After conquering Zimbabwe’s music scene and achieving nearly all his goals at home, contemporary musician, Jah Prayzah (real name Mukudzei Mukombe) has set his sights on the rest of Africa, where other stars, such as Diamond Platnumz, Cassper Nyovest and Davido, are making waves.
For Jah Prayzah, music is a business and he has set up his own record label, Military Touch Movement, which, along with himself, has signed the artists Andy Muridzo, Tahle Wedzinza, Nutty O and EX-Q.
“I have always dreamed of doing my work in a professional manner. I can’t treat my music as a tuck-shop business where we meet in the street and someone pays,” he says.
Although he could not reveal details, Jah Prayzah says he is working on something to invest in outside music just in case he wakes up one day “without a voice”.
He is known for wearing army uniform and his fans call him the Shona name ‘Musoja’, the soldier in English. Aptly, he says he handles his music with military precision, viewing himself as a commander of the troops of instrumentalists, producers and fellow artists under his stable.
“I always wanted to be a soldier and at one time I applied and they invited me for training but that was when I started to do shows so I could not carry on with my dream to be in the military,” he says.
In 2016, Jah Prayzah was awarded the MTV Africa Music Awards in the Listeners Choice category and says he was overcome with joy.
“For the first time in my adult life, I felt like crying,” he says.
In 2017, he was nominated for the Best African Artist Award at the South African Music Awards alongside fellow Zimbabwean artist, Oliver Mtukudzi. Both lost out to Nigerian musician Patoranking.
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Back home, Jah Prayzah has amassed more than 20 awards, such as the Zimbabwe Music Awards and the prestigious National Arts and Merit Awards. The awards and growing airplay on music channel Trace Africa have boosted his confidence to spread his music to other countries.
“In Zimbabwe I have tried and I have achieved everything I wanted to. Right now I want to spread my music to every corner of Africa and then to every corner of the world. That’s why here and there, there is a change in sound; I want to make music that cuts across most African countries,” he says.
In Africa he has been well received after he performed at the Bushfire Festival in Swaziland earlier this year. In Mozambique, he was shocked “to see that there are people who support me” to such lengths. He has also been to Tanzania where he has recorded duets with Diamond Platnumz and Harmonize.
Jah Prayzah has more than 177,000 likes on his Facebook fan page and says almost half of his social media followers are from Tanzania owing to the popularity gained on the back of his duet with Diamond Platnumz.
He has also collaborated with Mafikizolo on the song Sendekera and the artists have a second song which is yet to be released. Jah Prayzah has also worked with Botswana’s Vee Mampeezy, Namibia’s Boss Madam and Uganda’s Eddy Kenzo.
But, it is not always easy to get hold of Africa’s top artists and convince them to work together.
“It is more difficult to get hold of other African artists when you are still pushing your name. I wanted to collaborate with them a long time back,” says Jah Prayzah.
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This has changed since he won awards got good reviews back home. He says this makes it easier for him to sit down with other African artists and discuss music business.
A recent collaboration with Davido has seen Jah Prayzah get airplay across the continent. But does it come at a cost and do Africa’s top artists require a payment for collaborations?
“With Davido, Diamond Platnumz and Mafikizolo, we did not pay any money. The only money we use is for work such as videos. It’s all about networking and building relationships,” he says.
The heavy workload can take its toll. He recalls when he had to perform at three shows on the same day as his sister’s wedding and he almost lost his eyesight.
“At one of the shows there was a light and we came back and I was asking my guys why there is smoke here and they laughed at me. Even driving home it was cloudy,” he says.
“The following day my eyesight became problematic as the day progressed and I partially lost my eyesight. [It was so bad] that I could not clearly identify people. I then went to see my doctor and he helped me and said it’s because of the lighting. I have never been so set aback in my life.”
Jah Prayzah says balancing performances, his heavy travel schedule, collaborations and family is “super hectic” but he is always guided by his ethos of hard work and his refusal to limit his dreams.
“I always aim higher, but sometimes it’s painful when I have to travel a lot and also balance family. I still want more awards.”
As we conclude the interview, he smiles and says it’s not easy to build an African music brand. He’s giving it his best shot and believes he is on the right path, especially when he sees the growing support across borders.
At home, fans demand their unique Zimbabwean sound while the rest of Africa has its own beat. With his most recent album, Kutonga Kwaro, he had to compromise between the different sounds.
It’s all part of building a legacy across the continent – after all, he’s not selling sweets in a small shop. &#8211; Written by Tawanda Karombo

Jah Prayzah: My Music Is Not A Tuck-Shop Business

Ask an American what type of vehicle they prefer and most will say &#8220;SUV&#8221; or &#8220;crossover.&#8221; Increasingly that&#8217;s true around the globe, too. With more fuel-efficient engines and lots of flexibility, utility vehicles are fast becoming the world&#8217;s favorite family car.
SUV sales rose 12% globally in 2017, outpacing the overall industry, which rose 3%. Traditional passenger car sales, meanwhile, fell 2%, according to industry consultant LMC Automotive. And that trend&#8217;s been happening for a while: Since 2013, SUV sales are up 87% and car sales are down 8%, says LMC.
The market shift is unmistakable, but for now, at least, small, economical sedans still outsell SUVs on a worldwide basis.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/10/13/honed-honda/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Honed Honda</a>
The most popular car in the world &#8211; of all time, in fact, &#8211; is the Toyota Corolla, with more than 43 million units sold worldwide since 1966. It&#8217;s built at 16 plants worldwide, including Toyota plants in Mississippi and Canada. Toyota sold 1,160,495 units of the efficient and reliable compact in 2017, easily beating the Honda Civic and Volkswagen Golf, ranked 2nd and 3rd, which sold 833,017 and 788,044 vehicles, respectively, according to LMC data.
But it&#8217;s worth noting that an SUV, Toyota&#8217;s RAV4, almost broke into the top three with global sales of 786,580 units. Two other SUVs, the Honda CR-V and Ford Escape, also made the top 10. Ford&#8217;s F-Series pickups were also among the top sellers, primarily due to their popularity in North America.
&#8220;Globally, small cars still win when you look at the volume because they dominate many markets,&#8221; said Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of global forecasting at LMC. But the growth of SUVs is a worldwide trend that&#8217;s picking up steam. &#8220;Back in 2013 when we did this, there were only four SUVs in the top 20. In 2017, that number grew to seven and we see continued growth ahead.&#8221;
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/10/02/concept-car-captivates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Concept Car That Captivates</a>
Other SUVs in the Top 20 include the Nissan Qashqai (No. 12), Hyundai Tuscon (No. 16), Volkswagen Tiguan (No. 17) and China&#8217;s Great Wall Motors&#8217; Haval H6 (No. 20).
Click <a href="https://www.forbes.com/pictures/5a539935a7ea431690104625/the-worlds-best-selling-c/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> for a full list of the world&#8217;s 20 most popular vehicles. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Joann Muller</a>, FORBES STAFF

The World’s Most Popular Cars In 2017 Included Fewer Cars, More SUVs

FORBES AFRICA is slightly early for the interview and photoshoot at the SA Culinary Club in Bryanston, Johannesburg. The owner tells us the chef is running a bit late and, also, that he didn’t take him seriously when he walked in one day wearing shorts asking to cook for them.
He finally arrives in jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers looking young and far from the fat chef one would expect. He is short and slim and has cooked for everyone, from Jay-Z to the president of Nigeria.
As we begin our conversation, he jokes that every article on him starts in Soweto; a vibrant township south of Johannesburg where he was born and bred. He grew up in different parts of South Africa, going to different schools, but in his early teenage years he knew he loved the kitchen.
Chef Wandile Mabaso, South Africa’s French cuisine ambassador, cooked his first meal for his family at the age of 14. His father didn’t understand, nor approve, of him being a chef because at the time it wasn’t a job for black people. The misnomer faded and Mabaso started traveling; exploring and making money cooking.
“After high school I went to a hotel school; did a hotel degree. I found myself a job on a small private cruise ship in the Mediterranean. So I spent a lot of time in Italy, around Scandinavia, Barcelona, Monaco,” he recalls.
It was Mabaso’s first time outside of South Africa and he didn’t know what to expect, but he was in his early 20s and very excited. On his return, Mabaso furthered his studies and went for a culinary degree where he was offered a job in the United States while studying. He didn’t look back and went straight to Miami, where he spent 18 months and from there headed to New York, where he was trained in classical French cuisine. He has worked for many famous French chefs and was mentored by the world-famous Chef Olivier Reginensi.
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Mabaso was more eager and passionate than the rest of the class when cooking; trying new things was his ideology. He stood out and was handpicked over the other chefs who were more shy, unsure or scared.
“I worked at Daniel, I worked at Le Bernardin, which are all two-star, three-star Michelin restaurants, at least top 20 in the world. I worked in a whole lot of high-end places in Manhattan, probably all these restaurants are at least in the top 50 in the world,” he says.
<div id="attachment_34938" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34938" class=" wp-image-34938" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Chef-Wandile-Mabaso-1-e1515483290853-300x200.jpg" alt="Chef Wandile Mabaso Beyonce Paris" width="500" height="333" />Chef Wandile Mabaso (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
When he cooks, it’s professional; it’s rare for him to cook the same dish again. His training made him creative.
He has cooked for Jay-Z, Beyoncé, presidents and NBA stars in Paris.
“People are fascinated by cooking for celebrities, for me it means nothing, in a sense we’re all people, whether you a celebrity or a guy helping park cars. Chances are people like Beyoncé just like fried chicken and the average guy has a better palate than Jay-Z. It doesn’t mean cooking for Jay-Z is the ultimate person to cook for. I’m not about showing off,” says Mabaso with a straight face.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/08/04/pots-pans-passion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Pots, Pans And Passion</a>
There’s a culture of collecting knives among chefs in New York. Before Mabaso left the Big Apple for Paris, he was gifted with a Misono knife (handcrafted Japanese chef&#8217;s knives), by Chef Reginensi, engraved with his name. The knife is worth $420.52 and he treasures it.
In 2017, Mabaso was in partnership with <a href="https://carrolboyes.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Carrol Boyes</a>; a renowned cutlery and crockery artist and designer. He served all his food on Carrol Boyes plates on a sold-out tour he took across South Africa.
“I would have a class where I would invite junior chefs or students and show cooking techniques. From there I’d choose one, two or three kids to come work with me for the dinner. At the end we put out a bursary where I choose two from the whole tour to go work in Paris at a three-star Michelin restaurant,” he says.
The tour ended in Cape Town and two learners will be undergoing French speaking lessons for three months with the French Institute of South Africa and the French Embassy before leaving, and will be funded by Mabaso and other chefs in France.
Next, Mabaso will be collaborating with a South African artist on a cutlery and crockery range. The artist will work on the plate and Mabaso will serve on it in 2018.
“It’s art and food combined.”
Mabaso was out of the country for nine years and missed traditional South African food. Tripe is one of his favorite childhood memories and he says he prefers street food over haute cuisine. He doesn’t like Johannesburg’s central business district because there is “no sanitation, no cleanliness and you can’t cook like that,” he says.
“The best I have experienced is a falafel in Paris, it’s just this place man. They sell shawarmas for 10 euros but there’s always a line, sometimes about 800 meters long, every day, and it&#8217;s Algerian guys doing it in Paris.”
Mabaso started in Soweto, traveled and cooked for VIPs globally. Now he’s back in South Africa, sharing his skills with younger chefs, and hopes to have long queues outside his restaurant one day.

