Fiji Mageba is One of South Africa's Best-Kept Secrets

Fiji Mageba's go-to word is 'soft.' That's how he refers to the type of music he makes, a terrain that stretches from jazz to soul, hip-hop and then some. The South African producer maintains an unbelievable work rate and has carved a niche in the country's alternative music circuit over three years and five albums.

Born in 2002 in KwaMashu's J section in Durban and raised in Johannesburg, Mageba spent his early years pursuing a potential football career. By his admission, he wasn't serious enough for football, and music is all the better for it.

He speaks to OkayAfrica following a weekend of back-to-back studio sessions and an album release by a collaborator of his called Miso Ngubane. It has also been over a month since his album,Take Caution, hit streaming platforms.

"Both my parents are musicians. It has always been in me to have this source. When I had to go to high school, I had to choose between an old boy's school and a music school," he says. An old boy's school would have set him on the football track, but he chose a music school instead. Here, he "learned a bit of that and this" and trained his ear on classical music, jazz, and other contemporary sounds while growing up in a country renowned for its dance and electronic music culture.

"My dad never had time for me. Life doesn't happen the way you want it to. Where I am right now, I have to do something for my mom: come alive with beautiful music so I can feed the family. I was also trying to compete with the sound that he makes, to show him that anything is possible even though [he] wasn't there," says Mageba. "Everything that I do right now is for my family. The sound is very warm, and that's how my fam is — very warm, very jolly."

His confidence has increased with every release, but his girlfriend's motivation was the initial spark to release his debut,Cold Winters Warm Hearts. This doubt wasn't only due to his parents' path; it also had to do with the type of sound that the market he operates in favors. He isn't trap or amapiano, and that can be a difficult place to exist in, but Mageba is making it work. He had decided to subscribe to an online music distribution platform but was not dropping songs. "I made my girlfriend listen to these songs, and she was like, 'Yo bro, you can't waste money like this; you've gotta drop music.' She sat down with me, took out the laptop, and started helping me drop. I was nervous about what people would think of my sound. It was intense for me, a weird step," reflects the artist.

"Don't go with other people just because certain movements are happening. Don't give up on your dream because it might be THE dream. After dropping for the first time, I got comfortable with the feedback," he says.

Collaboration is an art for the artist. He has been the primary producer on all of Marcus Harvey's albums. He has collaborated with musicians such as Halo Yagami, Archi, and KayTorture, with whom he released 2023'sJazz for the Kids. "I know my sound doesn't sound that great because of engineering. I'm looking for that person who will touch up my sound. After touching up my sound the way I want it to sound, we're out for the world. I understand you can't do this music alone; you need people to help you," the producer admits.

Mageba was introduced to Marcus Harvey by Durban producer 031Choppa, who pointed out the artist's boom-bap sound as a redeeming quality. Not long after, the two artists went back and forth between each other's places, butting heads together to create a unique sound.

"He was like, you've gotta link up with this guy; he has this soft sound, that boom bap hip-hop type of sound.' He came to the south [of Johannesburg], and I went to Alexandra sometimes. We decided that we should drop. It sounded dope, and we were like, 'it's different,'" says the artist.

Mageba's one of South Africa's best-kept secrets, and judging by the way he's moving, it won't be that way for long. He prefers relative anonymity because it gels with his personality. "One thing about me: I don't like being in the public eye. I don't seek for fame and all of that. I'm a very intimate person."