Johannesburg - After years in the industry producing dance house music, Mobi Dixon’s 10 Steps Forward album marks his milestone of ten years in the music industry.
The Metro FM award winning DJ, whose real name is Mabi Ntuli, recently spoke to DRUM about being bullied while in school, becoming a body builder and his consistent music career.
Taking us back to the beginning of it all, Mobi explained his experience with bullying in high school.
“The bullying started back in high school but after a while I started bodybuilding to get myself stronger so I could be able to protect myself.”
He added that while training to be a bodybuilder, he became good at what he was doing and thought he should start doing it more professionally.
“It came naturally because initially I wasn’t trying to compete or anything, I was just training hard and I just naturally became good at it. I represented the border region and then represented the province as a bodybuilder up to U/19,” he explained.
“Being a body builder was challenging.”
The Bhutiza hit-maker explained that the profession required a lot from him, especially maintaining his body shape and monitoring his food diet which was costly at times.
In 2008 the 33-year-old decided to choose a new path, which saw him become a music producer – something which he wouldn’t have predicted while growing up.
This lead to him finally releasing his first hit song, City Rains featuring M.que in 2014.
It has been many years since then but the DJ explained that he has remained consistent.
His latest album which has ten songs celebrates his years in the game and represents the different sub-genres that influenced him as a producer and DJ.
“It has different textures of house music from when I started with the deep and soulful kind of sound, and then it goes on to your tribal, tech, with influences of gqom, Kwaito and Hip-hop music. So, it’s just painting a picture of South African music in the past ten years from my perspective,” he added.
Mobi’s one-year-old son is, definitely, his inspiration for the album and he disclosed that his son was one of the executive producers of his new album.
“He talks with his body language and emotion, so we’ve come to learn each other,” he explained.
“When he reacts in a certain way, I’ve come to learn that I’m doing something right or something that he likes, and I carry on doing that,” he concluded.