Divine intervention leads down streets to success
Fonseca arrived in SA when he was a tweenie.
“I arrived here in 1995 and my parents were both in hospitality. My dad had a job at the Fish River Sun in the Eastern Cape.
“I remember seeing a black person for the first time and he was playing with a rugby ball. I ran to my mother and said: ‘Please, let’s go home because they make horrible balls here’.
“I am close to my mother. My dad used to hit my mother and she always had a plastic bag of linen. If it got bad she would take me to the park and make a tent and tell me that tonight we are camping. Some nights we would stay out the entire night.
“I didn’t have a particularly traumatic childhood. My mother eventually left my dad and opened her own fine dining restaurant in Port Alfred by the river.
“I used to do concerts for my mother and her friends. I called myself the Junior Bee Gees and used to charge R5 entry and my mother would cook dinner. I also had these two Afrikaans boys who were my props. They would just stand there with their guitars, nothing more.”
His love for soul and house music began when he was 13, influenced by artists such as Marvin Gaye.
“Soul music just triggered with me. I actually do acoustic soul.”
This acoustic soul manifested itself in the J Something Band. The memory causes him to grin: “Yeah, we were famous in Port Alfred.”
Soul Candi owner Sergio Potelho picked up a demo and on a visit to the Eastern Cape demanded J Something leave with him the next day for Jozi. And the rest is history.
“He believed in me so much. I met Dr Doda through my work at (record label) Soul Candi. Sergio thought I was going to be the biggest artist there. Now Mi Casa is the biggest artist they have ever had.”
J Something is quiet for a while, then says thoughtfully: “Now that Mi Casa is here, it is the greatest joy I have ever had.”