By Sithembile Mgidi
The stars are aligning for Nelson Mandela Bay singer Jooma Mize, who is set to perform in the Easter Soul Sunday show in Kariega at the end of March before jetting overseas.
The 2020 Idols SA top eight finalist, who is also in filming for a reality TV show to be aired on Showmax, said he was excited to not only perform on home soil on March 31, but to perform at the inaugural Mhlaka Mpiloz festival in New York.
The festival is hosted by a Haitian-American alcohol brand called Crema Alcohol, with Mize set to perform on July 6.
The festival brings African and Caribbean artists together for African and Caribbean people living in New York.
He will then remain in Brooklyn for a while to record further tracks.
While he is not yet permitted to talk about the television show, he said his Easter musical extravaganza would take place at Discomplicated at 46 Cuyler Street.
He will be accompanied on stage by AfroGroove SA and Yanga HappySoul, among other artists.
The show starts at 3pm, with tickets available at the door.
Mize said he had not given the show a name because he liked to steer away from a theme as this often caused things to become too structured or limiting.
“My set can change midway through a show,” he said.
“That’s also why I prefer to rehearse more songs than the required number.
“I feed off the energy I get from the audience, so I can easily change the songs I had planned based on the audience’s reaction.
“It’s a pity that until now I have not been able to host a show in the place where it all began, but I am grateful I have finally been given an opportunity,” Mize said.
Having grown up in Kariega, where he attended Muir College Boys High School until grade 8, he later moved to Gqeberha with his family.
He said he carried fond memories of Kariega, where his eagerness to become a musician was born.
“School is essentially where the eagerness to want the whole musician life started.”
He drew inspiration from the musical Bala brothers, who went to the same school as him.
After the Mhlaka Mpiloz show, he planned to record new songs and collaborate with producers from Brooklyn for his single, Sudlala (Do not play).
“There is a DJ I met a few years back who is from Durban but relocated to New York and has been living there for seven years now.
“He established a name for himself and is doing really well that side.
“We have a song together which has grown in popularity and now he really wants to market it.”
Mize said the DJ had called him in the first week of January, asking whether he could come over to perform with him for about a month.
Excited about the opportunity to perform at the festival, he said while he had been to some European countries, this would be his first visit to the US.
Since Idols, he had gone on to perform in Dubai, Turkey and Greece, but felt this latest opportunity would bring him closer to reaching his goals.
“There is always that fear of disappearing after a show like Idols.
“I was afraid I might fizzle out to nothing and eventually give up on the whole music thing.
“But over the past three years, things have been moving for me in leaps and bounds.
“I have done things I never thought were on my spectrum of things to do, or things that were available to me.
“This one is really big for me, I have never been to America. I can’t wait to network, and who knows what could happen,” Mize said.
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