DJ Merlon dreams BIG
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IKE Merlin the Magician, SA s own DJ Merlon created magic with the festive hit Koze Kuse.
The vibey house track, which caught on like wild fire had the whole of SA jiving, from young to old, literally until the morning.
The man responsible for this euphoria is none other than DJ Merlon, whose real name is Sibusiso Mhlongo.
The song which has changed his life has also earned him an unprecedented nomination for Best hit single at the 14th Annual Metro FM Awards taking place later this month.
On December 31, almost every radio station played my song,” he says excitedly.
People are referring to it as the next Nkalakatha song as it has managed to penetrate the predominately white radio stations. I have clips from parties with white only crowds in Cape Town dancing to my song. I’m receiving compliments beyond the boundaries of Mzansi, from Angola to the UK/Ireland. And to think it was a track we released just as a single...but it has exploded.”
DJ Merlon is no apprentice in the music industry. He has worked with Zakes Bantwini and L’vovo Derango as an executive producer since 2006.
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Born on August 7, 1984, the Durban boy always wanted to make music. But like many DJs before him, his parents did not see this as a lucrative career.
My passion was to be a DJ but my parents didn’t approve of me studying music. They were concerned about what I was gonna do next. I said I would sing. To them people just sing. They would ask: Why do you need a university to teach you how to sing’,” he says.
He does not only spin the decks, he can sing opera too.
I believe everyone can sing opera since it requires a skill and can be taught, unlike other music that requires talent. I used to sing in a school choir till Grade 7. My uncle used to motivate me to sing. I used to sing great tenor.”
After completing high school, he went on to study Operations Management against his will at the then Durban University of Technology (DUT).
I wasn’t knowledgeable when it comes to DJ schools. I thought the intricacies of the equipment requires one to have a university degree to be able to use the DJ equipment.
When I arrived at DUT in 2002, Zakes Bantwini and Mondli Ngcobo were seniors in music studies. Because they were doing what I wasn t allowed to do (music), I became friends with them. We started organising beauty pageants and gigs at varsity,” he says.
Bantwini started his record label Mayonie Production in 2006, and invited him to come in as an artist manager.
I also helped on the technical side with ideas. I left Zakes’s record label in 2008, L’vovo followed and approached me to join his own record label, Derango Records, and I was responsible for managing the label and was the executive producer on his albums,” he says.
But the determined 30-year-old wanted his own music heard. He dropped an album called
two years ago. Sadly, it didn’t do well.
But that was way back before success with Koze Kuse.
Around this time, he adopted the name Merlon. He says L’vovo came up with the moniker because his ears were as big as the cartoon character’s.
I used to experiment with beats while Mondli freestyled. He had been performing at live gigs for a while. He would freestyle while I played with beats. We noted that people went crazy. That’s how Koze Kuse came about. The freestyle track became famous. At gigs people started asking for it. DJs and radio stations did the same. We used elements from DJ Mizz track. It was an old song that he worked on in 2009 that didn’t take off.
We sampled 20% and put in our 80% in arrangement. We left it for a while, he says.
It wasn’t until DJ Black Coffee came along to convince DJ Merlon that he was sitting on gold.
We asked him to listen to the track and shortly after the track started playing he said this was the song of the year. He asked why were we not putting it on the radio. We told him we weren’t convinced it was ready. I guess we needed that extra push. He came back the following Monday, listened properly, added his touch to the song and we knew it was ready. Radio stations began requesting it. Fortunately, I have experience in distributing music. Within two weeks the song was playing all over. By mid-October it was playing at major commercial radio stations, he says.
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Within a space of two months DJ Merlon had the biggest record labels approaching him all wanting a piece of the pie.
Universal said, We can’t afford to have such talent on the streets, we need to create a stable foundation and support’. So now I’m doing a promo tour of my EP which carries six tracks. My journey has been so surprising that within two months my life completely changed and it will never be the same. I am a happy man,” he says. He is confident that when the complete album is released every track will be a killer.
There ll be none of that skipping business. I want people to struggle to take the CD out of their players. They must play it on repeat.
I want my music to give people a happy feeling and to heal them in a way. Someone sent me a message saying I healed them from depression.”
Although most people still think he isn’t made for the DJing industry and try to convince him that he is a one-hit wonder, DJ Merlon insists he is here to stay.
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