The Chef Who Cooked For Beyoncé In Paris

If you close your eyes, you may remember this. It was a historic moment for Africa’s film industry. For the second time, a South African film stood a chance to win an Oscar. Millions anxiously glued to their TVs, crossing fingers in hope. With a white envelope in hand, American actor Will Smith took to the stage. Without hesitation, he announced Tsotsi as the winner of the Best Foreign Language Film award in 2006.
The Kodak Theatre in Hollywood was packed with the who’s who of America’s film industry. You could see Terry Pheto, a newcomer in the industry who played Miriam in the film, clap her hands and sigh in relief as director Gavin Hood accepted the award. History had been made and Pheto’s life was never to be the same.
For Pheto, this was a world away from the streets of Evaton, the township 50 kilometers south of Johannesburg, where she was born on May 11, 1981. Here, she found her love for acting.
“My love for acting came from the love of storytelling. My grandmother was the best storyteller and I looked forward to story time every evening. My cousin, Siya, even nicknamed me storyteller because I also started telling stories like my grandmother,” says Pheto.
It didn’t end there.
Pheto says she knew she wanted to tell stories for a living. At the age of 20, she left home to study acting in Johannesburg. It was tough. She lived in a shack until she was 21. One day, while acting in community theater, she was discovered by Moonyeenn Lee, South Africa’s casting agent extraordinaire.
With a talented agent by her side, Pheto thought the road to stardom had finally arrived, yet she went to audition after audition for over a year and had no job.
“I had roles that had been offered before but they never worked out. Sometimes the filmmakers would decide to go a different direction,” she says.
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She was ready to pack her bags and go home when she received the script for Tsotsi.
“I am thankful that I trusted the process because I feel like God wanted me to be in Tsotsi which was my first film and was massive for my career. I was introduced to the industry by the right project.”
<div id="attachment_34890" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34890" class=" wp-image-34890" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Terry-Pheto-Tsotsi-e1513844140788-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />From left to right: Actor Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto and director Gavin Hood with the Oscar that Tsotsi won. (Photo by Getty Images)</div>
It was the perfect role for Pheto. Miriam is an attractive, young, single mother. She lost her husband, who was murdered on his way home from work. Despite her pain, she maintains her dignity and runs a small sewing business to support herself and her child.
It marked the rise of who many see as the leading lady of film in Africa. Everyone wanted a piece of her talent. International roles quickly trickled in.
In 2008, Pheto joined the list of beauties endorsing L’Oreal.  It set her as the first South African face for the cosmetics giant. She then left South Africa to try her luck in Hollywood. It was the right decision. She landed a recurring role as Dr Malaika Maponya on The Bold and the Beautiful, an American soap opera watched by 35 million people every day.
“I got a call from the SABC and I thought it was a joke… Because I didn’t audition for the role, the role was given to me… It was such an honor to work with people who have been doing this for such a long time and being chosen was dream come true for me,” she says.
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Pheto says working on a soap was a culture shock. She was used to films where there is more time to work. On a soap there are multi cameras and everything is done at lightning speed.
Her acting career was progressing just as quickly.
In 2017, Pheto also became the first South African to play Winnie Mandela, a character that has been played by American singer and actress, Jennifer Hudson, London-born Sophie Okonedo and Naomie Harris, an award-winning Cambridge University educated actress. These are big shoes to fill, but Pheto nailed the role in the miniseries, Madiba.
Pheto says she always felt like she knew Winnie Mandela, even before she met her because of how people admired her. In preparation for the role, she read books and watched interviews and documentaries of the struggle icon.
“Playing Mam’ Winnie Mandela has always been my ultimate dream. She is powerful and remains a beacon of hope considering all she has been through. …I have met her before but Mam’ Winnie hasn’t been too well so I couldn’t spend time with her to prepare for this role. There is no greater blessing than living your dream. I am very lucky to be doing what I love,” she says.
<div id="attachment_34891" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34891" class=" wp-image-34891" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Terry-Pheto_JC-200x300.jpg" alt="Terry Pheto" width="300" height="450" />Terry Pheto (Photo by Jay Caboz)</div>
At home and abroad, this leading lady always steals the show. Hard work mixed with talent has won her more awards than we can count.
This September, she added two international accolades, at International Achievement Recognition Awards (IARA Awards) in London, to the list. She was the biggest winner of the night bringing home the Best Actress 2017 award for her role in A United Kingdom, and the Best Actress TV/ Drama 2017 for her role in Madiba.
“Both A United Kingdom and Madiba portray very important stories. Seeing these stories travel globally has been a beautiful journey. It has been an absolute honor to be in a position to have played strong characters in both roles. Mama Winnie Madikizela-Mandela for example is one of the strongest women I know. I’m in awe of her strength and resilience after all she’s been through. She inspires me to believe that I can overcome any obstacles or challenges in life and still remain human, kind and unshaken,” says Pheto.
A United Kingdom depicts the true story of Seretse Khama, Botswana’s first president.  Pheto plays his sister, Naledi Khama, alongside British-Nigerian actor, David Oyelowo, known for playing Martin Luther King Jr in the 2014 awarding winning movie, Selma.
Oyelowo is not the only international star Pheto has worked with. Among them, she counts Idris Elba on Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom.
“It was fun working with Idris. He is very humble and very talented,” she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2015/10/01/trailing-charlize-theron/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Trailing Charlize Theron?</a>
Pheto says her mind is always working in overdrive. It means she can wear many hats. In addition to her successful career in front of the camera, she is also an entrepreneur.
“I knew it is important to also be behind the scenes and know what happens there. I am able to produce and also act and do other things. You just have to surround yourself with the right people.”
Ten years after Tsotsi, Pheto produced her first film under her production company, Leading Lady Productions. The production company has just finished working on a short film shot in Los Angeles.
“I am working on developing enough content. There is a library of scripts I am going through for next year,” she says.
There is more.
This year, Pheto and her best friend, actress Mampho Brescia, cofounded, Let’s Learn Toys, an educational toys company to help prepare children to be leaders. Although not a mother yet, Pheto says, in a statement, she is a devoted aunt who tries to give children around her more than she had growing up. The company has 2,000 different toys for children between 12 months and 18 years.
Surely, there should be a secret to this success?
“One thing I learned from a very young age is to be humble and always respectful. These are the principles my mother and grandmother taught me and they were right because people can see through you. Working hard and everything else just adds to that,” she says.
Clearly, this is not the last we will see of Pheto.

Terry Pheto: From Community Theater To The World Stage

The Last Jedi grossed a staggering $450 million at the worldwide box office its opening weekend, but George Lucas won’t be cashing in—he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012 for $4.1 billion in cash and stock after decades of lofty annual hauls from the Star Wars franchise he created. Yet the force is still strong with his bank account: Lucas’ fortune now stands at $5.5 billion, making him America’s wealthiest celebrity.
Billion-dollar exits and money-spewing assets are part of the territory in the upper reaches of our list. Steven Spielberg (No. 2, $3.6 billion) has been a director for half a century, but saved one of his biggest highlights for last year with the $3.8 billion sale of DreamWorks Animation, the studio he cofounded. Oprah Winfrey (No. 3, $2.8 billion) continues to build her fortune through the OWN network but banked the bulk of her bucks from her years as a talk show host.
&#8220;What I learned in all of those thousands of interviews is that there is a common denominator in our human experience,&#8221; she once <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/moiraforbes/2012/09/18/oprah-winfrey-talks-philanthropy-failure-and-what-every-guest-including-beyonce-asks-her/#1b314e486bc0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> FORBES. &#8220;Everybody wants to know: &#8216;Did you hear me, and did what I say matter?'&#8221;
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/16/oprah-keeping-promise-made-mandela/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Oprah Keeping The Promise Made To Mandela</a>
All in all, America’s 10 wealthiest celebrities boast a combined fortune of $18 billion, up 7.8% from last year’s $16.7 billion. To compile our list, we looked at each candidate’s entire empire. We valued private company stakes by speaking with an array of experts and by considering public competitors; for publicly-traded companies, we used stock prices as of December 15, 2017.
For entertainers without private companies, we based our estimates on net lifetime earnings after taxes. Real estate, art and other assets were also factored in where applicable. Eligibility was limited to American citizens who’ve gotten rich off their fame, rather than become famous for their wealth (sorry, <a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/12/07/donald-trumps-real-estate-business-losing-one-important-tenants/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>).
This list includes a much more diverse range of names than other wealth rankings like our flagship Forbes 400: though just one of America’s 10 wealthiest celebrities is a woman, six of the figures are people of color. The list members’ areas of expertise range from Hollywood to sports to magic, and all have found ways of monetizing their respective corners of the entertainment business.
Michael Jordan (No. 4, $1.4 billion) earned $94 million on the court during his career, but has made $1.4 billion elsewhere, most notably Nike, which generates some $3 billion annually from his Jordan brand; the superstar’s 90% stake in the Charlotte Hornets has grown fourfold in value since 2010. David Copperfield rounds out the top five with a fortune of $875 million, accumulated by playing upwards of 600 shows in Las Vegas annually; his collection of more than 650,000 magical artifacts is the world’s largest.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/sport/2017/12/14/25-highest-paid-athletes-time/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The 25 Highest-Paid Athletes Of All Time</a>
Hip-hop is especially well-represented thanks to Diddy (No. 6, $820 million), Jay-Z (No. 7, $810 million) and Dr. Dre ($740 million), all of whom are among the youngest names on the list. Though all three got their start as artists, their empires now revolve around non-musical ventures like Diddy’s Revolt cable channel, Jay-Z’s Armand de Brignac champagne and Dr. Dre’s Beats headphones, sold to Apple for $3 billion in 2014 (for more, check out my upcoming book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kings-Diddy-Jay-Z-Hip-Hops-Multibillion-Dollar/dp/0316316539/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3 Kings</a>).
&#8220;They said we couldn&#8217;t start businesses outside of hip-hop,&#8221; Kendrick Lamar <a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/12/05/kendrick-lamar-conscious-capitalist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> FORBES earlier this year. &#8220;These are the three individuals that showed us [how].&#8221;
<h3>The 10 Richest Celebrities In America</h3>
<ol>
<li>George Lucas ($5.5 billion)</li>
<li>Steven Spielberg ($3.6 billion)</li>
<li>Oprah Winfrey ($2.8 billion)</li>
<li>Michael Jordan ($1.4 billion)</li>
<li>David Copperfield ($875 million)</li>
<li>Diddy ($820 million)</li>
<li>Jay-Z ($810 million)</li>
<li>Tiger Woods ($750 million)</li>
<li>Dr. Dre ($740 million)</li>
<li>James Patterson ($730 million)</li>
</ol>
&#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Zack O&#8217;Malley Greenburg</a>, FORBES STAFF

