step?

As mentioned above, Thando used to produce hip hop and I used to watch him produce. I decided on the genre of electronic music for myself and started at the begininng of 2007. In the township there were few people into electronic music and so I was happy I was doing something different so I wasn’t following trends.

How would you describe your musical style?

Aaah, what a question! I just make music, I don’t really listen to trending music. I like fusing different sounds and I always try to do something that has not been done before. For instance, I like doing afro house and fusing it with the European sound. Yeah!

What inspired the Ndiyekeni EP?

Amazingly the songs were recorded 6 years ago but I didn’t know what to do with the projectback then. Last year I decided to revisit the project and I removed the whole instrumental and started afresh. And yes, I am really happy with the release!

Buy link: https://platoon.lnk.to/ndiyekeni-edit

How did your relationship with the vocalist Toshi come about?

Toshi came to my studio where I played her some of my tunes and she loved them. I loved her unique voice and so she sent two songs (vocals) to work on. She didn’t like the first version I sent her (this was in 2015) and then last year I sent her a new version…and she LOVED it.

What does your average studio session look like?

My studio session are tricky as I don’t work if I don’t have an inspiration or drive. I can sometimes spend two hours in the studio and complete a song.  Sometimes it’s two weeks and sometimes it’s a year! It really depends on the mood, but when I’m sad I make good music hahaha!

Who would you most like to collaborate with?

Hmmm. In South Africa definitely Culoe De Song, Ryan Murgatroyd, Then Internationally, Olivier Giacommoto, Stimming and Ben Böhmer.

What would your ideal lineup be?

Culoe De Song, Ryan Murgatroyd, Olivier Giacommoto, Stimming, Ben Böhmer, Super Flu, Art Bat and Adriatique.

How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music business?

Well, piracy is affecting the profits and some websites are benefiting by running ads and softwares are easy to get through piracy. Which means of course that the music and software sales are dropping.

Which skills do you think are essential to focus on when you’re first starting out as a music producer?

I think I have the basic understanding of the software and a little bit of music theory. I spend time learning new stuff before producing songs – for instance in 2019 I spent a full year not producing any songs, just learning a software…

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