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Bruce Ndlovu
ON a sweltering Thursday afternoon last week in rural Filabusi, just a few kilometres from his own farm, Nicholas Sikhonjwa stops his car in front of a group of men busy working on the road.
Lowering the window on the passenger, the side his son and lieutenant Babongile is seated on, he shouts to the men, “Please vote for me”.
He then presses his foot down on the accelerator. This is all deliberate. While he intended the workers to hear his voice loud and clear, Sikhonjwa Snr does not want them to see his face.
He wants to keep them guessing, to leave them wondering who this stranger that wants their vote in the country’s upcoming harmonised elections is. Even if they knew who he was, on 30 July in the privacy of the voting booth, they would not find his name on the ballot because he is not standing for elections.
A few metres down the road, it is Babongile’s turn to play a prank of his own. Spotting a couple more workers relieving themselves in the bush, he hollers: “We’ve got tissue,” before his father again speeds off again.
It is only a few days after Babongile was crowned Bulawayo’s biggest artiste at the ROIL Bulawayo Arts Awards and he is in Filabusi seeking the beast that he promised to slaughter should he walk away with that gong. While the Best Radio DJ Award is also special in its own right, it is the best artiste gong that is likely to find a special place in his display cabinet.
“With me winning this award forces people to re-look and redefine what an artiste is,” he says.
Watching Babongile and Sikhonjwa’s father-son tag team routine in mischief, one gets the impression that the apple did not fall far away the tree.
To understand Bulawayo’s self-styled Ndebele Rockstar, one perhaps has to take a close look at the man who raised him. Physically, Babongile is a carbon copy of his father while they have the same mannerisms and even speak in the same voice tone.
At the farm Babongile gets to work.
With the chosen beast isolated, he puts it down with a single shotgun shot without flinching. Knife in hand, he swiftly starts the process of skinning and butchering the meat. All this is done under the watchful eye of Sikhonjwa, who weighs in with a wise crack or two. Suddenly it feels like the Vuka Vuka Breakfast show broadcast under the clear blue skies of Filabusi.
This version of Babongile, so deft with the knife in hand, is a far cry from the Ndebele Rockstar, a man who lights up listeners’ mornings with his unique cocktail of humour and social commentary.
This farm, once the scene of a gold rush only a few years ago, is also a far cry from Red Cafe after midnight. It is at this club in the wee hours that Babongile many believe he shows his true colours.
In Filabusi, he has to get down to basics.
“We’ve been doing this since we were kids,” he says, wiping out sweat from his face.
Back at his family’s Richmond home in Bulawayo, Sikhonjwa Snr takes a moment to introduce the rest of the family. Babongile’s three siblings, Badumisile, Banele and Babusisiwe are all permanent residents of family’s living room, as all of them are outside the country and thus exist only in pictures that chart.
They have all promised to come home in July, the month that their mother, another permanent tenant in the living room, passed on.
“When they come home I’ll slaughter another beast as I’m doing now. I’m not worried about depleting my stock. No. A man’s wealth is what he spends. If you’ve got money in the bank, only that amount that you spend is truly your money because you’re going to leave the rest behind,” Sikhonjwa says philosophically.
Through the years, Babongile has been regarded as the wild child of the Bulawayo showbiz scene. From the riotous days at Visions and Kudu Bar to his stint at Red Cafe, he has always been the party starter, the spark that ignites the fumes when the fires of a nightclub are dying. But how exactly did he come to be known as the Ndebele Rockstar.
“There was this guy in the UK called Terrence Mundey who’s a rock guitarist. He taught me all that I know about music and there was this time that I went to record a traditional Ndebele song in his studio. When the vocals were done he suggested that we put an electric guitar on the instrumental.
“After we were done he shouted that I was a Ndebele Rockstar and whenever I would come on stage at his shows he would introduce me as that.”
Despite the naughtiness that listeners marvel at every morning on radio, Babongile admits that the last few years have seen him tone things down a bit. His victory at the RBAAs, is likely to subdue him even more.
“My life used to be my own. But first the birth of my son and then my radio listeners forced me to do away with some of the wildness. I have a responsibility to other people besides myself now,” he says.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter