PDBY had the pleasure of interviewing DJ and percussionist duo, Soul Nativez. The duo performed at the 2022 Freshers event, and they are gradually showing more and more face in and around Pretoria. This interview discusses their dynamic, musical journey, and the day-to-day challenges they face as local musicians.
What is the nature of your dynamic? Are you related to any extent?
No blood relations, but we are very close. We met through Sana’s older brother, Native being friends with Sana’s older brother then eventually formed our brotherhood through music. Music united us.
What would you say evoked the enthusiasm for music in you two as a duo?
Native: Growing up in the township where every 2nd house had a sound system and was blasting the radio or even just their CD collection, I was exposed to a lot of music. My family too, was into music, so just growing up I consumed so much music that I fell in love with it and just genuinely became interested in learning the creation part of it. I’ve also always just pictured myself on stage performing for millions of people and seeing people smile. That’s when I knew I had to tap into it.
Sana: From the days when I would be in church and just watching the drummer at church and how everything just comes together was just amazing for me. Walking around the neighbourhood and just listening to the music that my neighbours were playing and just always waking up to music playing in the background (outside), going to sleep with music playing. All this just groomed my ear.
Have you always imagined yourselves in the entertainment industry?
Native: Yes, from a young age I’ve always known it’s what I want.
Sana: Yes, as I was already playing and doing gigs at a very young age
What are some of the challenges/difficulties that you two have experienced in your music journey?
There’s just a lot of exploitation that happens in the industry, especially because at the time we started our thing, places were not in the best financial position so money was a problem and even when they started getting better, they still opted to exploit for as long as they can before you fight for your true worth.
Based on your Instagram account, we see that you have a song with Musa Keys. What was it like working with him?
Yes, Musa is our brother! A true hard worker. Working with Musa was one of the easiest to do because we believe in exchange of energy. We need to be in sync energy wise and we truly experienced that, making the process very much easy and enjoyable. It’s also an exchange of knowledge because we believe he showed us new ways/things to go about this music production thing and we did the same for him because no one knows everything and we can all learn one or two things from one another.
Which artist would you like to collaborate with next and why?
Everyone that’s amazing at what they do, but our process of choosing who we would want to collaborate with would be based on where we feel we need to take the brand next, so Boohle, Young Stunna, … and … yeah, it’s a long list but those are the ones who we believe could fully align with the brand.
If you can have your fans remember one thing about you, what would it be?
GREATNESS. How we are always chasing greatness, it’s a race with ourselves to always come out in 1st place.
What can people expect from you this year?
They can expect us to be more outside. Last year we had a reduction of gigs due to certain personal and business reasons, mainly business, but more gigs, MORE MUSIC, BIGGER FEATURES. Just OVERALL GREATNESS.
Photo: Instagram – soulnativez_
Minentle Mndiyata
Originally published on the PDBY website: Soul Nativez On Their Music Journey
