Major League DJ, Banele Mbere On Staying Sane During The Pandemic. Major League DJ, Banele Mbere, has opened up about staying sane during the pandemic especially considering that he is in the creative space. A lot of artists till date are trying to stay afloat financially considering that large events and gigs are banned as part of curbing and preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
“Being an artist during a pandemic sucks, I won’t lie. With a lot of African countries closing down, one can’t travel or gig – now we have to go back to all our online stuff, which isn’t ideal for us at the moment.”
While he explains his frustrations of not being able to perform live to the masses due to public places and gigs being banned, Banele said that the feeling of playing a set online wasn’t the same. “Playing a set online isn’t pleasant because you’re not DJing to physical people … you know! We’re trying to get used to not gigging to physical people, even though we prefer rocking to real big crowds,” he added.
“What keeps me sane is watching what African artists are doing overseas, like Burna Boy, who are breaking barriers through the pandemic and just watching international things happen … how people still create. Also staying on the internet and how to come up with different plans and other revenue streams besides music,” he said.
He together with his other half Bandile, have started a YouTube live web series called ‘Amapiano Live Balcony Mix’ which features different amapiano DJs and producers.
Banele also mentioned that the sport, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa could do better to cater for the entertainment industry during the pandemic. He said: “When it comes to how he’s been dealing with the entertainment and hospitality sector, I think he can do much better. I think a lot of people in the country are into entertainment. There’s waiters, there’s a lot of taverns and pubs … there’s a lot of DJs that perform at these places. There’s also people who work at these places. I think there should be some sort of plan … there’s a pandemic at hand, there needs to be some sort of fund that helps that industry. You can’t just let an industry die like that!”
