Black Coffee

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."

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.