The late South African gospel star Sfiso Ncwane was one of the nicest guys that I have ever come across. I am still in shock that my brother and friend is no more. I first met Ncwane in 2014 at the Crown Gospel Awards where I had been invited by a Zimbabwean designer based in Durban, Thembani Mubochwa. It was then that I came to know more about Ncwane and his sense of humour was out of this world.
Obituary By Tatenda Mahachi
We became good friends, so much that some people thought we had been close for 10 years. I remember we shared a lot of music notes on the day and we had a number of photos taken together. He surprised me when he proposed that we do a collaboration and at first I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was joke, but we ended up in the studio that very same night. Ncwane was a workaholic and on that night we worked till the next morning. He was good at learning other languages. I remember when I gave him a Shona line to sing and what a genius he was, it didn’t take him long to master the lyrics. How he did his Shona lines that night was amazing and from there, I knew that this guy was something else.
We finished recording around 3am and from there, we became very close — brothers for real. We completed our song in 2015 and we began doing shows together. He would invite me to his shows and that’s the time we also did our video of the song Ndinoda Jesu. He invited me to Johannesburg to do a video of the song and bankrolled everything. Ncwane loved his wife Ayanda and the two were deeply in love.
One night, we took a drive to the area where soccer star Senzo Meyiwa was killed. We then went to a community radio station for an interview and after that, we went to a restaurant where we had lunch. That is the same night he opened up on his childhood. He told me how he was raised in poor conditions and his failure to access education.
He used to tell me that it was a miracle that he could speak English since he didn’t go to school.
We were so close, thus he could tell me what was bothering him at that time and we would spend up to five days together at the hotel shooting our video and doing shows. One thing I learnt from him was that he was hardworking and honestly, I have never come across someone like him in my life as a musician. Ncwane and his wife used to tell me that there was no time to sleep if one was to be successful in whatever they do.
We did a lot of shows together in South Africa and he introduced me to the South African media. We used to comfort each other when the chips were down. Ncwane was an amazing character that even when I was in Zimbabwe, we would always get in touch. I remember we used to call each other with the names of our presidents. I would call him Zuma and he would call me Mugabe. Ncwane was my role model and he inspired me a lot. I believe he was sent by God to be part of my life since he came to open up a new chapter for life.
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What hurt me the most was that Ncwane called me on Saturday (two days before his death) and said he wanted to come to sing the song Ndinoda Jesu with me at the Permican Awards here in Zimbabwe. We spoke for close to an hour and he showed his eagerness to come to Harare to perform. He had even approached the designer to prepare a jacket for him with Zimbabwean and South African flags for our performance. He had said he was coming to Zimbabwe on December 7 before our performance that had been scheduled for December 9. We were also set to perform in the United Kingdom in April next year. I didn’t know that this would be my last time to hear the voice of my great dear friend.
I have so many memories I shared with Ncwane and he is irreplaceable. There was no day I would retire to bed without checking Ncwane on Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp and he always did the same. The last comment he made was about my video titled Usacheme, which I had uploaded on Facebook was“ayeeeeyeee”, which was our trademark chant when we performed together.
Ncwane loved God and he taught me to pray hard. This is really a difficult time for me and I don’t know how I will live without talking to Ncwane. I won’t stop crying and may God give me strength. Death has just broken my heart and only God knows.
Go well my friend, brother and mentor. I will always love you.
