{"id":15199,"date":"2012-10-03T17:27:51","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T15:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/10\/khaya-always-showed-star-quality\/"},"modified":"2012-10-03T17:27:51","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T15:27:51","slug":"khaya-always-showed-star-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/khaya-always-showed-star-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Khaya always showed star quality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        \t                                <!-- Main Editorial Image --><br \/>\n                    \t\t\t      \t\t\t                                                        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/dee5d_3747990957.jpg\" alt=\"NM Khaya Pg4\" class=\"pics\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"captions_credit_article\">\n<p class=\"captions\">Pictures of 2012 Idols SA winner, Khaya Mthethwa, in his childhood growing up in KZN.<\/p>\n<p class=\"captions\">\n<p class=\"related_articles\">Related Stories<\/p>\n<ul class=\"menu_tab_lists_related\">\n<li><a class=\"related_articles\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za:80\/mercury\/he-s-our-idol-1.1395378\">He\u2019s our Idol<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--PSTYLE=WT Web Text--><\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Even as a young boy, it was clear that Idols winner Khaya Mthethwa was a talented musician. He taught himself to play the guitar, the drums and the piano. Spokesman for the Umlazi Oasis Fellowship Centre Zama Shongwe said that Khaya would stay behind after church services to practise.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cHe always had that love |for music,\u201d said Shongwe, \u201cAnd our musical directors, Phelelani Mnomiya and Thulani Shezi, knew right from the beginning that he was destined for great things.\u201d When he was 11, he started singing with the church and he has been the musical director there since he was 19.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">The church offered Khaya its full support throughout his time on the reality show. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cSome of our members would buy airtime for the sole purpose of voting for Khaya,\u201d Shongwe said yesterday. \u201cThe church even set up a big-screen TV with DStv so that people could come and watch Khaya perform on Sunday nights.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Much of Khaya\u2019s support also came from Joyous Celebration, a nationwide project that identifies talented gospel singers and gives them a platform to perform on. Khaya has been singing with Joyous Celebration for the past three years. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cIt\u2019s so exciting to see someone who we\u2019ve trained performing on Idols,\u201d the organisation\u2019s Lindelani Mkhize said yesterday.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">He said they had used every opportunity they could to punt Khaya. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cWe made use of social media platforms to garner support for him, and we promoted him at every one of the concerts we put on during our recent national tour,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cHe has often tweeted us or sent us messages to say thank you.\u201d  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Mkhize said that despite Khaya\u2019s growing popularity \u2013 he recently reached 45 000 Twitter followers \u2013 he was a grounded and humble young man. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Khaya\u2019s older cousin, Siyabonga Mthethwa, agreed. The two were close growing up and Siyabonga called Khaya a \u201cdisciplined but very social, down-to-earth guy\u201d.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Some of his fondest childhood memories were of sitting at the piano with Khaya and working on new songs together. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cWe always knew he was good enough to make it,\u201d said Siyabonga. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Ryan Canning, Khaya\u2019s music teacher when he was at high school at Highway Christian College in Pinetown, echoed this sentiment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cIt was always obvious that he had a natural singing ability and a talent with instruments,\u201d Canning said. \u201cMusic is so much a part of him and this is just the beginning of what I think will be a long and successful career.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pictures of 2012 Idols SA winner, Khaya Mthethwa, in his childhood growing up in KZN. Related Stories He\u2019s our Idol Even as a young boy, it was clear that Idols winner Khaya Mthethwa was a talented musician. He taught himself to play the guitar, the drums and the piano. Spokesman for the Umlazi Oasis Fellowship [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-15199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}