America’s Wealthiest Celebrities 2017: The Top 10 By Net Worth

Before regularly scoring six-figure nightly fees spinning thumpy electronic tunes, Zedd got his start playing classical music at age 4. He learned how to plan performances with meticulous detail, an ability that&#8217;s obvious in his carefully choreographed shows today, which feature less of the freewheeling song selection used by most popular DJs. &#8220;I see myself as an artist who presents a show,&#8221; says Zedd, who earned $19 million this year and $85 million over the past five. &#8220;It&#8217;s almost like when you go to the movies. You&#8217;re not going to buy your ticket and see a movie and, if you don&#8217;t like it, expect the movie to change in real time.&#8221;
Zedd has produced hits for Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga and released solo smashes like last year&#8217;s multiplatinum &#8220;Stay&#8221;- while becoming the anti-DJ of the DJ universe. To distinguish himself from competitors, he created a graphics-heavy live show that feels like watching a videogame projected onto a movie screen with a custom visual for each song. A cable runs from his computer to the front of the house, where a team of technicians makes sure everything syncs up, including the program&#8217;s lasers and pyrotechnics. &#8220;It used to be really cheap to make a show &#8211; I used to be able to keep all the money,&#8221; Zedd recalls. &#8220;Now the shows cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.&#8221;
As costs continue to escalate in a musical arms race, Zedd is flirting with the idea of reinventing the DJ model again by turning to something with which he&#8217;s very familiar: live instrumentation. &#8220;I think I will one day go unplugged.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_34829" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34829" class=" wp-image-34829" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Zedd-1-200x300.jpg" alt="Zedd DJ" width="300" height="450" />Zedd: He&#8217;s earned $85 million over the past five years at the height of the EDM boom. Just don&#8217;t call him a DJ (Photo by Jamel Toppin)</div>
Forbes senior editor Zack O&#8217;Malley Greenburg sat down with Zedd at the 30 Under 30 Summit in October. Here&#8217;s the interview for the first time, with a few light edits for clarity and brevity.
ZOG: The first time I interviewed you, about four years ago, you said, &#8220;You know, I don&#8217;t want to say I&#8217;ll be a producer, and a DJ, for the rest of my life. I can totally see myself being in another band in five years, if that&#8217;s what my heart and soul wants to do. If that&#8217;s what will make me happy, I&#8217;m totally happy just to not DJ anymore.&#8221; So, it&#8217;s been almost five years, how are you feeling about that? Are you going to go unplugged? Or are you going to do the current thing a little while longer?
Zedd: I think I will one day go unplugged or change my show somehow. Or my show form, I&#8217;ll say that. Currently I am still DJing, yet I think I have a way more dramatic show, and a much for dynamic show than I&#8217;ve ever had, that involves a lot of planning&#8230; the nature of the DJ is to go up there, and play a song, look at the crowd, feel it out, and then play whatever you think people want to hear. That&#8217;s very difficult for me, because I see myself as a musician in the first place, and I [challenge you to] name any artist who&#8217;d want to think they&#8217;d go on stage, and look at the crowd, and say, &#8220;Maybe let&#8217;s play this song. I don&#8217;t think people will like that one.&#8221; You present the show, you prepare, you rehearse for weeks, and then this is what you present to the crowd. And there&#8217;s always a section that is staying flexible to mix stuff up, if you have to, or if you want to. But I would say the majority of my set is pre-planned; it&#8217;s a show that I want to present. I want people to see something that I spent a lot of time working on.
ZOG: And the live element in your show, it&#8217;s obviously the core of the electronic music experience. But also streaming being the way the music gets out, the economics have changed a ton, even in the last few years. Talk a little bit about that, and how it&#8217;s starting to change for artists.
Zedd: I think that streaming became a huge part of every musician&#8217;s career. Even for, or especially for, unsigned artists. I have a friend who is a singer, and she just makes music at home and she puts it up on SoundCloud, and puts it up on Spotify, and she makes a really decent living off of people streaming her music. I think there&#8217;s a lot of artists who actually make more money now, streaming their music, than they did selling their music prior. And I was one of those people who was really scared of that whole streaming world, because you see all these numbers, and I don&#8217;t know what exactly the numbers [are], but it&#8217;s a fraction of a cent that you make per stream. And then in your mind it&#8217;s, &#8220;Oh my God, people are going to listen to my song once, and then that&#8217;s all I&#8217;m going to get.&#8221; But the reality is, that you can have millions of people stream your song, or songs, every single day. You can have 10 million streams on your album daily. Over a really long time that becomes a lot of money. So, I think that the streaming section that sounded so scary to me, and probably many others, is actually a really good thing.
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ZOG: Before, artists would put out new albums so that they could have new stuff to put in the concerts. But maybe [it will soon] flip back so that you do concerts just to raise awareness about the new music?
Zedd: Yeah, I mean, I think the music industry is changing really fast. So it&#8217;s hard to predict where things are going to go. I know a lot of artists don&#8217;t like touring. They do not like not having any sleep every day, being stressed every day. They like being at home, waking up, doing their thing, and then making music whenever they want to. There is much less of a schedule to create music than being on tour, and having to open the doors on time, and having a curfew.
And there&#8217;s artists that are the exact opposite, they hate being at home. And they feel frustrated, and they want to get out there and play music. I think that if anything, the streaming world may open the door for people who don&#8217;t want to tour, to actually not have to tour. There&#8217;s a great living you can make off of being creative and not having a schedule at all. And working when you want to work, and putting up music the next day. There use to be two or three months in the lead time to when you could release an album. And here you can just release your music the next day, if you want to.
ZOG: Tell me a little bit about your live show, what goes into it. I think a lot of people have a preconceived notion about what that entails.
Zedd: So my live show is not a DJ show at all. My platform is Djing, and I can change my music, and my selection of songs anytime. But essentially, what&#8217;s most important for me is for the crowd to go home and think that was an incredible experience. And to think that they can&#8217;t get that same experience from anybody else. And that involves, of course, the music choice, but also the visuals you see: the lights you see, the lasers, the special effects, and that&#8217;s all very choreographed. And that&#8217;s still all made live. So the way we do it is I DJ, and then there&#8217;s a cable running from my computer to the front of the house, with three screens so everybody is always aware of what I am playing, if I decide to change something last minute. Every song that I&#8217;ve ever played has a specific visual that goes with the song. And my team can, in real time, see what I am about to play, and adjust and create the visuals, and the lighting looks, and the colors, that we rehearsed for each song. Sometimes I play a song that has a visual that is also assigned to another song, then they can decide to, on the spot, change it, or whatever fits that moment. So, we essentially have a show that looks really rehearsed, and almost pre-made. Yet I have the flexibility to change anything, at any point in time.
ZOG: It&#8217;s more like a theater production than a movie, although you said it could be like a movie in some ways too.
Zedd: Yeah &#8230; it&#8217;s almost like when you go to the movies. You&#8217;re not going to buy your ticket and see a movie and if you don&#8217;t like it, you expect the movie to change in real time. That&#8217;s kind of how I see it. I am not going to go on stage, and look at the people, and if someone&#8217;s unhappy I&#8217;m going to change the music for that person. I spend way too much time &#8230; creating a theatrical show, to then adjust it on the spot, and make it something that&#8217;s not perfect. In my mind, this is what I want to present as an artist, and if people see me on tour, this is what they&#8217;re going to get. And if I, on the fly, decide to change something, that becomes part of the show. &#8230; Every moment is really planned out, every single light is planned out. So when people go to the show they should expect a real experience, not just me deciding on the fly what song I want to play.
ZOG: What sort of instance would cause you to change something on the fly?
Zedd: Well, for example, a few days ago I didn&#8217;t play one song, and what made me do that was just a mistake. I just forgot that I didn&#8217;t play that song. I thought I had already queued that song up, but I didn&#8217;t. And I was already mixed into another key &#8230; I&#8217;m trying to be very musical about the song choices I make, and I can&#8217;t just mix keys back and forth all the time, because that just doesn&#8217;t feel musical to me. So at that point, I was too far ahead. And I didn&#8217;t have any more songs that could lead into the key of that song that I missed. So I just left it out for the entire show.
What else could happen is that one part of my production is not working. There&#8217;s certain songs that &#8230; are not particularly exciting songs just by themselves, and I would never listen to them, because they&#8217;re not musical at all. But they give you the sense of lasers. Literally. You hear it and you think of something space flavored &#8230; and if we don&#8217;t have those lasers working, I&#8217;m not going to play that song, because it&#8217;s all senses that come together into one experience.
It&#8217;s not just about what you hear, but it&#8217;s the combination of what you see, and what you hear. And if you hear that sound of lasers, and then you see that right over you, and you feel like you can touch it, that&#8217;s the experience I want people to experience, and not just a song by itself. So, there&#8217;s a lot of things that can go wrong that would make me not play a certain song.
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ZOG: What are some things that you do in your live set that nobody else does at all?
Zedd: I think the preparation that goes into my sets is something that most DJs are embarrassed of. And I&#8217;ve had a conversation with an amazing DJ, one of the best DJs in that sense, he could go up there and play six hours. I don&#8217;t even have enough music to play six hours. I could never do that. Neither do I think there are six hours of incredible music that I&#8217;d want to play. But, he was under the impression that it&#8217;s not real DJ&#8217;ing if you go up there and you already have something prepared, if you have a list that you plan on playing. To me, that may be true for a DJ. But I just don&#8217;t consider myself a DJ. I see myself an artist who presents a show. So, to me there is nothing embarrassing about being perfectly prepared in knowing exactly what you&#8217;re about to do, but I think that most DJs have an issue with that. &#8230; A lot of people back five, six years ago thought, &#8220;You don&#8217;t even use headphones; so you&#8217;re not a real DJ.&#8221; [I say], &#8220;Yeah maybe?&#8221; I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s a need to use headphones if you&#8217;re well prepared.
ZOG: You don&#8217;t always use headphones, but you have your own headphone line. Tell me a little about that.
Zedd: Yeah. So my headphone line is essentially a headphone that is for everyday use. I wanted it to look nice, because a lot of headphones that look great, don&#8217;t sound great. So, in Tokyo I met with the people who make the headphones, and they had created a version of a Transformers type headphone &#8230; I don&#8217;t know how to make the parts, so it was dozens of parts, and you essentially build it as you go, and then you put on the headphone, and it looked terrible, but it sounded incredible. So I asked them, &#8220;Why don&#8217;t we both come together and make a headphone that looks incredible but also sounds incredible?&#8221; And so we started the process, and it was far over a year from the first drawings, to the first renderings, to the first design, then to changing the shape. And I just wanted everyone to have a headphone that is really pretty, and good-looking, and sounds incredible, but most importantly is really comfortable to wear for a long period of time, because as somebody who sometimes has to mix something on the road, it was important for me to have a tool that I can trust. So some headphones that I know: this is exactly what I make my music like in the studios, so this is what it sounds like on the road. And just to have that connection was really important for me.
ZOG: What&#8217;s next for you?
Zedd: What&#8217;s next for me is I just started my tour, so I will be touring for a while. And I am, for the first time, trying out to not spend two years working on one single album and then put it out at the same time. But I essentially want to finish a song. I will try to release it pretty quickly. And I started that with &#8220;Stay,&#8221; that was the first time I finished a song essentially, and put it out right away &#8230; it sounded fresh. I don&#8217;t know how fresh &#8220;Stay&#8221; would have sounded if I released it two years from now, when the rest of my album is done. I want to try that for a little while. Then next year I will probably take some time and make an album, and I don&#8217;t know what that will mean yet and whether that will be a concept album, but I&#8217;m starting to want to make one again.
ZOG: Have you seen costs go up dramatically for your show? What are some of the things that have changed over time, in that regard?
Zedd: Yeah, I mean, I remember my first tour I ever played as a DJ was with Skrillex, and back then, my production, as an opening act, was just a folding table. And between me and the next DJ, who was Porter Robinson, I looped the song, and he came on stage, and while the song was looping, we switched tables into his laptop, and then I was like, &#8220;Thanks, guys!&#8221; And I&#8217;d walk off the stage and he&#8217;d start. That is not the thing anymore today. Everything is really professional. From the change over music, from what you hear and see, between each DJ, to the cost you spend on a show. I mean it used to be really cheap to make a show, I used to be able to keep all the money, and now the shows cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, just to put on one show, because the special effects are expensive, and you have to get all these licenses &#8230; the expenses have gone up dramatically.

