Features
Black Coffee
The African artist making a global impression on house music
A short while after, SHANA became the first band from the school to land a record deal (with Melt 2000 in the UK) and were a regular highlight on the local gig circuit. "That band was my real university," says Nathi. "We made so many mistakes musically and in our approach, and we were so loyal to our sound that it actually kept us in one place. When I went solo the first thing I did was to remix one of our songs in a direction I had always wanted to take it but couldn't."
Nathi's fascination with electronic and dance music continued to grow, and by the late 90s he was DJing independently of the group, spinning mostly slow, soulful dance music like Soul 2 Soul, Mariah Carey, Black Box's 'Fantasy', Banderas 'This Is Your Life' as well as home-grown takes on house music like Kwaito and Midtempo. The record that finally pushed Nathi towards house was the one that changed the game across the whole of South Africa: 'Fresh House Flava Vol 1'.
This 1998 compilation, released by Jo'burg label House Afrika, featured a host of soulful house belters like Crustation 'Flame' (Mood II Swing vocal mix), Presence 'Better Day' (Bookworm dub mix), Abstract Truth 'We Had A Thing' (Matty's Body & Soul mix) and Shena's 'Let The Beat Hit 'Em', almost all of which became huge hits and are still regarded as classics throughout SA today.
The DJ behind the compilation, DJ Fresh (originally from Botswana) was, alongside Oskido and Glen Lewis, a big inspiration for Nathi. "These were the guys I looked up to and wanted to be like," he says. "But at the same time I wanted to create my own songs, too." In 2001 Nathi moved to Pretoria where he worked on making connections and picking up DJ gigs. In 2003 he made a successful application for the Red Bull Music Academy, where he says his "international ear was carved... I met people from all over the world who exposed me to different music styles, things like broken beat, and I started to do remixes and bootlegs."
During the Academy Nathi was asked by a South African TV station where he thought he would be in three years. He replied that he wasn't sure about three years... but in five years he would be one of the most important producers in South Africa. "After I said that my heart was beating so hard!" he says, chuckling at the memory. "I felt so stupid. It sounded very arrogant and that was not my style at all. Two weeks later I saw it aired on TV and I was really cringing. But I realise now that saying it also liberated me in a way."
In the end, it took him only two years to make his mark nationally. His first big break, facilitated by Oskido, came in the shape of his "spiritual house" stonker 'Happiness' getting featured on the 2005 House Afrika compilation 'DJs At Work'. The same year he followed up with another hit, a reworking of 'Stimela' by South African music legend Hugh Masekela.
"I was actually in the studio when the song came on the TV," he remembers. "I immediately opened a new project and started programming. By the time it ended I had a skeleton of a remix, which I then worked on for two days straight and started to DJ as an instrumental. When people asked what it was, I told them it was going to be a remix. Eventually I was granted the rights and it worked out. Hugh even agreed to shoot a music video with me later on, which was a very big deal for me."
Both 'Happiness' and 'Stimela' made it onto Nathi's eponymous 'Black Coffee' album, a collection of released and unreleased tracks that came out towards the end of 2005 on his own Soulistic Music imprint. A follow-up album, 'Have Another One', came in 2007, and his third offering, 'Home Brewed', in 2009. For these recordings Nathi worked with a stellar line-up of South African vocalists – Bucie, Siphokhazi, Ringo Madlingozi, the late Busi Mhlongo – honing his signature deep house sound and building a cult following in the process.
In 2010 he scooped two SAMAs [South African Music Awards]; in 2011 he was nominated in the 2011 MTV Europe Africa, India and Middle East Category for Worldwide Act and launched Africa Rising, a live show featuring a plethora of vocalists, live musicians and a 24-piece orchestra, which played to a sold-out crowd at Durban's Moses Mabhida stadium. "Africa Rising was and still is the best work we've done," he says. "To see it grow from an idea to playing in front of all of those people was so heartwarming."
"I had never worked with a computer before, so I had to work out how to turn it all on"
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To watch the show online is to experience a side of Black Coffee that we don't yet know here in Europe. Here he is regarded more as an underground house DJ, but at home he is South Africa's biggest DJ, a commercially-minded producer turned national icon, a man who can fill stadiums with orchestras playing house music and – as witnessed on the Origins documentary – send kids into raptures when visiting his former high school to give an inspirational talk.
But his star has been steadily rising here, too. Last week was his second Circoloco opening party in a row, and the first time, he says, when he got the feeling that there were people there specifically to see him. That's certainly a good sign, as are the increasing numbers of offers he's getting from European and US DJs and producers who want to work with him, including Sven Väth, Loco Dice, Seth Troxler. "I consider myself an artist in two different ways and I try not to mix the two," he says. "As a producer I want to do my own thing and be content with that. As a DJ, it's different.
"I'm not crazy about producing music to play in clubs; I'm more about making music to consume either at home or driving to work. It's never club music for me. So when I DJ it's another world for me; they're separate but parallel. In the past two years I have learned so much and met DJs I didn't even know existed."
At Watergate, after our interview, he plays to a packed house below the venue's futuristic LED ceiling, mixing up a mellifluous set of expertly blended tunes like DJ Angelo & Foremost Poets' drum-heavy '100 Years' and the funk-tastic Manoo remix of Diephuis 'Crossing Borders' with exclusives from back home; tracks by Jo'burg's DrumeticBoyz and Rudo Deep's crisp shrugger 'The Announcement'.
As ever, he looks calm and focused behind the turntables, his broad smile all the more infectious when he flashes it occasionally at the crowd. "It's funny," he says after the show. "I have this big career in South Africa, ten years of recording and playing, and a two-hour DVD of a stadium show that involves a 24-piece orchestra. But in many ways it's like I am just starting, like I'm still just at the beginning."
One question remains: what has motivated him all these years? "You know, living in the rural areas and the city has been a blessing in the way they have helped me understand and respect all kinds of people. I drive on the freeway in South Africa and see these guys in their work vans, and think to myself: I have been that guy. But nowadays I'm driving home from playing a gig where I make a month's salary in an hour, and that pushes me. That's what drives me. The struggling people are the ones who inspire me, the ones who have nothing." Black Coffee is a different kind of superstar .
Black Coffee plays SW4 on Saturday August 29
