Beauty with a sweet voice

EVEN judge Lira looked a bit jealous when the sexy Zoë Mtila took to the stage with her chocolaty voice on Sunday. When she sang Alicia Keys’

If I Ain ’ t Got You, many viewers of The Voice admitted she gave them goose bumps.

But the 23-year-old panicked when none of the coaches turned during her performance. It took the last note of the song for Bobby van Jaarsveld to notice.

Mtila says it would have been devastating to be given a ticket to go home as she is used to winning in life.

“When I realised that the coaches weren’t turning, the fight in me kicked in. My journey home just flashed before my eyes, thinking of the bad news I was going to have to share with my loved ones. I knew my time was now.” Born in Port Elizabeth, Mtila says she loved everything about the performing arts while growing up.

She was head of the choir and a junior conductor at Riebeek College Girls’ High School in Uitenhage, where her choir won a national competition with a traditional song composed by her grandfather.

At 15 she was selected as part of top-five contestants of Disney’s popular High School Musical.

“My dad and I would bond over Ringo and Joyous Celebration. Music became a passion during my highschool years. I used to obsess over choir practice; I was always the first one at practice and the last one to leave, ” she recalls.

She recently joined entertainment company Centrestage where she spends her time doing corporate gigs.

The Eastern Cape beauty is reading towards her B Comm Accounting at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

“As much as music was my passion, my parents were not supportive of me studying it further. If I was going to pursue music I needed to have a plan B, that’s why I am studying accounting.”

She earned a top spot in the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) Student Leadership Summit in 2011 and won the Miss Varsity Cup in 2014.

“I realise that I can achieve anything that I put my mind to.”

Catch The Voice SA on M-Net today at 5pm.