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Kabelo Mabalane Reveals How Life Changed The Sound Of His New Music. After more than a decade of making music, Kabelo Mabalane has opened up about the personal journey that delayed his return to releasing new music, saying he eventually realised that his life had changed and his music needed to change with it.
“I’m a father, I’m a pastor, I’m a leader, I’m a brother. I’m at a different station of life,” Mabalane explained. “What does the soundtrack of my life sound like now? And that’s when the creativity started to flow,” he said during an interview on SABC News.
Mabalane revealed that he spent years creating music only to step back when it no longer felt authentic to who he had become. He said he often found himself trying to recreate sounds that had worked for him in the past, rather than allowing his current experiences to shape his creativity.
That realisation ultimately became the catalyst for a new chapter in his music. Kabelo Mabalane said he now wants his songs to reflect his present reality, including his experiences as a father, pastor, leader and veteran of the music industry.
The artist also shared a humorous reflection on reaching a new stage of his career after recently being called “Uncle Kabelo” by one of the younger people in the industry.
“I was like, you know, any self-respecting man would just accept the title,” he joked, embracing the label and the wisdom that comes with years of experience.
That perspective is central to his latest single, “Everybody Needs Somebody,” a song that sees Mabalane lean into vulnerability rather than the larger-than-life confidence associated with some of his previous anthems.
For Mabalane, vulnerability is not a weakness. Instead, he believes it requires courage and reflects a deeper truth about how people navigate life.
“I really believe that vulnerability is underpinned by courage,” he said, arguing that the idea of complete independence is ultimately unrealistic. Rather than viewing people as self-made, Mabalane believes in interdependence and the role others play in shaping who we become.
His reflections are captured in the song’s central message: nobody makes it through life entirely alone.
Mabalane pointed to the people around him and the contributions they have made to his own journey as evidence that success is never achieved in isolation. “We can’t sit there and say, I’ve made it all on my own,” he said.
With “Everybody Needs Somebody,” Mabalane appears to be entering a musical chapter shaped less by recreating the past and more by documenting the man he is today. For an artist who has spent 11 years making music, the next soundtrack is no longer about who he used to be. It is about the life he is living now.
The post Kabelo Mabalane Reveals How Life Changed The Sound Of His New Music appeared first on SA Hip Hop Mag.
The post Kabelo Mabalane Reveals How Life Changed The Sound Of His New Music appeared first on SA Hip Hop Mag.
Kabelo Mabalane Reveals How Life Changed The Sound Of His New Music. After more than a decade of making music, Kabelo Mabalane has opened up about the personal journey that delayed his return to releasing new music, saying he eventually realised that his life had changed and his music needed to change with it. Kabelo …
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