Zedd – The $85 Million Classically Trained DJ

Karlie Kloss is sitting in a glass-walled SoHo office holding court with five teenage girls. Over video chat with several more, they are brainstorming how to support scholars of Kode With Klossy once class is out. The teenagers are all graduates of Kode With Klossy summer camps, an initiative by Kloss’ education nonprofit that aims to teach girls the basics of computer programming.
In her off-duty uniform of a Planned Parenthood T-shirt, black jeans and Gucci loafers, the 6&#8217;2&#8243; supermodel listens intently. One young woman wearing a white Kode With Klossy top suggests a custom app for students to communicate through. Kloss nods and encourages more ideas. Perhaps Kode With Klossy could upload lesson videos for scholars to look back on, or start a newsletter with events and internships. Another girl in glasses says she posts tricky coding problems on Snapchat and scholars from her camp offer solutions.
As the meeting concludes, Kloss hugs the girls before rallying them to put their hands in for a cheer. &#8220;Klossy Posse!&#8221; they shout in unison.
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A 36-time Vogue cover girl is an unlikely candidate to launch a charity that has taught more than 500 young women how to code. But the 25-year-old has leveraged her giant social audience &#8211; some 12.6 million followers across platforms &#8211; to grow a burgeoning nonprofit that aims to balance the scales of software engineering’s gender disparity.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t go into this with the plan to build an education nonprofit,&#8221; says Kloss, a member of the 30 Under 30 Class of 2018, over vegan cupcakes and cookies in her Manhattan office. &#8220;I really went into all this out of my own curiosity of wanting to learn what the heck coding was, because it was building massive enterprise value for people in a short period of time.&#8221;
Her first taste came in 2014, when she signed up for a two-week boot camp at adult-education company the Flatiron School in Manhattan to learn the basics of computer programming. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t actually know who she was,&#8221; says Avi Flombaum, cofounder of the Flatiron School, who taught Kloss’ class. &#8220;She was the best student in that group and I was surprised by how enthusiastic she was.&#8221;
Kloss covered the basics of Ruby on Rails, a popular web development framework. But she quickly noticed that her classes weren’t gender equal, an imbalance that mirrored the tech workforce. &#8220;I was curious, why are there not more women in this space?&#8221; recalls Kloss. An idea for how to help took form: &#8220;I realized, here I am with this platform and reach to young women across the country and around the world,&#8221; Kloss explains. &#8220;If I could just help a handful of girls that would be really meaningful.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_34682" style="width: 330px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34682" class=" wp-image-34682" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Karlie-Kloss-INSIDE-234x300.jpg" alt="Karlie Kloss " width="320" height="410" />Karlie Kloss (Photo by Jamel Toppin)</div>
In 2015, Kloss spent more than $20,000 to personally underwrite 21 scholarships for teenage girls to the Flatiron School’s two week pre-college coding class &#8211; the very class she had taken the year prior (Flatiron School matched the donation).
But she was itching to do more. Last summer, Kloss took the initiative in-house, launching her own two-week summer camp for teenage girls aged 13 to 18 in New York, Los Angeles and her hometown of St. Louis. Kloss helped pick candidates, design the curriculum and select teachers; its graduates have gone on to win hackathons and land places at Ivy League universities. In June, the program expanded to 12 cities across the U.S., with plans to grow further.
Adults are also included: Last July Kloss launched a year-long online scholarship with the Flatiron School that selected one woman every month to enroll in its full stack web development course. And while other nonprofits with similar missions, such as Girls Who Code and Black Girls Code, are far more established, Kloss&#8217; reach brings her objective to millions.
To date, funding for Kode With Klossy programs has come from Kloss herself and the brands she poses for. According to a familiar source, Kloss has personally contributed into seven figures to Kode With Klossy since 2015. She has also redirected a slice of her modeling contracts with companies such as Adidas, Swarovski and Express to fund and support Kode With Klossy. Ford&#8217;s STEAM Experience — an initiative focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines as well as the arts, part of the car maker&#8217;s philanthropic arm — lent additional support to this summer’s camps.
Such initiatives are sorely needed. Half a million more jobs related to computers are expected to be added by 2024. Though 74% of high school girls are interested in STEM, women only earned 18% of all undergraduate computer science degrees in 2015. That impacts employment, especially among minorities: Women made up just over a quarter of the tech workforce last year, though African-American women comprised a mere 3% and Latina women counted for only 2%.
&#8220;There are so many young women who really could change the world with this kind of opportunity, girls who self-select out because they don&#8217;t see others in the industry that look like them,&#8221; says Kloss.
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The daughter of an emergency room physician, Kloss&#8217; favorite subjects as a child were math and science. Had she not been discovered at a charity fashion show in a mall, aged 13, she might have become a doctor or a teacher, she says. Instead, she booked her first advertisement in 2007; that same year she landed her first major runway show, walking for Calvin Klein.
Her career quickly took off, but it went into overdrive with the advent of Instagram. Thanks to social media, says Kloss, &#8220;I could be seen as well as heard.&#8221; As her followers swelled, her fees increased. She premiered on Forbes’ highest-paid models list in 2014 banking $4 million pretax; this year, her contract earnings soared to $9 million in the 12 months prior to June 2017.
&#8220;When social media arrived, models came back into the spotlight because now everyone could see what was behind the velvet rope,&#8221; says Maja Chiesi, SVP at IMG Models, the agency that represents Kloss. &#8220;The next evolution is brands wanting the full, 360-degree sense of who these women are&#8230; They want women with a voice.&#8221;
Enter Kloss, who has long presented herself as more than just a pretty face. In 2012, she started a charitable cookie line called Klossies with Manhattan dessert spot Momofuku Milk Bar; the treats donated to meals for children with each purchase. After taking the odd night class at New York University, in 2015 she enrolled (mentor and supermodel-turned-philanthropist Christy Turlington wrote her recommendation letter). With her busy schedule, she has opted for approximately one class a semester, so far notching credits in creative writing and feminism.
She is eager to expand her platform through a YouTube channel, launched in 2015, that documents her travels and baking forays. Next up: A talk show, Movie Night with Karlie Kloss, airing on the Disney-owned Freeform in December.
All of it serves to raise awareness for Kode With Klossy. As she focuses on the nonprofit, she has pared down her modeling contracts to the most lucrative partnerships. Today, says Kloss, she works with &#8220;partners that really are excited to work with me because of not just what I look like, but because of what I stand for.&#8221; It makes sense that her bookings have shifted from conventional beauty and fashion to tech; she can be seen in recent advertisements for electronics giant Samsung and website builder Wix.
For now, the aim is to grow quickly and cost-effectively. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been thinking about Kode With Klossy like a startup,&#8221; says Kloss. The nonprofit&#8217;s team is lean, with Kloss, her manager, business partner and SVP of SB Projects Penni Thow, five full-time employees and consultants plus help from three members of her management.
And, Kloss says, she is just getting started.
&#8220;I plan on building a big business at some point, too.&#8221;
Startups, you’re on notice.
&#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Natalie Robehmed</a>, FORBES STAFF

Karlie Kloss – Coding’s Supermodel

Kendrick Lamar: The Conscious Capitalist

“A lot of people think that I succumb to this ditsy blonde role,” discloses performance artist Jana ‘Babez’ Terblanche. We’re sitting in a chic coffee shop on Kloof Street in Cape Town in South Africa; her pink highlights are a vivid counterpoint to the starchy white walls and tablecloths.
“But actually, I’ve used it as a vehicle, to push things further. Almost to see how far people will accept it.”
Winner in 2014 of the Simon Gerson Prize for outstanding student work at her alma mater, the University of Cape Town, Terblanche has created a striking portfolio that “interrogates the strains on the modern female body, using the breakdown of female archetypes to shift the way that we think about female agency and desire.”
It is fizzing pop culture unbottled and forensically analyzed, repurposed for a fluid feminist agenda. Her preoccupation with the icons that populate the macabre landscape of celebrity glitz and media voyeurism – Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Dolly Parton – has its roots in formative years spent in sparsely-populated mining towns in Namibia, where her only access to a cultural elsewhere was the radio.
“I’m South African, I’ve spent most of my adult life here, but my childhood seems disconnected from everything else,” she says.
“I also feel almost like my childhood was another life, another person. The first time I heard Britney Spears I was like, ‘What is this?’ I didn’t understand. I was in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, dreaming about an American reality, because I didn’t know what cities meant. So I actually had quite a warped interpretation of the outside world.”
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Her Namibia Series revisits these desert moonscapes where the well of her creativity was first mined; she appears in flowing chiffon against the spectacular umber backdrop of the Fish River Canyon. Her face is hidden – a recurring motif in many of her photographs.
“I cover the face because I want it to stand in for every woman,” she says. “I don’t want it to be personal.”
In Bride, her face is obscured by a mask of roses, swarming like bees; in Hollywood Cerise, she is covered head to toe in a magenta body stocking, her ponytail spilling out like an insistent yellow question mark.
Her work is luridly confrontational but archly self-aware, a good-humoured, interrogational pop feedback loop.
“Initially people thought I was joking,” she laughs. “What is this little girl doing, making art about Britney Spears? She’s walking around in a pink suit, what does that mean? It took a lot of perseverance to say I’m going to stick to my guns, and only if you carry on do people say, oh, she’s still doing this, there must be some merit to it.”
<div id="attachment_34604" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34604" class=" wp-image-34604" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Jana-Babez-Terblanche-Hollywood-Cerise-photo-Jody-Brand-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Jana &#8216;Babez&#8217; Terblanche (Photo by Jody Brand)</div>
There is plenty of a salty sort of grit too, and a fierce determination to expose misogyny and patriarchal oppression. Nightfall, a performance piece in which she strapped bricks to her feet and walked across Company’s Garden, a famous local heritage site, was inspired by the March 2017 brutal street-corner murder of sex worker Nokuphila Khumalo by the famous photographer and artist Zwelethu Mthethwa.
“After that incident, his work was still being sold in galleries,” she says. “I was so infuriated, I couldn’t believe this. Someone literally profiting off the back of a woman he had murdered. I was going mental. There has to be a point where publicity is bad, but no, there isn’t. So I did this work, in memory of her and in solidarity with sex workers.”
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The fallacy of neutral space, the idea that women can ever feel safe outside their own homes, is something she interrogates with passion.
“Space is not neutral at all. On a certain level, men navigate the world without having to be afraid,” she says.
“Walking on the way here, there were three guys in front of me. And I hate the fact that my mind immediately has to go to walking a bit slower – honestly, I had to stop around the corner. I consider this hyperawareness a form of repression that’s not spoken about.”
She talks about the common phenomenon of women feeling compelled to wear ear buds when on the street, just to deter unwanted attention.
“All the space in the world is male space. If there were women-only spaces, men would just get angry about it – men are so fragile. Isn’t that scary, that my mind went there? I thought about men, before I thought about the woman. God, that’s so messed up!”
Terblanche warns also of female complicity, of women who seek to appease male aggression.
“I’ve had so much kickback from women, and I’ve gotten very upset about it, thinking, wow, aren’t we supposed to stand together? But then I realized how strong internalized misogyny is. We’ve all been conditioned, and we have to unlearn these things.”
At its best, with its polaroid tang of glamor and grime, Terblanche’s work stands toe to toe with its clear influences – performance artists Marina Abramovic and Ana Mendieta, and the shape-shifting roleplay of photographer Cindy Sherman. It is provocative and playful, but with a dangerous, hidden razor’s edge.
“I’m always playing a version of myself. We are all playing versions of ourselves,” she says, as the busy Cape Town café characters come and go. “That’s what’s so exciting about performance art. You can be someone else tomorrow.” &#8211; Written by Alastair Hagger

