After more than a decade without a new project, Kabelo Mabalane is returning to music, and he returns as someone whose life has changed considerably since his last release.
His last album, “Immortal Vol. 3”, arrived in 2015. Since then, Mabalane has become a husband, father, pastor and wellness advocate.
Over the past few weeks he has been giving fans glimpses into the making of his upcoming 10th solo album.
When he first announced his return to music, he explained that he had continued creating over the years, but much of it did not feel right enough to release.
“I really believe I wasn’t creating from an authentic place,” he said at the time.
Eventually, he realised that the music had to come from where he is now and not from an attempt to recreate who he had been before. That distinction seems to sit at the centre of the people who have heard and worked on his new album “For King And Country”.
This time, the multi-talent is not the only one telling the story. He described the new project as something he chose not to make alone.
His latest behind-the-scenes video includes rapper and culture connoisseur Slikour, his wife Gail Mabalane, co-producer J Ross, actress and kindred spirit Nompumelelo Mayiyane, and his pastor Josh McCauley, reflecting on the artist, the person and the music they have heard.
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. So I went together,” he wrote.
Slikour said Mabalane has a gift for hearing what works and knowing what needs to be said.
“Pastor Kabelo’s got a gift to hear the right sounds, to say the right things and choose the right words,” he said in the video.
What Slikour heard on the album was not a revisit to a particular era of Mabalane’s career.
“It was not kwaito, it was not TKZee, it was not the times, it was the gift. It was God just working,” he said.
It is a significant observation considering how much history Mabalane carries with him. For many South Africans, his return to music will naturally bring back memories of TKZee and the period when kwaito was shaping much of the country’s popular culture.
Before becoming Pastor Kabelo Mabalane, he was Bouga 2 Shoes, one-third of one of South Africa’s most influential music groups alongside Tokollo “Magesh” Tshabalala and Zwai Bala.
The three first met while attending St Stithians College before eventually forming TKZee, bringing together different musical instincts that would become central to the group’s sound.
After a slow start, “Palafala” helped change their fortunes in 1997, before the group cemented its place in South African music with their 1998 album “Halloween”.
Songs such as “Dlala Mapantsula” and “Shibobo”, featuring iconic soccer player and coach Benni McCarthy, became cultural moments rather than simply hits.
Mabalane later continued that success as a solo artist, releasing “Everybody Watching”, which produced “Pantsula 4 Life”, followed by projects including “Rebel With A Cause” and “The Bouga Luv Album”.
He collected several South African Music Awards during that period and became one of the defining voices of kwaito.
However, Mabalane’s life also changed away from the spotlight.
He has spoken openly about his battle with drug addiction and the process of rebuilding his life, before his music gradually began reflecting a more mature and uplifting outlook.
In 2019, he publicly accepted his calling and was ordained as a pastor, beginning a chapter centred largely on faith, family, ministry and wellness.
His wife, Gail, suggests that those years were not simply an absence from music.
“I know it’s been a long drought. It’s been an 11-year wait, but trust me, God has been at work,” she says. “God has been at work in our family, but more importantly in him, to just perfect what the next (chapter) looks like.”
She also recalled a quote she once shared with him about understanding the purpose behind a talent.
“When you tie your gift with the giver of the gift, that’s when you find what the purpose of the gift is,” she said.
That idea of purpose comes up repeatedly in the conversations surrounding the album.
Artist and co-producer J Ross said his relationship with Mabalane is grounded in a shared understanding of how they want to use their talents.
“We’ve got the same heart for God’s great commission, which is using our talents to reach out to the youth and to impact people in the right way,” he said.
For Mayiyane, Mabalane’s approach to the new project can perhaps be understood through a quote he recently shared with her: “The people who change culture don’t fit into labels, they live in between them.”
That may be particularly relevant to an artist whose career has already moved through several different identities. From being a kwaito star, solo artist, pastor, speaker and a wellness advocate.
His upcoming album appears to bring those different parts of his life into the same room rather than asking him to choose one over another.
His pastor, McCauley, described the release as a moment where “God’s gospel, creativity and music meet” before going out into the streets and becoming “the sound of a country”.
Whether the album ultimately reaches that far remains to be seen, but the people involved in its making are describing something that is not about returning Mabalane to his old place in the music industry.
The project seems to be asking what happens when an artist with more than three decades of history stops trying to separate the different versions of himself.
Mabalane has described the purpose of his 10th solo project simply: “Make the music. Tell the story. Point people to something greater.”
After 11 years, he is finally ready to show his growth through what many know him best for, the music. However, Mabalane has not yet announced the exact date for his 10th studio album.
nomathamsanqa.sithathu@nationalmg.co.za