She has toured all over Africa
“I toured Africa and visited Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda.”
Her resourcefulness got her out of very tough situations
“After a year of travel, I was so broke while in Senegal that I started selling second-hand clothes to help pay for an airline ticket to go to Kenya. In Kenya, I ran out of money again, and resorted to selling all my clothes to get money to buy a flight ticket back to South Africa.”
She is fluent in Swahili
“While traveling through the continent, I learnt different languages, so now I speak Swahili and French fluently.”
Her stage name originated from a TV character once played by Faye Peters
Everyone thought she looked like Vivian Majozi, a character played by actress Faye Peters on Generations from 2000 to 2003. So growing up, Maya was called Madjozi and the name stuck. ‘Sho’ is a chant she’d say before rapping to give her confidence. She mixed the two up and her alter ego was created.
Her signature hairstyles is famous all over the world
“I started doing the hairstyle when I stayed in Senegal and it was picked up by the American news site Buzzfeed. And seeing the ‘Madjozi braids’ make headline news has been flattering,”
Read the full story of this awe-inspiring artist in our January 2018 issue out on shelf now.