The Performance Artist Playing Everyone

On a windy spring day in Johannesburg, South Africa, we make our way through the dusty streets of Braamfontein to the hallowed halls of the Joburg Theatre, a venue often described as the nucleus of the country’s theatrical history. It’s the perfect setting for the retelling of South Africa’s historic hit musical, King Kong, more than half a century after it was first showcased.
Ahead of the play’s Johannesburg run – from September 12 to October 8 – we are here to meet Nondumiso Tembe, the female lead playing Joyce, a role that catapulted the late Miriam Makeba to international stardom in the original production of <a href="https://www.kingkongstagemusical.com/about" target="_blank" rel="noopener">King Kong</a>, which opened at the Wits University Great Hall in 1959 as South Africa’s first black musical. In 1961, the play transferred to London’s West End and was a stupendous success with a 200-performance run.
Tembe, an award-winning actress and singer-songwriter, has credits of her own, including HBO’s Golden Globe and Emmy-award winning True Blood, SABC’s Generations, the military drama SIX on the History Channel and Zulu Wedding opposite Darrin Dewitt Henson.
She walks in to Stages, the restaurant at the entrance of Joburg Theatre, with a beaming smile and a spring in her step. She is relaxed but excited– the opening night is in five days – and rehearsals are on at the theater. Ordering a cappuccino, she gets straight to the interview.
“I think for our generation, King Kong, and the legend of this man has always been alive in our consciousness as South Africans,” she says.
“And many of us were aware of it and perhaps our parents had shared some of the memories and the experience of the production with us but I don’t think we really knew or understood the story or the music in-depth… It was there alive somewhere in the back of my consciousness but I did not know too much about it and in particular, I didn’t know much about the role of Joyce.”
Tembe smiles as she also admits she was not aware Makeba originally played the role.
“I was humbled to be chosen to be part of a play that was incredibly historic, ground-breaking and deeply brilliant at the time. I was hired two weeks before we were meant to start rehearsals and honestly it’s all kind of a blur,” she laughs.
“Before I knew it, I packed up my life in Los Angeles and prepared to be away for an extended period of time. From then, I spent every waking moment researching the production, the period and the role, in particular the music.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/09/25/money-witchcraft-beer-metal-soweto/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Money, Witchcraft And Beer &#8211; This Is Metal From Soweto</a>
Set in the 1950s’ Sophiatown in Johannesburg, King Kong tells the true story of heavyweight boxing champion Ezekiel Dlamini who named himself ‘King Kong’ because of his stout physique and fearless personality. The play is a story of love and self-destruction enacted to the invigorating music of Todd Matshikiza.
<div id="attachment_34495" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34495" class="wp-image-34495" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/King-Kong-Print-04-DM-e1511423075127-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />From left to right: Nondumiso Tembe, Joel Zuma, Sanda Shandu, Barileng Malebye and Ben Kgosimore star in King Kong. (Photo by Daniel Rutland Manners)</div>
Dlamini is aptly essayed by actor, singer and dancer Andile Gumbi, who made his Broadway debut as Simba in Disney’s The Lion King.
Born in Vryheid in the then Orange Free State, Dlamini himself became an unwitting symbol for freedom and the wasted power of his people under apartheid. After sudden stardom in the boxing world, Dlamini&#8217;s life degenerated into drunkenness and gang violence.
In 1957, Dlamini was to be a classic Greek tragic figure when, in a fit of jealousy, he killed his girlfriend and at his trial asked for a death sentence, to serve as a warning to others. Instead, the white judge, who refused to take instruction from a black defendant, sentenced Dlamini to 12 years of labor. But, three months later, King Kong is found drowned in a dam on a prison farm. At 36 years old, he had taken destiny into his own hands and, inadvertently, become a legend.
Dlamini’s story bears a striking resemblance to William Shakespeare’s tragic hero Othello; a man consumed by love and his vices. Like Othello, King Kong is said to have ended his own life, unable to live with the devastation he caused.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/09/20/three-women-three-wives-one-true-story/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Three Women, Three Wives, One True Story</a>
On the opening night of the re-imagining of this tragic tale in Johannesburg in September, the theater is abuzz, unlike the quiet venue it had been a few days ago when we met Tembe.
“I’m really excited about this remake,” says South African actress and author Pamela Nomvete, just before the packed show.
“Todd Matshikiza put together a phenomenal musical and John Matshikiza, his son, launched my career in the UK. So for me, it’s like being a part of history because it was so significant at the time.”
The set design on stage is simple, consisting of painted corrugated iron shutters complete with rows of brilliant golden lights, and with the energetic actors and the live nine-piece orchestra led by Sipumzo Trueman Lucwaba, takes you back in time.
The costumes worn by the all-South African cast form an integral part of the musical narrative set in Sophiatown, the legendary black cultural hub featuring Kofifi dance, Kofifi music and other forms of entertainment.
The 1950s was when the ‘Kofifi style’ emerged, just as apartheid was being implemented. Men worked mainly in mines and factories wearing overalls and the only occasions they could wear a suit – an integral part of the Kofifi style – was at funerals, weddings or on payday.
It was a combination of fashion and a rebel lifestyle that defined this period and people who lived it up as best they could.
The South African project described Sophiatown as an area which “developed into the center of urban African music and culture and starting in the 1940s, it began to enrich its musical performances and elements of popular culture. Sophiatown symbolized something greater than the struggle of fitting in socially; it symbolized the fight for survival while having to deal with expensive rent, poverty, overcrowding, unfair wages, and unfair treatment. The people of Sophiatown established a strong community identity”.
The 120-minute play swiftly transforms from the playground to the boxing ring to the shanty town to the shabeen owned by Joyce, when Tembe makes her opening appearance with a soulful rendition of the legendary Back of the Moon, a sensual song written by Todd Matshikiza.
“The music for Joyce was incredibly challenging and sophisticated and multi-layered and really hard to sing. I was forced to buckle down and not think about the implications or the legacy we were carrying or the weight on our shoulders,” says Tembe at our meeting.
“The original script was very thin and the creative team agreed the characters were rather one-dimensional, more archetypes than real, complex, multi-dimensional human beings and we were very clear in our adaptation, not a revival of the original production; we were more interested in telling a human story the audience could relate to.”
<div id="attachment_34496" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34496" class=" wp-image-34496" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/King-Kong-Print-15-DM-e1511423279103-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Nondumiso Tembe. (Photo by Daniel Rutland Manners)</div>
It was not an easy challenge to accept for the cast.
“There were a lot of holes so we all worked very hard to fill those gaps and make it more rich and dynamic. For me the challenge with Joyce, because she was one-dimensional and didn’t really have a back story; there was the danger of her coming across as a vamp or a man-eater and I was very clear that my greatest nightmare would be for the audience members to walk away from the play thinking she deserved what she got instead of sympathizing with her,” says Tembe.
This was especially important for Tembe because of the current social context in South Africa, where there has been an epidemic of violence against women, and this being a story about femicide, it was critical for her to convey the right message.
“We really didn’t want our audiences to cheer at the end of the tragic scene between Joyce and King Kong and that actually happened when we first staged it, in preview week, so, the writer, Bill Michaelson, who I admire, snuck in, very last minute during preview week, and added a wonderful but very deep and pivotal scene between King Kong and Joyce which we rehearsed with the director for barely an hour and then Andile Gumbi and I had to perform it that very night in front of a paying audience, which was terrifying,” recounts Tembe, letting out a little scream.
Watching that scene in the play makes it hard to imagine the script was enacted without it. The raw emotions portrayed by King Kong and Joyce are paramount to the play’s climax; a pivotal scene providing great insight into the characters – who they are and why they make the decisions they do.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/09/01/father-ghanaian-theater/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Father Of Ghanaian Theater</a>
South African actor Andile Nebulane calls the play “magical”.
“It’s brilliant, fun to watch and you cannot fall asleep watching it. The choreography is also brilliant; Greg Maqoma did an outstanding job.”
But he adds: “Although, I do think South African theater needs to move from the third gear into sixth gear. It needs to be shaken up, we need new stuff. We need to stop recycling stories, we need to write, we need to create and we just need to be recognized by stakeholders like government, which does not take us seriously.”
<div id="attachment_34497" style="width: 260px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34497" class=" wp-image-34497" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/King-Kong-Print-06-JK-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="375" />Sne Dladla (left) and Lerato Mvelase in King Kong. (Photo by Jesse Kramer)</div>
When the play was originally staged in 1959, the audience also included Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie. King Kong toured South Africa for two years, and was seen by 200,000 South Africans, playing to record-breaking multiracial audiences, this as apartheid began to take shape in South Africa. King Kong in part, launched the international careers of Makeba and Hugh Masekela, among many others.
But, it was at this time that King Kong moved to London. The celebration of what had been deemed South Africa’s greatest play was short-lived because of the Sharpeville Massacre of March 21, 1960.
But in a fitting tribute to the art form and the local talent the country boasts today, Nomvete says: “I think South African theater is of an outstanding caliber and more people should be coming into our country to watch our shows; King Kong is testament enough of how well professionals in the performing arts are doing their thing and they are doing it well.”
The Fugard Theatre’s King Kong, directed by Jonathan Munby, was also staged at the Fugard Theatre in Cape Town before its Johannesburg outing.
“I do think that Mariam Makeba and Todd Matshikiza and the entire original creative team who may no longer be with us are smiling down from heaven and are proud of the steps we have taken and how we have pushed the story and the production forward and caused it to evolve. We are proudly and graciously carrying the torch they originally lit,” concludes Tembe.
The standing ovation the play received more than confirmed that. &#8211; Written by Rofhiwa Madzena

