THE DANCE FLOOR QUEEN

DJ Zinhle

With 11 years’ experience in the industry, a massive club following and a chart-topping single My Name Is on her resumé, Zinhle Jiyane, 32, seems to have been destined for a career as a DJ. But this wasn’t how things looked at first.

“I’m from an academic family – both of my parents are teachers – so the last career I ever imagined for myself was DJing,” Zinhle recalls. “I studied marketing at Wits Technikon and my routine was go to class, come home and study. I didn’t party and the truth is that I only first visited a nightclub after completing my final exams in 2004!”

After graduating, Zinhle interned in the Clarins marketing department, and in the evenings helped her brother Zakhele who had started a business hiring out sound equipment. “He was the one who taught me how to mix.”

Zinhle was helping her brother set up for a house party when fate intervened. “The DJ ran late and it seemed like a good idea for me to step up to the decks,” she says. “The bug bit and I was soon DJing at other parties and events at the same time as I was working as a brand rep for SAB.”

Shortly after that, Zinhle made it on to the TV dance show-Jika Majika and joined YFM, courtesy of the popular compilation Oskido’s Church Grooves.

“By 2008, I was able to quit my job and move to DJing full time,” she says.