DBN Gogo Opens Up About How Her Stage Name Came About. Mandisa Radebe, known to many and the music scene as DBN Gogo, is no stranger when you have to mention today’s deejay club culture especially when it comes amapiano.
Speaking on how her stage name “DBN Gogo” came about, the star said: “We were having girl talk & we were on our way to Bushfire Festival in Swaziland. We were just having girl talk, talking about sex & my one friend said that where she’s from, they call the reverse missionary “iDeben Gogo” & they’ve been calling me that since.”
She had been trying to break into the Ding industry for quite some time, and when she realised that it was a career worth pursuing when she realised it was paying her and didn’t have to ask things from her mother anymore. “I think it only kicked in when I realized that my mom was starting to understand. That’s when I was like “okay, it might be a real thing”. When she’s just like “oh, so you have money mos” and it’s like “yeah, I actually do. I don’t actually need to ask you for stuff”. Like I actually work now as much as it’s weird, I actually work. So that’s when I realized that’s it’s a real thing,” she explained.
Though breaking it into the DJing industry, more especially when you’re a woman comes with its challenges. “I faced a lot of challenges when I started Djing. I used to have to do free gigs to push myself. It’s quite tough to breakthrough, you really have to stay proving yourself to people, I believe it’s even harder for females because it’s such a male-dominated industry. As big as DBN Gogo is right now, she still has to prove herself every day. I made sure to stay consistent with my craft. There will be promoters who don’t want to understand why your rate is the amount it is and that’s totally okay because for every door that shuts there are five more that are wide open. There are a lot of ups and downs in this industry. As an artist, I just had to stay positive that everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. Now the work speaks for itself.”