The King Kong Of Musicals

Armed with the latest iPads, loaded with sophisticated analytical software, 26 of the country’s top motoring journalists will soon gather at a country hotel outside Johannesburg with a single aim in mind: deciding the South African Car of the Year (COTY) 2018.
It may seem like an insurmountable task to compare the wallet draining German marques with a Japanese or Korean compact costing a fifth of the price – or less. But the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists, which operates on a quasi-military basis when it comes to membership, has had a mountain of experience running this competition since 1986.
From an extensive list of 35 semi-finalists, just 10 models have made the cut and the finalists will be put through their paces with routes and handling tests that weren’t designed by Lewis Hamilton, but rather to emulate the average driver’s capabilities and desires.
The jury will score the mixed band of automobiles on a long list of criteria, from aesthetics to ergonomics, from fuel consumption to environmental friendliness – and most importantly on value for money.
That’s how the modest Opel Astra was able to trump the likes of the majestic Jaguar F-Pace and edge out the Audi A4 by a mere handful of points.
That was after three Porsche victories in a row and the Volvo XC90 scooping the honors with the resultant prestige and sales in COTY 2016.
“By virtually unanimously approving of the Opel Astra, the jury has again proven that experience is the key to the success of the competition,” says Car of the Year convenor Bernard Hellberg Jnr.
“The Astra is a worthy winner of South Africa’s ultimate motoring accolade.”
And it wasn’t for the first time. The Astra 160iS was top of the podium when the Springboks won the World Cup back in 1995.
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In recent years it is the model series, and not specific engine variants, that gets adjudicated and the manufacturers are discouraged from loading their entry with optional extras to impress the panel of motoring journalists.
Just like judging a forward 4.5 somersault in tuck position at the Olympics, radical low and high scores get eradicated to prevent over-enthusiasm or any hint of bias.
So, onwards and upwards to the title aspirants for 2018 and the ranges that you might be tempted to chalk down for your festive season shopping list.
BMW is the most decorated winner in the competition’s history having taken the crown six times.
And the Bavarians are back in the frame with the all-new 5-series.
<div id="attachment_34314" style="width: 509px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34314" class=" wp-image-34314" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/BMW-5-series-sedan-e1510127440771-300x188.jpg" alt="" width="499" height="313" />The BMW 5 Series sedan (Photo by www.bmw.co.za)</div>
The marketing blurb may wax lyrical about the exterior styling changes with the signature kidney grille being larger and more upright, the headlight elements going from round to hexagonal and the stretched lines with the rear window being steeply raked to give more of a “fastback” appearance.
But, apart from the awe-inspiring i8 and a few other exceptions, BMW have taken the conservative road and you won’t be staggered by the new look.
Which means that you may not feel such a pang of envy if you pull up next to the latest offering in your sixth generation 528i. But when you open the door of the current 5-series you may turn very green indeed. This is where the “Business Athlete” hits the mark in virtually every aspect.
Daniel Mayerle and the design team have done an astounding job with an interior, that is modern and clean-cut without being brash, and controls and infotainment that are cutting edge yet practical.
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There is a disconnect in the premium motoring world when it comes to technology. The trend is to try and lead the race with touch-screen systems that are designed for techies at Elon Musk’s rocket factory yet it is mainly the stone-age.com generation buying the cars.
And BMW have come up with an intuitive system with enough manual overrides so that you don’t have to go through a painful and distracting series of screen options to turn the aircon up!
I tested the two-liter turbofour 530i which is faster, more fuel efficient, emits fewer pollutants and weighs in at a basic price of $62,000.
It may not push your adrenalin to the limit, but will take you to the ton in a shade over six seconds and is smoother than George Clooney sipping a Nespresso.
If you have a penchant for fancy features, you’ve come to the right cabin. How about Gesture Control so that you can just swipe your hand to the left to disconnect a call from the boss or rotate your finger clockwise to raise the radio volume.
And wireless charging for your cellphone by just placing it on the neat pad in front of the gear selector.
The list of options is overwhelming – which makes ordering the right specifications for your new chariot a compelling and possibly expensive exercise.
The Porsche Macan, Cayman and Boxster have all taken the laurels before and now the incredibly roomy four-seater Panamera is in the mix with its controversial rump getting some remarkable aluminium surgery. It is now the complete looker we have come to expect from the Stuttgart stable where the cars are sculpted rather than designed.
And the attention to the rear end is a total disservice to the Porsche team which has been so energetic and visionary in producing a vehicle where virtually only the badge remains the same.
The V-shaped array of controls has been replaced by touch screens which burst into life when you ignite the turbo and it is a bewildering experience getting to know your way around this cyber cockpit. Maybe a prime case of techno overkill?
What I could feel by the seat of my pants is that the Audi-developed 2.9-liter V-6 Turbo, very ably assisted by the new 8-speed gearbox, propels the Panamera 4S to 100km/h in 4.2 seconds.  The series must be a serious challenger.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/10/02/concept-car-captivates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Concept Car That Captivates</a>
Land Rover is yet to take the title as South Africa’s Car of the Year, but the new Discovery, which has shed 400 kilos and has reportedly got astounding off-road ability, may have what it takes to go beyond its rivals in the market.
What the Discovery hasn’t shed is the dollars. With a base price of $72,000 it may battle in the value-for-money stakes.
On the financial front, the Alfa Romeo Giulia is well placed among its obvious rivals in a cash-strapped economy. The base price for the perky two-liter petrol with 8-speed automatic transmission is a touch over $40,000.
Compared to some boring teutonic monikers, the Italian name conjures up images of passion, style and performance and the Giulia doesn’t disappoint in terms of ABS – Adrenalin Boost per Second. After all it is the runner-up in Europe’s Car of the Year.
The winner overseas? The fashionable Peugeot 3008 SUV which is not the first French voiture to strut its stuff on the local COTY catwalk but could be the first to drive away with the prize.
Honda call the CR-V a comfortable runabout vehicle. They have sold more than nine million of them in 150 countries around the world with the more robust and chunky fifth generation set to keep the cash register ticking.
Then there is the futuristically-styled Toyota C-HR which takes crossover sportiness to a new level and undercuts the Honda and Peugeot by a substantial margin.
Toyota won the very first Car of the Year way back in 1986 with the Corolla Twin Cam, and the C-HR leads the charge for the country’s leading automaker.
But heavy competition in the crossover/SUV stakes (along with a bigger dent in the bank balance) comes from the latest Audi Q5. No visually dramatic changes but bigger, lighter and with 10 liters more luggage space.
The pint-sized Suzuki Ignis crossover hits our shores at a quarter of the Q5 price and is practical yet fun to drive with some modern, youthful interior touches. Amazingly it accommodates my lanky two-meter frame with ease!
I’m not sure if the Kia Picanto would do the same, but the third-generation looks set to put some zing into the competition with its “tiger-nose” grille and price tag of under $10,000.
And finally there is the Volvo S90, taking on the likes of BMW, Merc and Audi in the full-size luxury market. Volvo are hoping to complete a hat-trick for the Swedish automaker after are putting a massive capital injection of $11 billion behind the fray.
Now it is down to the motoring jury to tap their iPads at the beginning of 2018 and assess every aspect of the chosen 10. The irony is that none of them will know the final result until the curtain is drawn around the winner of the Car of the Year at the big reveal in March.
Drivers, start your engines…
&#8211; Written by Derek Watts

Who Will Be The Best Of The Best?

This past weekend, audiences were treated to the debut of CBS special Michael Jackson’s Halloween, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2017/10/27/michael-jacksons-halloween-claiming-another-crown-for-the-king-of-pop/#2938a5a143dc" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an hourlong magical adventure</a> in which the King of Pop comes to life in animated forms including that of a dancing pumpkin, an arachnid security guard and a feline scientist, set to a soundtrack of Jackson’s music.
“Michael&#8217;s songs are very important to people,” says Mark Dippé, the program’s director. “We just wanted to sort of tell a story that was based around the world that Michael had created with his music, and his dancing, and his performances.”
That level of continued interest is precisely why Jackson tops our Halloween-spooky list of the 13 highest-paid dead celebrities for the fifth year in a row &#8211; with earnings of $75 million. His postmortem empire is going strong, boosted by the Halloween special and new album Scream joining a list of ventures including a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas and a stake in the EMI music publishing catalogue.
Golf legend Arnold Palmer claims the No. 2 spot with $40 million. Barely a year after his death, more than 400 stores still sell Palmer-branded apparel in Asia, and AriZona Beverages produces 400 million cans of its Arnold Palmer line annually. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz ranks third with income of $38 million—MetLife recently retired Snoopy and Charlie Brown from its ad campaigns, but the cartoonist’s contract does not expire until 2019.
Elvis Presley finishes fourth with $35 million, up from last year’s $27 million sum thanks to the new $45 million Elvis Presley’s Memphis entertainment complex and recently-opened hotel The Guesthouse at Graceland. Bob Marley rounds out the top five with $23 million, boosted by sustainability-focused House of Marley audio products and the Marley Beverage Co.
“When we decided to start that movement, it was [to] add relevancy to who we are as a family,” says Marley’s son Rohan. “We started that to really hone in on our legacy and protect what our father has given us.”
<a href="https://www.forbes.com/pictures/59ee26294bbe6f37dda0f050/highest-paid-dead-celebri/#415eeb85324f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GALLERY: Highest Paid Dead Celebrities Of 2017</a>
Our list measures pretax income from October 15, 2016 through October 15, 2017 before deducting cuts for agents, managers and lawyers. Sources include Nielsen SoundScan, IMDB, Pollstar Pro and interviews with celebrity estate experts.
Some names on the list passed just before the end of our scoring period—namely, rocker Tom Petty, who died on October 3. His inclusion on the list (No. 6, $20 million) reflects earnings from the past year on the road, where his band was grossing north of $1 million per night. Petty and fellow musicians Prince (No. 7, $18 million) and David Bowie (No. 11, $9.5 million) also got a boost from increased music consumption in the wake of their relatively-recent passing.
There are more ways than ever to earn money from beyond the grave, as our list members can attest. Elizabeth Taylor (No. 12, $8 million) lives on through top-selling fragrances such as White Diamonds, while Albert Einstein (No. 10, $10 million) lends his name and likeness to products ranging from dorm-room posters to tablets designed by Israeli tech company Fourier Systems.
Frank Zappa didn’t make the list, but perhaps he will soon. His son Ahmet recently announced <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2017/10/30/rock-is-dead-zappa-dio-and-the-burgeoning-business-of-postmortem-touring" target="_blank" rel="noopener">plans</a> to bring the rock star back in the form of a hologram-like illusion. The phantom Zappa will hit the road, most likely in 2018, in partnership with the firm Eyellusion. The goal is to make “the bizarre world of Frank come to life,” says the younger Zappa. “And I wake up every single day excited.”
To be fair, Frank Zappa won’t be the first celebrity to perform in such a manner. Tupac Shakur started the trend at Coachella in 2012, and Jackson currently appears in similar style in the grand finale of his Vegas show.
As for the King of Pop, his 2017 earnings pale in comparison to last year’s $825 million haul—the highest annual total for any entertainer dead or alive—mostly from the sale of his half of the Sony/ATV catalogue. But his $75 million tally this year still places him on par with the seventeenth-best-paid living entertainer, Bruce Springsteen. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Zack O&#8217;Malley Greenburg</a>, FORBES STAFF

