EXCLUSIVE | 5 minutes with Why Did I Get Married star Malik Yoba

• Malik Yoba has been to South Africa three times over the course of 30 years.
• The actor is in the country to attend the Joburg Film Festival and hosted a masterclass for aspiring filmmakers.
• He says his role on Empire allowed him to marry his acting and musical talents.

A bona fide Hollywood legend, Malik Yoba’s intense yet calming presence is something to behold.

The multi-award-winning U.S. actor, famous for starring in films and television shows like Empire, Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? and Why Did I Get Married Too? plus New York Undercover, has hit South Africa’s shores for the sixth edition of the Joburg Film Festival.

While Malik offers more than three decades of commitment to the arts with fifty film credits and more than a dozen lead roles in network TV, he considers himself a community and youth advocate first.

The actor is in Johannesburg not only attending the film festival, which runs from 27 February to 3 March 2024, but also held a masterclass to enlighten and inspire aspiring filmmakers.

After the opening night festivities, TRUELOVE got the chance to sit down with the 56-year-old thespian, philanthropist and entrepreneur at an exclusive press event in Sandton to pick his brain.

Noting some of the most notable instances throughout his career, Malik says, “This is a memorable moment, being here for the third time. Being able to see the country over the course of almost 30 years, almost every 10 years and see the growth, that’s a big one.

“Coming here for the first time in ’96 and realising how impactful a show like New York Undercover was in this country was eye opening as I was 27 years old or something like that, at the time.”

A multi-talented thespian

Many remember Mailk from his breakout role in the 1993 Disney film Cool Runnings, acting as Janet Jackson’s husband Gavin in Why Did I Get Married? or his stint acting alongside Terrence Howard in the musical drama series Empire.

But it’s the latter role in Empire as the street-raised and business-smart chairman of Empire Records board of directors Vernon Turner where he got the opportunity to marry his acting craft with his musical talents.

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This showed him that both talent in front of the camera and behind the scenes have something big to offer.

Speaking on even he might have creative differences with the storytellers, Malik shares an experience working on the set of Empire.

“That wasn’t a role that was written for me to show off my music talent, which was a problem for me because I’m saying, ‘Coach, you got me. I can do many things. Why are you trying to limit it to this’," he explains.

"So, I was doing a scene one day where Terrence Howard had his guitar on set. Just playing around between shots and I decide I’m going to add it to my character, so I start playing. Now a couple things, one I’m a published musician so I know not to play anybody else’s music other than mine because otherwise there’s going to be a licensing issue. The other thing I know is not to upstage myself or the other actors by playing over lines or playing too loud so we can’t hear the dialogue.

“So, I’m very intentional about this, right, in that moment I’m thinking as a writer I’m thinking as a producer, I’m thinking as a director, I’m thinking as an actor, right. And so I’m playing, we do the scene, a writer comes over and says, ‘Hey, can you lose the guitar?’ I say, ‘What are you talking about, there’s a piano right here in the shot. This is a show about music’, and she goes, ‘No, no, I think it’s too distracting’. Now, nowhere on earth did I agree with her, I don’t agree with her even to this day because what I was doing was layering my character and doing my work and bringing all of who I am to the moment, but they didn’t want that.”

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The serial entrepreneur and social justice warrior

Malik has extended his reach and expertise far beyond film and TV. He prides himself as a qualified musician, social justice worker and serial entrepreneur who established Yoba Development combining his passions for education, media and real estate releasing the documentary series The Real Estate Mixtape, Volume 1: I Build NY.

The documentary follows him and his young apprentices navigating his first commercial real estate deal in New York City, making for ideal piece of media to showcase during his masterclass.

“I’m not officially screening it as a selected film for the festival but being given an opportunity to host a masterclass on any subject I wanted was an opportunity to screen it. The other that was really important was, there's a guy named Mark Raymond who runs the University of Johannesburg School of Architecture, who I met in New York through a colleague and partner at Pratt Institute.

“So I also knew he was here and working with young people in the School of Architecture. So I wanted to have a chance to meet with students at the School of Architecture and bring them into opportunities to meet with local developers that I'd be meeting with when I was here. So that was really important to be able to make that connection. That's work I'm doing now around the world.”