Music is my inspiration

When I first came to Johannesburg from Venda, in the 1970s, I worked as a domestic worker. I cooked and did the gardening. When the homeowners sold the house, the new owners asked me to stay on. In those days, you needed to work for 10 years before you could even apply for another job elsewhere.

But the new owner asked me to work in his record store. He had a shop in Rosebank, before the mall was built. The store was called The Turntable.

He said he wanted me to work there because, with my style of dress and my Afro, people would think I was American and more customers would be drawn to the store.

In those days, we used to wear bellbottoms and platform shoes, which I liked. White girls would often run up to me saying I looked just like [popular local musician] Richard Jon Smith.

I started working there as a cleaner and also ran errands but whenever a cool song would play, I would write down the name of the song and the artist. That’s how I ended up learning about music.

One day the owner asked me to play music for the store, because he wanted to hear what my musical taste was like. The store’s music was played over the main speaker system and we had a speaker outside. That day, when I played my music — I loved Barry White, The Commodores, Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye — passers-by started coming into the store and asking what music was playing.

I remember feeling: “Wow, I am playing really good music; I am making people happy.”

From that day on, I was the shop’s bestselling salesperson.

To this day, I love music. Whenever you play music, all your stress just goes away. Even if you’re alone and you just play some really good music, you’ll be happy. Just for that moment, you’ll be happy. Music, my brother, makes people very happy. —