Artist Thato Makhuza, with the stage name MaDizzy is planning to take the international music scene by storm and persuade youths not to get involved in drugs and crime with the release of his EP Ose Tsubile which is his first compilation since he joined Bon K Media in 2018.

The EP features four tracks: Ga-ranga, which pays homage to his township; Ngwanyana o; Ma2k; and Ose Tsubile.

He said that when they shot the music video for Ose Tsubile, they had not expected that it would perform as well as it did on platforms such as YouTube.

According to the local artist, the song was about someone he knew who decided to get into drugs and unfortunately ended up smoking his stock, which landed him in trouble with the suppliers of the drugs.

“Looking at my neighbourhood and many others in Tshwane, we knew we had to create something that not only makes people dance, but something that would urge youngsters not to resort to drug use or peddling drugs in their community.”

He said that although he had come out with and produced an amapiano EP, his music was influenced predominately by Kwaito, a South African music genre that started in the 1990s.

The reason for this was because the genre was mostly about black people uplifting themselves and making a better future, something which remained a challenge even for this generation.

“I still have the ideals and messages that those old school artists wanted to impart on us to push ourselves to get out of the townships and to make something better of ourselves because that is still to happen.”

And behind his efforts is Lavista D Manaka, the owner of Bon K Media, who said they recently signed up MaDizzy, who produced amapiano music, which had become a household genre in many townships across the country.

Manaka said the video for the track Ose Tsubile debuted on Channel O and MTV Base over the weekend and was already receiving positive feedback.

The EP was released in March and urges youngsters not to get involved in the abuse of drugs and crime.

“We want to create music that ends up teaching our children something instead of them just being out in the streets singing songs that have nothing to give them but vulgar language.”

Although the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown had slowed down things within the entertainment industry and all but cancelled live performances, Manaka said he and his team was focusing on pushing the artists’ content on various social media platforms.

“People might be indoors for now, but we’re hoping that having his videos flooding social media and on popular music channels will get his name out there and lead to bookings when things return to normal,” Manaka said.