Publications
Partners
On getting Started…
Lady Naturelle
Mandla and I met each other at AFDA when we were still students. We met Bongo at the Hard Rock Café where he used to perform. We liked his style. We approached him and asked him to feature on some of our tracks. We did about six tracks together. So we said:” Guys, why don’t we just become a group?” We were all keen so we did it.
On the hit song “My number one”
Lady Naturelle
I didn’t think it would blow up like it has. I remember when we were busy with the album, we had some friends came through for a listening session. There were a lot of favourites and we didn’t know which one would be the first single. We took four of the best and sent those out to the radio stations. I guess the audience chose it. The song was primarily producer by Sifiso {Sifiso A. Mbede), and co-produced by BK. Bongo had the concept and already had some of the chorus.
Bongo Riot
It was inspired by love and a personal experience.
On their Music
Lady Naturelle
Because we have to choose a genre, we’ve chosen popular music. Basically 'cause we find that a majority of songs are of the popular genre. If we didn’t have to choose we’d call it good music. It’s a combination of a lot of genres out there. You’ll find kwaito, you’ll find jazz, you’ll find hip hop, you’ll find reggae, you’ll find soul, you’ll find gospel, you’ll find mbaqanga and you’ll find rock. So we don’t really fit into anything because we understand that we all come from different musical backgrounds. Mandla is hip hop and rap, Bongo is reggae and rock, I’m soul and jazz, and our producer was in a rock band before. All of us come from different schools of thought.
Mandla N
We’ll call it urban pop. On being on an Independent label
Mandla
The cons are having to do interviews while you are doing business. Sorry about this, I have to email this proposal…
Lady
The cons are also that you have to do everything yourself. You are the artist, you’re the PR person, you are the marketer and you are the promoter. But with that there are a lot of pros that outweigh the cons. You have creative control of the product. And you can see what is happening with the album in terms of album sales and what the audience wants to hear musically.
On the two guys, one girl formula
Bongo
That didn’t come to our mind, we didn’t even think about that. We were just making music
Lady
Somebody said to us that people say we are the new Bongo Maffin. And we were like, what?! We never thought about that. For us it was about gelling musically. We have never thought about comparing ourselves to anybody. It wasn’t planned that way.
On balancing television production and music (Mandla and Lady run a production company. They are also producers and stars of SABC 1’s sitcom City Ses'la.)
Mandla
We are still learning. We have a great team that works with us and we do our best to keep a balance. But you can spread yourself too thin. We just have to be very careful about that.
On Mandla and Lady being a couple
Mandla
It’s not easy at all (working together and being a couple). Diplomatic lines get blurred sometimes. It’s very difficult and a lot can go wrong.
Lady
It’s not an easy question to answer. Number one cause we don’t want to talk about it and secondly it’s personal matter. No offence, but I am here as an actress and a musician, not about who I’m dating and who I’m not. But basically it’s a challenging position and there is more pressure. If we are not happy, people will pick it up right away. So yeah, there’s more pressure.
On the future of GI
Bongo
We want to take our music worldwide!
Listen to GI’s music and get the lyrics here.
- Nomfundo H Mbaba+Tshabalala
Lady Naturelle
Mandla and I met each other at AFDA when we were still students. We met Bongo at the Hard Rock Café where he used to perform. We liked his style. We approached him and asked him to feature on some of our tracks. We did about six tracks together. So we said:” Guys, why don’t we just become a group?” We were all keen so we did it.
On the hit song “My number one”
Lady Naturelle
I didn’t think it would blow up like it has. I remember when we were busy with the album, we had some friends came through for a listening session. There were a lot of favourites and we didn’t know which one would be the first single. We took four of the best and sent those out to the radio stations. I guess the audience chose it. The song was primarily producer by Sifiso {Sifiso A. Mbede), and co-produced by BK. Bongo had the concept and already had some of the chorus.
Bongo Riot
It was inspired by love and a personal experience.
On their Music
Lady Naturelle
Because we have to choose a genre, we’ve chosen popular music. Basically 'cause we find that a majority of songs are of the popular genre. If we didn’t have to choose we’d call it good music. It’s a combination of a lot of genres out there. You’ll find kwaito, you’ll find jazz, you’ll find hip hop, you’ll find reggae, you’ll find soul, you’ll find gospel, you’ll find mbaqanga and you’ll find rock. So we don’t really fit into anything because we understand that we all come from different musical backgrounds. Mandla is hip hop and rap, Bongo is reggae and rock, I’m soul and jazz, and our producer was in a rock band before. All of us come from different schools of thought.
Mandla N
We’ll call it urban pop. On being on an Independent label
Mandla
The cons are having to do interviews while you are doing business. Sorry about this, I have to email this proposal…
Lady
The cons are also that you have to do everything yourself. You are the artist, you’re the PR person, you are the marketer and you are the promoter. But with that there are a lot of pros that outweigh the cons. You have creative control of the product. And you can see what is happening with the album in terms of album sales and what the audience wants to hear musically.
On the two guys, one girl formula
Bongo
That didn’t come to our mind, we didn’t even think about that. We were just making music
Lady
Somebody said to us that people say we are the new Bongo Maffin. And we were like, what?! We never thought about that. For us it was about gelling musically. We have never thought about comparing ourselves to anybody. It wasn’t planned that way.
On balancing television production and music (Mandla and Lady run a production company. They are also producers and stars of SABC 1’s sitcom City Ses'la.)
Mandla
We are still learning. We have a great team that works with us and we do our best to keep a balance. But you can spread yourself too thin. We just have to be very careful about that.
On Mandla and Lady being a couple
Mandla
It’s not easy at all (working together and being a couple). Diplomatic lines get blurred sometimes. It’s very difficult and a lot can go wrong.
Lady
It’s not an easy question to answer. Number one cause we don’t want to talk about it and secondly it’s personal matter. No offence, but I am here as an actress and a musician, not about who I’m dating and who I’m not. But basically it’s a challenging position and there is more pressure. If we are not happy, people will pick it up right away. So yeah, there’s more pressure.
On the future of GI
Bongo
We want to take our music worldwide!
Listen to GI’s music and get the lyrics here.
- Nomfundo H Mbaba+Tshabalala
