I was only minding my own business, exactly a decade ago, when a friend of mine (Leroy Ndlovu) told me that my voice was annoying. Mind over matter. Years later a clip goes viral of that Ambivalence character and somebody says to me you sound just like her…I wasn’t mad cause I hadn’t seen the clip. Til I did. Man oh man. Iqaqa alizizwa ukunuka but I don’t find anything wrong with my voice, when I’m talking anyway. Singing is another story altogether, a tragedy actually.

I went to private schools and I speak perfect French (wait this sounds like a Shakira song, Don’t bother i think.) There’s a point in all this I assure you. I watched a lot of TV at my impressionable age and I realised that all Zulugirls have the gift of being able to mimic personalities on TV. So we all started to talk in a ‘strange’ way. Thaby keeps saying we should learn more vernacular and stick to our roots and what not. I’ll have you know my Ndebele is impeccable. ZiFM Stereo hired me for my Ndebele skills as a matter of fact.

Anyways, so I went for the auditions for a certain local radio station and I didn’t make it. I started to think back at all the times I was viciously attacked about my voice. And I realised something, everytime I am under pressure or nervous, my voice changes. Almost like those people that need to put on an accent before answering the phone or sending a voice note. You can literally tell when I’m lying because my voice changes altogether into something else. But you can’t really judge me for it. I don’t mean to sound like different people it just happens. Whenever I need to deliver a speech in front of a crowd, I overthink every word, so scared to mispronounce that I end up mispronouncing anyway. We all have an Archilles’ heel and this one happens to be mine.

What I sound like when I’m under pressure to record a demo.