The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities Of 2017

As DJ Khaled careers through the midday traffic clogging New York&#8217;s Columbus Circle &#8211; one hand on the wheel of a black Rolls-Royce Dawn convertible, the other raising an iPhone to stream his exploits via Snapchat &#8211; he lays out the aggressively optimistic, blustery, motivational, tautological and oddly compelling philosophy that guides his vehicular preferences and his life in general.
&#8220;You can want a Hyundai, if that&#8217;s what you want. Me, I want a Rolls-Royce,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;I want the drop-top Dawn. I want a Wraith with stars on the roof. I want Phantoms with footrests to massage my toes. That&#8217;s what I want, and that&#8217;s because we the best.&#8221;
As the car pulls up to a stoplight, Khaled looks back at his phone. &#8220;Forbes magazine wants to talk to Billy,&#8221; he enthuses, using his latest self-assigned nickname, meant to signal his billionaire ambitions and music-chart prowess. &#8220;Billboard Billy!&#8221;
I gently note that the light has turned green.
&#8220;I was ready, my brother, I was ready,&#8221; he says, lowering his phone. &#8220;So where we going?&#8221;
He already knows, of course. We&#8217;re off to go car shopping at the Porsche and Bugatti dealerships a little farther downtown. Khaled&#8217;s career, meanwhile, is going the opposite direction: all the way up. His last two albums, Major Key, in 2016, and this year&#8217;s Grateful, have both gone to No. 1, thanks to collaborations with Drake, Rihanna and Justin Bieber. He also owns several businesses named after his We the Best catchphrase, including a record label, a publishing company and a headphone line. He collects six-figure nightly fees for DJ gigs and millions more from deals with Mentos, Champ Sports, Apple and other brands -arranged by himself and Jay-Z, who signed on as his manager last year after seeing Khaled become a social media superstar with more than 15 million followers across Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter.
&#8220;What we are seeing from Khaled now is really who he is; the cameras are just capturing his natural state,&#8221; Jay-Z wrote in a section of Khaled&#8217;s new bestselling book, The Keys. &#8220;That&#8217;s why the world is so drawn to him.&#8221;
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With that success comes scads of cash &#8211; $24 million over the past 12 months alone &#8211; more than enough to nurture his Rolls-Royce habit. Khaled&#8217;s collection, spread across homes in Los Angeles and Miami, includes a 2017 convertible Dawn like the one he&#8217;s piloting today (&#8220;I always want to feel like I&#8217;m at home&#8221;), a 2017 Arabian-blue Wraith coupe (&#8220;It&#8217;s my everyday car&#8221;), a 2016 metallic-black Ghost sedan (&#8220;I sit in the back seat&#8230; that&#8217;s when I&#8217;m my business&#8221;) and the recently unveiled $430,000 Phantom VIII, which claims to have the &#8220;most silent&#8221; interior of any car in the world (&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna be one of the first to get it,&#8221; Khaled says proudly).
&#8220;What I love about Rolls-Royce is, you look at me, it&#8217;s like you&#8217;re looking at a Rolls-Royce,&#8221; says the bearded, barrel-chested 41-year-old Khaled. &#8220;It&#8217;s just powerful; it&#8217;s smooth; it&#8217;s iconic.&#8221;
It&#8217;s that sort of unbridled self-assurance that has fueled his steady rise and enabled his late-blooming trajectory. Born Khaled Mohamed Khaled in 1975 to Palestinian immigrants in New Orleans, he grew up in Florida, where he started DJ&#8217;ing and selling mixtapes as a teenager. Employing the fake-it-till-you-make-it ethos often celebrated in the hip-hop world, he made a down payment on a new $30,000 red BMW M3 in 1991, tricking it out with a state-of-the-art speaker system.
One day, Khaled was cruising around Miami when he started to smell smoke. He pulled over and got out of the car, thinking one of his amps might have blown. It was a good thing he did: The car soon caught on fire, he says as we weave through midtown in the Dawn. (&#8220;DJ Khaled, we the best, baby!&#8221; screams a passerby. &#8220;That&#8217;s right, we the best!&#8221; he replies, barely interrupting the flow of his story.) &#8220;The car blew up,&#8221; he continues. &#8220;No lie. Like a movie.&#8221;
For his next car purchase, Khaled scaled back considerably, buying a used Honda Civic for about $12,000. By 1995, he was gaining traction as a DJ and producer, opening for legends like Notorious B.I.G. and Nas, and he soon got himself back into an M3 &#8211; this time a blue one. &#8220;Even if I couldn&#8217;t make the payment, I just had the mentality &#8211; I gotta be in that whip,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Image is everything.&#8221;
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For Khaled, that meant retiring cringeworthy aliases like Terror Squadian and Arab Attack and settling on his current nom de DJ. After hosting radio shows in Miami in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he released his first solo record, Listennn &#8230; the Album, in 2006, featuring appearances by stars such as Lil Wayne, Kanye West and John Legend. The album underscored Khaled&#8217;s primary talent &#8211; not singing, rapping or even producing, but bringing together an ensemble cast of popular performers &#8211; and went to No. 12 on the charts.
Khaled celebrated by buying a Bentley coupe and then almost immediately upgraded to a baby blue Rolls-Royce Phantom, which cost him $400,000. He supported his new hobby by churning out platinum singles such as the 2010 earworm &#8220;All I Do Is Win,&#8221; which featured T-Pain, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris and Rick Ross.
&#8220;My Phantom was the hottest Phantom in the game,&#8221; he says. &#8220;After that, I didn&#8217;t stop. I&#8217;ve been Rolls-Royce ever since.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_33854" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33854" class=" wp-image-33854" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/DJ-Khaled-and-son-e1507883409850-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" />DJ Khaled sits in the back seat of one of his three Rolls Royces with his son Asahd. (Photo by Ethan Pines for Forbes)</div>
Khaled says the reason he loves the brand is that he feels equally comfortable driving or being driven in a Rolls; he usually has a driver operate his Ghost and pilots the Wraith himself. And, yes, there are stars on the ceiling; contrary to popular belief, it&#8217;s a standard option, not a custom request.
While some ultraluxury brands have alienated hip-hop&#8217;s new elite (in 2006, one of the executives behind Cristal champagne famously told The Economist, &#8220;What can we do? We can&#8217;t forbid people from buying it,&#8221; prompting a Jay-Z boycott), Rolls-Royce has wisely embraced its popularity among rap stars. The company sometimes provides Khaled with vehicles when he&#8217;s traveling for high-profile events, and Rolls has been rewarded with product placement in his videos and social media feeds.
&#8220;He&#8217;s an enthusiastic, evangelical Rolls-Royce owner,&#8221; says Gerry Spahn, head of communications for the Americas at Rolls-Royce, &#8220;and we&#8217;re thrilled that he wants to be associated with the best of the best.&#8221;
If Khaled&#8217;s automotive preference isn&#8217;t clear from the composition of his collection (his only luxury cars without a Flying Lady on the hood: a Cadillac Escalade and a Range Rover), he makes it clear as we pull up to the Bugatti dealership. He refuses to go inside, despite the fact that we&#8217;d planned test-drives ahead of time. (&#8220;I&#8217;d rather be in a Rolls.&#8221;) After some prodding, he agrees to visit the Porsche showroom next door.
Upon entering, I ask Khaled what he thinks of the mahogany Cayenne E-Hybrid SUV on display. &#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221; he inquires. I point to the vehicle next to him and explain that its motor is powered by both gasoline and electricity. His response: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know nothing about it.&#8221; We stroll through the showroom, shifting gazes from a gleaming Panamera 4 sedan to a lean Macan GTS SUV to a menacing 911 GT3 that goes from 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. But he doesn&#8217;t even want to go for a test-drive.
&#8220;I&#8217;m a big boy,&#8221; he says. &#8220;That interior got to be fit for a big boy, you know what I&#8217;m saying? &#8230; Maybe you should buy me one, and I&#8217;ll tell you how I like it after that.&#8221;
The only car Khaled really wants is the one he&#8217;s already ordered: the new Phantom, redesigned for only the eighth time since its debut in 1925. The mansion-on-wheels comes with a 7.5-liter, 563-hp, V12 twin-turbo engine, Eames-chair-inspired seats and even a dashboard &#8220;gallery&#8221; designed to accommodate slivers of bespoke artwork.
For DJ Khaled, though, it&#8217;s not just the physical appointments that inspire his loyalty to Rolls-Royce. The company impressed him, he explains, by sending him a free Rolls-branded child seat when his son, Asahd, was born last winter.
&#8220;When he turns 16,&#8221; Khaled says, &#8220;I&#8217;m getting him a Rolls-Royce out the gate.&#8221; &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Zack O&#8217;Malley Greenburg</a>, FORBES STAFF

