Meet the Talent360 finalists

The second finalist of the Talent360 competition I would like to introduce is Lulamile.

Lulamile is a finalist in the music-category of the Talent360-competition. Lulamile won the semi-final in Kayamandi. He is 20 years old and at the moment studying at Kayamandi High school, grade 11. After finishing high school, Lulamile’s wish is to go to university and study music there. He still has one year to go, and this year he would like to find the finances to be able to go to university.

Lulamile is not just an artist, very few people of his age do what he is doing: he plays traditional Xhosa music on his guitar. His dream is to become an artist for cultural music, because young people don’t like his style. And so Lulamile would like to promote the traditional Xhosa song.

The first time Lulamile got to hear traditional music, he wasn’t in Kayamandi. He liked it and went to his father and asked him to buy him a guitar. His father told him not to waste his money, but Lulamile knew to convince him when he told his father about the kind of music he would like to make. Lulamile is a very dedicated young man. “I saw someone else playing guitar, I just saw it and I thought I can also play guitar easily. And so I taught  myself. It was an easy thing for me. I write a song for myself and then it is quite easy to play.” He seems to be a natural talent, since he got his own guitar only two years ago (2010), he mastered the guitar within two years and started writing songs himself.

Not many people in Kayamandi seem to show interest in what Lulamile is doing. People got used to the western culture and started to adapt to it. Therefore Lulamile doesn’t know anyone who would like to form a group with him, the young people in Kayamandi prefer hiphop and R&B. Lulamile understands the value of what he is doing: “Youngsters don’t like my music. But I don’t like to throw away my talent, that’s why I don’t mix with other music styles. People like me or they don’t like me.” The songs that Lulamile plays are songs he writes himself. He records his own songs, listens to it and tries to improve it even more.

In October 2012, Lulamile got to hear about the Talent competition. Together with a classmate he went for auditions. He felt quite confident on the day of auditions, “I felt nice at the audition day, I know I can play guitar in front of people and there weren’t that many people inside. My classmate was also there. On stage I was afraid. But in the end I liked performing for an audience, it was me and my guitar. I need to move differently on the stage, become part of the people, the audience and start doing what I’m doing, playing traditional music.”

Actually, Talent360 made Lulamile aware of invisible kind of support, for he does not know who voted for him, yet Kayamandi did vote for him. Now Lulamile is getting ready for the big performance at Die Woordfees, where there will be a lot of people who will not understand the lyrics of his songs. He hopes that they will love him and support him in moving further with his talent. And in the meantime, he is now writing together with Luvo (Kayamandi drama finalist) and if possible he would like to perform before an audience together with her.