Road to Success

Kamo Mphela is the picture of professional artistry. Cameramen and security follow her lead, which is as swift as it is graceful as it is strong, preparing – admittedly – for her eventual documentary. Spotify elevates her music. And international stages in Ghana, Portugal, and London sing her songs back to her.

A large American audience was introduced to her and other African super-talents like DBN Gogo and Fireboy DML on Black Panther 2’s soundtrack. Kamo’s been an acclaimed originator in South Africa’s hottest music scene, Amapiano, for some time, though. She and DBN Gogo show up on the soundtrack album twice. Amapiano is form of House and dance music which like Afrobeats before it, is breaking into the global mainstream from Africa.

Kamo is greater than being a singer, a dancer, or a businesswoman. She’s a strategic mind, a creative soul, and a sensitive heart who can dance and sing like the muses owe her money. She’s a multi-talent.

Forbes: How did you begin?

Kamo Mphela: I started off as a dancer. Whichever sound would blow up in South Africa, I’ve always been in it. And as a dancer at that time, you obviously need to catch up with the music scene and that’s what got me interested. I started dancing to Amapiano, and it was a vibe.

And then, I blew up through a viral dance video. And I just decided to go into music so I can change the dance space and culture for us to have more opportunities and to dance to my own music – so I can travel the world.

It was more of a strategy thing ‘cause if I just stayed as a dancer, I don’t think I’d be in certain spaces where I’d be taken as seriously as a brand.

So, I had to turn into a musician and so far it’s really working out. Yeah, I like it.

Forbes: How do you think about globally exporting your brand?

Mphela: I think through performances. That’s one of my strongest strategies for blowing up globally because that’s how I’m exposed to new markets and people. When they search for my name through the performance, it creates so many other opportunities for people.

Knowing who I am – that’s our biggest strategy right now. And that would move into, now, features with international artists for my name to pop up more often.

And probably also making music in English, that’s what I realized traveling the world, that we actually need to probably change Amapiano into that, for it to blow up as globally as we want it to.

In Afrobeats, they mix both English and their language. And that’s why it’s at the scale that it is. So, I feel like for Amapiano – to turn into an Afrobeats sized industry – we might have to incorporate English in order for it to go to the world.

If I’m performing in Barcelona, Spain, I also need to use English to reach out to the people to give a vibe ‘cause they can’t really understand the music. But if I say stuff in English, they really do catch the vibe, and that builds a connection between me and them, in which it puts me at a much greater position.

Forbes: How do conversations in your team about branding go?

Mphela: I dress really well ‘cause I want, one day, if a Nicky or Beyonce stand next to me, to look up to the same quality. I can’t look anything under. It just needs to say she makes sense standing next to that person. It can’t look like, oh, who is that?

So, it’s usually about quality control: how I look, how I sound, how I articulate myself in front of people, and the positioning of when people see me, what do they take from it? Not even me just walking into a room. What do you take from the Mphela brand as a whole? And I feel like already looking good, smiling, speaking very well. It definitely puts me in a different position to everybody else in the Amapiano scene.

Forbes: The American music industry, the South African music industry can both be masculine sorts of mosh pits.

Mphela: The problem is Amapiano is really male dominated. And only now it’s opening up because females are using Instagram and Tik Tok and the social media space to put themselves out. ‘Cause at first, you had to have a feature with a large male artist for you to be recognized. Uncle Waffles posted a video. She blew up.

She went viral, and that was an opportunity for her ‘cause they took advantage of the social media space. You can actually just change your life.

Forbes: There’s a negative side to social media too.

Mphela: It was really hard fighting it off, but there’s certain things now that I put down. If I am trending, if the first comment already is negative, I just leave my phone for it not to affect me. And I just push to where I’m going to.

Forbes: How has the business changed in South Africa?

Mphela: We were all doing Amapiano in the back room. It’s not a big studio. And that’s what’s different about us also. Like it’s not too much engineering, too much sound. Just a back room with your laptop and the mic – holding it like this, and you make a hit. Then life changes forever.

I do not believe in major labels at all. I just feel like we’ve seen what they’ve done to Hip Hop. I’m an independent artist. I’ve been independent for the past four years, and I am still doing everything that everybody else is doing.

I just basically use the money from my gigs and invest it back into my brand. And I think one of the biggest problems is people don’t want to not have money. And that’s what major labels catch us with is the money. But if you take money from your brand to put it back and invest into your brand you will not be in a position where you need a major label at all because everything else you can do.

We release by ourselves. We do everything by ourselves. I only probably get signed to a major label overseas, cause that’s a different game that nobody understands. But as far as South Africa, major labels, no.

The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.