Double the career pleasure as singing doctor does balancing act
DESPITE his mother once telling him “my son, you cannot sing”, a Kwazulu-natal doctor saves lives by day and cooks up a musical storm by night.
Yanga Yaya is his stage name, but to patients, Dr Yanga Andrew Madlala is the name on his doctor’s coat.
The young doctor completed his community service in Msinga at the Church of Scotland Hospital,and is now working as an independent medical practitioner at the TB and HIV Association, an NGO in Cape Town.
Madlala says he chose medicine because he wanted to help the most vulnerable in rural communities.
“When I was 16, mom and I spoke about me entering Idols and she said pointedly to my face ‘but mntanami awukwazi ukucula (but my son, you cannot sing)’,” he says.
“I was hurt, but also very determined to prove her wrong.
“I was a dancer and a performer from a young age. My mom would enter me in competitions and force me to go on stage to dance.
“I’d be so scared until the music started playing. Then I’d dance. Everyone would applaud. That’s how I gained confidence.”
Madlala’s song Desire has featured on Channel O. In the video, Yanga Yaya sings and dances alongside fellow doctor Muzi Mazibuko to their contemporary dance music.
The Mthatha-born doctor wanted to study performing arts after school, but his parents objected, wanting him to study something “more reliable”.
He says he always had an interest in medicine, the human anatomy and healing, and had got good marks in science at school.
“So I guess becoming a doctor made sense,” says Madlala, who graduated at the University of Kwazulu-natal’s Nelson R Mandela Medical School in 2013.
Madlala, who considers himself a Durbanite after moving to the city when he was 8 years old, says he grew up looking up to artists such as Usher, Janet Jackson, Arthur Mafokate and the kwaito group Boom Shaka.
He says his passion for music is costing him sleep, but he doesn’t plan to quit his medical practice.
“I’ve studied for seven years; I’ve put most of my life into that degree so I can’t throw it away because I’m capable of balancing both.”
Madlala is working on an album which he hopes to release this year.
He says that if he could choose favourite musicians to work with, it would be difficult to pick between Shekhinah, Nonku Phiri, Prince Kaybee and Black Coffee. Follow the Sunday Tribune on Facebook,twitter and Instagram: @Sundaytribunesa