Various words have been used to describe her : talented, soulful and even a powerhouse. A day before her 24th birthday, Mmatema Moremi shares her next move with us.
‘All I ever wanted to do was to be on TV,’ she says. Just about everything she’ done in life has been focused on that. – Mmatema has been signing from a very young age. She might not have won the title in the popular reality show’s season 11 but that hasn’t stopped this rising star from pursuing her dream. ‘I remember singing Brenda Fassie’s Vulindlela and Black President and using anything I could get my hands on, from remotes to roll-on deodorants, as a mic’ she recalls fondly.
But her family expected her to at least get a degree and fall back on ‘My older sister is an optometrist, my brother is an agriculture lecturer and the youngest in the family is a law student’ she says explaining how important it is in her family to have an academic qualification.
‘Initially I wanted to be a journalist, anything to get me closer to TV,’ she says. ‘But I couldn’t get in to journalism and ended up studying linguistics in which I have an Honours degree’. Before Idols she worked part time as a translator and Multichoice decoder sales consultant. ‘Right now I am a singer who knows how to translate’ she says with a smile. ‘Back then, I was a translator who happened to know how to sing’
‘My focus right now is on growing the Mmatema brand – Mmatema the actor, presenter, singer and brand ambassador. Not Mmatema the translator,’ she laughs as she explains she doesn’t want to be a one-trick pony. ‘It’s almost four months since the night she stood on stage hoping her name would be called as the IdolsSA 2015 winner, so how have things been since then?
‘Its a hustle – they always emphasised that Idols is not here to make you a star. It’s here to introduce you to stars out there,’ she explains. But for this vibrant muso it’s all coming together fast. She’s working on her first album and will be dropping a single at the end of this month.
‘It is an uplifting urban gospel album’, she said.
Source : Drum
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