Smamkele Mthetho from Phumula (Germiston) professionally known as Dedication is a South African artist and an award-winning artist born and raised in the Eastern Cape – Matatiele, he developed an interest in music at an early age.
“I started music in 2015 and I developed a skill to write my own songs and I started recording and releasing music in the same year, I’ve worked with a lot of musicians from other countries so far, such as Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia to name just a few, I’ve performed and opened stages for the likes of AKA, Nasty C and Kwesta.” Smamkele’s music journey kicked off while he was visiting his aunt at Port Shepstone in Gamalakhe. The artist divulged saying, “I started by quoting bible verses, so that’s how I taught myself how to sing. I later on started to Rap, record and release songs with my friends who I was schooling with as we formed a group of 3 people, but later on, I went solo and I started releasing my own songs alone.”
The reason I make music is to inspire people and give them hope on all sorts of things in life, inspire them to be better people not only for themselves but even for others and I also believe that in this world we came for a purpose and my purpose is to heal and inspire people with my music. So far I’ve released two songs that talk about life & love the song I released first is titled Kukude which will also fall into the Ep that I’m releasing, it is talking about life in general as I talk about the journey when came to Johannesburg (Egoli) as we all believe that Johannesburg has better opportunities for us, we can find work and make our lives better. I’m portraying a message that shows that life isn’t easy but rather hard here.
In 2018 I got the chance to be nominated at 011 awards in Durban but they took place here at Johannesburg with the Johannesburg code 011 and I won an award for best artist of the Year in those awards. So that launched my career because I also got the chance to Perform at North West’s biggest event where I got to close the stage for the likes of Nasty C, Dj Maphorisa, Dj Tira and AKA. The Ep I’m releasing this Friday Talks more about life and love because that also motivates and gives hope to my people and I’ve worked with different artists from other provinces as I believe that working with people gets you where you want to be in life, we only go forward when we unite and trust each other as workers.
By Vusumuzi Makwakwa