How DJ Khaled Rolls: Hip-Hop’s Boldest Star Shows Off His Major Keys

Honda call the CR-V a comfortable runabout vehicle. A modest description of one of the best-selling crossover vehicles in the world.
Since spawning this new class of vehicle in 1995, they have sold more than nine million CR-Vs in 150 countries and the recently launched fifth generation looks set to keep the cash register ticking.
That’s despite the heated competition from compact SUV rivals like the Volkswagen Tiguan, Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, Toyota RAV4, Renault Kadjar and others.
After a disastrous start to 2015, and the announcement of Takahiro Hachigo as the new President and CEO, Honda Motor Company is putting a lot of faith in their new rival in this high-margin segment.
In fact Hachigo has hiked up the profit forecast for the year to $6.57 billion based on a more favorable currency exchange rate.
But Japan’s number-three automaker is still struggling to make waves in its largest market, North America, where the Civic and Accord are at the back-end of the drive for bigger models, including SUVs.
To put it all in perspective, Toyota Motor is more valuable than GM, Ford and Honda combined – mainly due to Toyota’s cash-rich position thanks to having the highest average transaction price.
There is a fascinating connection between the Japanese duo. Honda’s founder, Soichiro Honda, was a confirmed petrolhead – fine tuning and racing cars. In the late thirties he won a contract to supply piston rings to Toyota… then lost it because of quality issues.
So Honda took himself off to engineering school and visited Toyota’s factories around Japan to get to grips with their control processes. And by the turn of the decade his company was able to mass produce excellent piston rings, even using unskilled wartime workers.
Eventually making his own name a synonym for motorbikes and developing engines that transformed two-wheelers into a global form of transportation.
Soichiro Honda, a humble visionary who liked to join employees on the factory floor and in the research laboratories, died in 1991, from liver failure, at the age of 84.
At that time Honda, admittedly late starters, were firmly established in the automobile industry. And today that’s by far the biggest business unit, generating $1.3 billion in operating profit last year.
Then come motorcycles, growing despite the global decline in car sales and “power products”, which range from generators to snow blowers.
Going back to the CR-V, this is probably not a segment that is going to blow your socks off. Descriptions like practical, economical and safe spring to mind.
Yet the new contender does present some almost daring exterior styling with a bold “H” emblazoned grille perched above faux aluminum scuff plates, rakish headlights and an elegantly sculpted derrière. It’s certainly a load more robust and chunky in appearance than the predecessors.
The interior features a tasteful mixture of black leather (or cloth in the base 2.0 Comfort model), brushed chrome and dashes of wood – or a realistic impression thereof! All really industry standard and I wonder which brave automaker will break the mold?
The seats are soft, yet supportive. But why, despite the import of hundreds of two-meter-tall rugby and basketball players, and catering for an international market, has Honda “flatly” refused to build a car with seats that go all the way down…or all the way back?
There is more room for the driver in an Opel Adam than in the CR-V or any other Honda vehicle that I’ve tested.
Top of the range is the 1.5T Exclusive. As you might guess, a 1.5-liter turbocharged petrol mill mated with the sometimes controversial CVT, or Continuously Variable Transmission. I’m told that the basics are a metal belt and two variable-diameter pulleys to control the input and output of energy and save fuel. But Honda must have tweaked the formula because it’s by no means sluggish.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/10/02/concept-car-captivates/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: A Concept Car That Captivates</a>
The flagship of the range, coming in at more than $48,000, doesn’t flinch when it comes to inclusive features. Which makes it difficult to compare, dollar for dollar, with its esteemed rivals.
For openers there is the handy seven-inch touchscreen infotainment system which incorporates satellite navigation and is naturally Apple CarPlay compatible.
Honda’s first-ever turbocharged CR-V (there is no diesel in the line-up) has what they call an updated Real Time All Wheel Drive with Intelligent Control System. Yes, motoring jargon can be quite tedious!
As I understand it, and not being a qualified engineer, there is a bank of fancy software, hydraulic pumps etc, which take into account the road conditions, gradient and velocity and make instant decisions on how much power to feed to the rear wheels.
So the back wheels kick in when you set off, even on dry tar, get decoupled when you are cruising and stay on standby until you hit a steep hill or need to overcome some rugged terrain. The aim is to improve fuel efficiency without sacrificing performance and driving capability.
<div id="attachment_33844" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33844" class=" wp-image-33844" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/hondacr-v_05-e1507880489967-300x188.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="313" />Honda CR-V (Photo by www.honda.co.za)</div>
Looking to features that you can actually see or feel, there are electric heated front seats with two memory settings, heated door mirrors (if you get stuck in the Drakensberg mountains in winter), rain sensing wipers, parking distance control and a power operated tailgate.
And don&#8217;t forget the panoramic sunroof.
When it comes to that crucial element of safety, the list continues with the “Honda Sensing” driver assist systems – some of which don’t come standard in the leading German marques.
Lane assist to keep you on track when you might stray without signaling, collision mitigation to throw out the anchors in an emergency, and even your behavior behind the wheel is craftily monitored to assess when you need to take a break.
Automatic high-beam headlights (with active cornering) and LED front fog lamps are there to protect you in the mist and after sunset.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/08/04/golden-road-ahead/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Golden Road Ahead</a>
You have to admit that Honda have set the bar when it comes to safety.
The irony is that Soichiro Honda would probably be more enthusiastic about getting the adrenalin flowing. “The pressures of racing challenges people, forces them to find innovative solutions and demands quick, accurate responses to new problems they’ve never faced before,” was his famous quote.
And they have used racing to optimize the manufacture of faster, stronger, lighter and more durable vehicles. And, of course, reliable engines.
It is difficult to reconcile that ethic with Honda’s nightmare Formula One season, with McLaren, which has left Spanish golden boy Fernando Alonso spitting into his helmet as a result of all the engine failures.
As I see it, the challenge left for Honda is to make their racing engines last the distance and their passenger vehicles a tad more exciting.
And get into the modern trend of low slung seats! &#8211; Written by Derek Watts

Honed Honda

Glen Ridge is a small, quiet suburb in the center of the vibrant Soweto township, south of Johannesburg. Here, Isaac Mojalefa Sentso stays alone in a four-room home that doubles as his art studio. This late morning FORBES AFRICA found him perched on a leather sofa facing a makeshift easel made of a piece of wood supported by an ironing board. A picture of the beaming United States’ President Donald Trump appears on his laptop next to him. He wakes up every day at 3AM and works throughout the day.
“I don’t do art after sunset because I use natural light,” says Sentso, as he welcomes us into his home with an open heart.
Soon, after briefly exchanging banter, Sentso recounts with glee the morning he met Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe in 2015. After spending two weeks drawing the portrait of Mugabe, he took a taxi to the Zimbabwean Embassy in Pretoria, with the wrapped picture tucked under his arm. A week later he secured an appointment with the president.
“I was there at 7:35AM because I like being early all the time. The ambassador ushered me into the room where he was having his tea. Mugabe asked me how long the picture took me ‘because I can see there’s no charcoal’. The way he understands art amazed me. &#8230; ‘I know art I was at Fort Hare and I am a collector’, he said. He asked me how much I wanted for the picture, I said R25,000 ($1,900). He scolded me for being cheap, he said it’s worth far more than that. Mugabe taught me a lesson about valuing and pricing my work,” recalls the unassuming Sentso.
Later, Sentso joined the president’s blue-light entourage visiting the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto – a tribute to casualties of the 1976 students’ uprising. At a gathering that included South Africa&#8217;s Minister of Arts Nathi Mthethwa and Mugabe’s entourage, Sentso was asked to present his picture to Mugabe there and then.
“The very same evening R35,000 was deposited into my bank account,” he says.
<div id="attachment_33832" style="width: 519px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33832" class=" wp-image-33832" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Ike-685-e1507795146670-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="509" height="339" />Isaac Mojalefa Sentso (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
But why did Sentso do a portrait of a man viewed as a villain around the world?
“I knew Mugabe appreciated arts. When I looked at all the pictures on Mugabe on internet, I saw they were insulting to him. I worked on a picture that will make him look beautiful and young. I don’t want controversy in my life, I only focus on positivity. I don’t want to be caught in politics,” he says.
Sentso says his target customers are the rich; businesspeople, monarchs, billionaires and heads of state. Most of his work isn’t commissioned; he sends the portraits to the subjects hoping they will send money in return. But, even though most of them are wealthy, some of those he sends his pictures to don’t give a cent. Those among his fruitless endeavours are: Carlos Slim Helú, one of the richest men in the world; Alisher Usmanov, the Russian business magnate; and Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei. Sentso delivered his portrait to Mexican tycoon Slim through the South African embassy. At the time, South Africa’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa was due to visit Slim and the packaged portrait was to be delivered by him, but Sentso said it was the last he heard of his work.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2017/06/26/no-reservations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Future Of African Women In Art</a>
Sentso normally sells his portraits for over R100,000 ($7,360), but if you have a good rapport with him, the price may go down to R50,000 ($3,800). When we met him, he was at wit’s end because he had hoped to sell a portrait to South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe. In late 2015, Sentso hand-delivered a picture to the Mamelodi Sundowns Football Club offices in Pretoria, a club that Motsepe owns.
It seems that the portrait was lost before it could reach Motsepe and Sentso had not been able to reach out to the businessman. But just before we went to press, Sentso was hoping the frustrating story of the lost portrait would have a happy ending after he met Sandile Langa, the Legal Compliance and Stakeholder Relations Executive at Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals. On hearing about Sentso from FORBES AFRICA, Langa contacted him to find an amicable solution to what seemed to be a mishap.
<div id="attachment_33833" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33833" class=" wp-image-33833" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Ike-679-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Some of the portraits adorning Sentso&#8217;s bedroom wall. On top is the Queen Mother of the Royal Bafokeng, Semane Molotlegi. Below her is a portrait of her son, Kgosi Nyalala Pilane. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Even though he struggles to sell his work and earn a living, Sentso refuses to put his work in galleries as he thinks they are cheating artists.
Trouble has followed Sentso, and his drawings, since day one.
“My older brother would bring home his homework to draw something. I would attempt to draw the same thing he was drawing and my pictures were far better than his… In those days I was happy to draw in school books and he was happy to take advantage of me,” he says.
Two years later, Sentso enrolled at the same school as his brother. His brother’s secret of asking Sentso to do his homework was exposed by the same teacher who taught them both.
“The teacher said ‘no, it cannot be it’. She called him in class and instructed us to draw while she was watching. My embarrassed brother had to confess that I had been doing his homework for him,” he recalls.
Growing up in the townships of Johannesburg under apartheid, it never dawned on Sentso that he can go to art school and make a living. So, like many black people in his community, he took a job as a clerk in an insurance company after leaving school.
“When I got bored I would draw at work. But I later destroyed those pages. It wasn’t a serious thing,” he says.
It took him 25 years to take his talent seriously. He enrolled for a part-time arts course at the University of the Witwatersrand, but that only lasted a few weeks. Sentso realized that wasn’t going to work for him and registered at the Johannesburg Art Foundation.
“They liked my style of art at the Johannesburg Art Foundation. I decided to quit my job and study full-time. But when I was in that class I was very slow to finish my work because I was too much of a perfectionist. The course facilitator suggested I change to graphic design. To my surprise, I liked this graphic design and designing on a computer was fun. The title itself, graphic design, was appealing,” says Sentso.
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In 1992, between chopping and changing courses, Sentso obtained a certificate and went to work as a graphic designer. He worked from home and reported to an editor. It was a team of two.
After two years of working from home as a lonely designer, Sentso needed a fresh challenge and joined advertising agency FCB South Africa, where he worked as multimedia designer and video editor for 12 years.
“When 9/11 happened in the US, I was assigned to Nigeria to train those guys in animation and video editing and all that. I was the only black multimedia designer in the company,” he says.
By 2004, Sentso had saved enough money to start on his own. In 2012, a break-in in his new home in Soweto saw him lose everything he had.
“I was distraught but I needed to earn a living. I didn’t start my life with computers. God gave me talent, not computers. I had already started visiting the so-called top galleries around Johannesburg. It is from that point I said to myself ‘there’s no work of my mine that is going to be sold there’,” he says.
In 2014, Sentso realized he did not need a job from anyone, he was going to make a living on his drawings. So, he started drawing influential people and couriered his pictures to them. But he has not always been lucky as some have tried to swindle him.
As Sentso was busy with the portrait of President Trump when we visited him, he can only hope he won’t suffer the same fate.

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