‘I was not enjoying the industry anymore’: Sho Madjozi on leaving music business after final album announcement
“You have to spend so much more time just to post things that are gonna trend, you have to dance this on social media, post this, do this public stunt. It just feels like more energy is spent in this kind of attention economy than in actually doing anything creative” averred theReal name Maya Wegerif, Madjozi said she doesn’t have the energy to play to the gallery, as it were.
But four years down the line, Madjozi has experienced the classic artist versus record label tug of war where the latter wants to change the former with ambitions of reaching bigger markets.There’s a sense of pain when she speaks about how her experience in the industry has contaminated her love for making music.
“And I’m also not going to be sexualised, like ‘how did you not see that’. It’s not like I was nobody before this, I had a whole career in which I was myself,” she said.singer, this is not an attempt at slandering Epic Records but “I think what they were looking for is something different than what I am,” she said.
To celebrate her 31st birthday last year, instead of popping bottles at nightclubs which would easily attract her music fans.She hosted an African Union-themed birthday party attended by Samthing Soweto, folk singer Muneyi, Langa Mavuso and choreographer Litchi Hov among other the list of creatives. Toiling for attention and being emotionally drained by industry games is one thing, succeeding in it is another and Madjozi experienced both.
She said people’s eyebrows might take a stand when they start seeing her following her other passions.