GIVE ME A MIC AND I’LL DELIVER

Her dad told her: “You weren’t the prettiest thing.” She says: “I looked like a boy.” Now she tells me: “I’m happy being a sex symbol. Why do people get freaked out about telling a woman she’s beautiful?” I ask her if she thinks she is. “Yes, but give me a mic and I’ll deliver.”

Then she jumps up and ducks behind a pillar because she doesn’t want someone to see her. She smiles apologetically and you want to poke your finger in her dimples. Her innocence makes her dangerous.

“I like writing man-eater songs. I can say things when I sing that I can’t in everyday life. Few things shock me.”

She wrote “Amy died today” in her diary of her idol Amy Winehouse. “Some musicians can’t get on stage without taking a line of coke. I never want to get there. I don’t want to die young.”

Her usual reticence is gone when she says: “In SA, we don’t like to be stirred; we like our wors. Many local artists are caught up in their own hype when they’d be ignored overseas. We don’t give underground musicians a chance. Radio stations don’t want to play some of my tracks because they’re too different.

“I know I’m young but all I’m asking is for people to be open to me as an artist. I’ve pushed the envelope. Maybe that’s why things didn’t work out with the Samas. Being provocative isn’t a bad thing.”

She makes finishing touches to the painting, signs it “Chi”, and asks me: “Would you like it?”

It’s a woman’s face. I ask her what she sees in it. She pauses, thinking. “Do you see there, how she merges with the background? I guess you could say she’s becoming comfortable with her surroundings.”