Khaya remains humble despite fame

Idols winner Khaya Mthethwa will be embarking on a country wide tour and dedicated his spare time to working with two orphanages he has adopted
Mthethwa, who performed before her fans on Saturday night at the West End Club during his first ever performance outside of Idols, shot to fame when he became the first black South African Idol since the inception of the competition eight years ago.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekly, Mthethwa said wining the competition has catapulted his music career to greater heights.
“It has always been my dream to become a South African Idol; I procrastinated for about four years until this year when I realised the urgency of my dream and I plucked up the courage to enter the competition,” said Mthethwa.

After almost three months of hard work, sleepless nights, ups and downs Mthethwa was, on Thursday last week, crowned the first black Mnet Idol, after some controversy surrounding the show’s racial inequality, which led to accusations of vote-rigging.

“I feel great being the 2012 Idol, I do not put a great emphasis on my skin colour and I am not really keen on entertaining racial boundaries; I would like to consider myself as a South African and an African,” said Mthethwa.

“On the last day of the competition, the only thing going through my mind was, ‘what if you do not win this competition, what are you going to do and where to from here.’ I really did not know, so the thought kind of freaked me out,” said Mthethwa.

Mthethwa said being in the competition was not all smooth sailing because there were a lot hiccups, but he never looked back because he had a dream to achieve.
“After all, there is nothing that is more important than finding your purpose in life, watching things on television and wanting to do them. I have developed a very thick skin throughout the competition and I learned to focus on what I was doing. As much as people have an opinion about you, what matters is what you know about yourself.”

He acknowledged that he faced tough competition during the show.

“Shekkinah, Tshidi and Melissa challenged me the most in the competition, but my family and friends kept me going and, with the support that people have been giving me all along and the excitement of the competition as a whole, you always wanna be in it”
Saturday night was his first performance outside of Idols and Khaya was more than excited to showcase his talent to Kimberley party-goers.

“I feel very excited to come to a small town because people appreciate you more, I wanted to be real like that. It was the first booking I got and I was gonna honour it and, during my tour with Idols, I am definitely coming back to Kimberley”
He thanked his fans who backed him throughout the show.

“I would like to thank every single person who supported me from the beginning; without them I wouldn’t be here today and I would like to thank them for their votes and taking their time to watch me on Idols. All I have is appreciation and thanks to them.”

As part of his social responsibility, Khaya will be adopting two orphanages which he started working with even before Idols.

“I love orphanages, I visit them very often and I actually wanna own one myself. I spend most of my time with the orphans at the Umlazi Home of Safety in my hometown. I love those kids,”
said Khaya.