Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Sleepless Delazy rocks on African tour
IN THE past six weeks, Toya Delazy has barely managed to get in a good night’s sleep.
The singer has been rehearsing or performing in front of thousands of fans around the continent.
She has also had little to no privacy on her Rocking the City tour, and has had to make do with living out of a suitcase for the past month and a half.
Despite all of this, Delazy still manages to crack a smile.
“Being on the road for a lengthy amount of time is draining,” says Delazy, whose real name is Latoya Nontokozo.
“You eventually feel the need for down time and privacy. And there’s quite a lot of partying, especially with this team of mine. We don’t sleep a lot.”
For the past six weeks Delazy has been on tour of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya and Namibia, with South Africa last night.
“It was really crazy to travel everywhere, but I loved it.
“We were welcomed so warmly in each country. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I would, in a heartbeat.”
She adds: “And I’d probably stay a little longer in Zanzibar, and add Lesotho, Swaziland, Ghana and Nigeria.”
The 26 year old also reveals her disappointment at not being able to perform in Botswana. “Unfortunately, it got postponed,” says Delazy, who was to have toured seven African countries.
That, however, didn’t take any shine off her highly successful tour, she says. In the countries she did perform, she got rave reviews.
But it was Zanzibar that stole a part of her heart. “Zanzibar was really great. The concert was a full moon party, on the beach, with about 5 000 people partying all night. I could do that every weekend.
“Zambia was also crazy. Windhoek had an amazing stage, sound and lighting too. Every country I went to had something special.”
The R&B superstar set out to tour Africa in the build-up to her latest album, to be released early next year.
“I haven’t even named my album yet. I keep on changing the name each time I write a new track,” she says.
“Right now I must have about 50 songs ready on my laptop and they’re all so different, so I need to sit down with my team and see how on earth we’re going to release this.”
She says her fans can expect a whole lot of different genres mixed to gether, including jazz, electronic, hiphop and punk. “Some might like it, some might hate it. I’m expecting very mixed reviews.”
For now though, she is hoping to find a bit of free time to spend with family in KwaZulu-Natal.