Khofhi ( Sindile Sydwell Kamlana) was born on the 28 June 1996 he is a
conscious Soul musician hailing from Barcelona, an informal settlement on
the outskirts of Gugulethu where the struggle is always present and
constant, but whose music seeks to inspire radical love and the conscious
awakening of a people while keeping those toes tapping to his fiery beat.
Khofhi started out writing songs in high school around 2009, found that his
love the arts did not stop there. His love for sound made him a natural at
DJing and being a fast learner made it easy for him to pick up the skill.
Which led to his stage name being born due to how similar he looked to his
idolized house hero black coffee school mates dubbed him khofhie. He
played around clubs, public event around Cape Town, Paarl and
Stellenbosch.
2012-2013
2012 saw him focused more on producing his own beats and creating his
own sound. He produced varies beat for different genres, he was also
staring to become more of a conscious rapper eventually started recoding
vocals, that when he decide call his home studio Sevens Rekhords. He
wrote and produced his own song called ‘what if’ wanting to connect his
lived experiences of pushing through adversity and being triumphant and
the human nature of survival. He recorded over 200 beat, and 50 records
from different artist in that time frame.
2014-2015
While studying at Central Technical collage he was also performing at Open
Mics, events and Rap Ciphers. Early 2015 he was invited by US actor Texas
Battle (bold and the beautiful soap actor) to perform at the Texas Dallas
foundation in Langa. That same year he released his first mix tape (self
produced) titled “Rhabul’ungafinci it had 14 records and featured artist like
Yonelisa Wambi, K2G, Babalwa Tiiwani and Okuhle the Vocalist.
2016-2017
He performed at Miss National Africa 2016 which was held in April in
Woodstock. His songs stared getting play time on the radio as well as a few
radio interviews he was invited to that year. He also attended a film making
and sound engineer workshops at SAE instutions to enhance his producing
skills. He stared to perform in Company Gardens with Yonelisa and Yanda,
performing acoustic cover song and fusing his rap skills to the jam got
them a local following as well as an international one. They performed at
UCT, UWC AND CPUT. In mid 2016 he taught himself acoustic guitar,
December 2016 saw him being one of the co-founder of the Free Spirits. A
band of poets, storytellers and musicians to name a few Jewel
Sophire,Nkosinathi Mpola, Tatenda Wekwa Tenzi and Thando Feni they
performed around the City Centre ,Open Streets cape town and Woodstock,
Iziko Museum ,Crypt Jazz restaurant and Ipa festival.
March same year Khofhie decided to go solo had his first solo gig at
Busiswa Lutshaba’s Iqhiya Exhibition at lookout hill which aired on
television.
He also shot his first documentary film with students from SAE.
2017-2018
He released his first acoustic EP titled Believe in your S.O.U.L( Sours Of
Unconditional Love) I would go as far as to say reflects his long journey to
the soul features 7 songs. This birthed the khofhie tour which was held in
different coffee shops around Cape Town to name a few Heaven Coffee
shop, Drawing room, Mojo Market, Continuum coffee shop, Khadim Coffee
shop, Siki’s place and Captain Kirwin’s Coffee.
Early 2018 met with Lui Hill and the whole team of Filter Music Group from
Germany to collaborate on a song with him as solo artist after they worked
with his group the free sprits on a song called 5000 miles away.
He is still promoting Believe in Your Soul EP, a body of work that is
contrived from self-discovery and engages the narrative of self-love. He has
a lot of different projects in the pipe line for this upcoming year for the
young artist premiering his documentary…. but I’ve already said too much
just watch this space cause the king is on fire.
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