Shaxe Khumalo

Shaxe Khumalo is a radio personality; club DJ; motivational speaker; Mini cooper ambassador and an entrepreneur. He presents the On Air with Shaxe show on OFM from 21:00 to 00:00 and The House that Shaxe built, which airs on Saturdays from 22:00 to 00:00. The Bothaville-born philanthropist runs a successful events company Shaxe Khumalo Events and Promotions.

Can you briefly tell us about yourself?
I was born in the small Free State town of Bothaville; grew up in Botshabelo with my parents who taught me the virtue of patience and perseverance.

Apart from radio, what else do you do?
I run an events management company. I am ambassador for several charities which do a lot of good work. I also do a lot of motivational speaking at schools and it is just amazing how the power of words can change someone’s life; I help whenever I can.
I also do some DJing all around the province.

Give us a brief background about your company and how it came about.
My company was established when I realised that there was a gap in the show business industry. Primarily I started a company because when you grow as a brand you have companies that want to work with you and if you don’t have a company, they won’t take you seriously. It also helps me in terms of marketing the brand Shaxe.

You are a Mini Cooper ambassador; please tell us about it and how were you chosen?
This deal took a full two years to hit the ground. You know I have been persuasive with the manager at Sovereign Motors about the possibility of being an ambassador. It didn’t fall like manna from heaven; it took a lot of patience, discipline and hard work to be recognised as an ambassador.

So will you be keeping the Mini Cooper?
Yes, absolutely. Last week we even agreed that I should drive a different Mini Cooper to every event, I’m grateful that our relationship with Sovereign Motors is starting to blossom.
Therefore you are definitely still going to see me driving different Mini Coopers every month.
Tell us about how the Shaxe developed.

Honestly, I started at the bottom with almost nothing and I feel blessed that I started there, because I have worked so hard to be where I am today. It took me 10 years to get into a commercial radio station.
Ten years in radio? Can you please elaborate on that seemingly arduous journey.

I call it my 10 years in radio a journey; I started at the University of the Free State (UFS) campus radio station, Kovsie FM in 2000. It was still called Radio Shimla then.

After doing Kovsie FM, I linked up with community radio station Motheo FM for almost 2years before coming to the commercial radio station, OFM.

I must say though, it took a lot of patience to get to OFM. It took me a full 10 years to get paid to be on radio; patience really pays off. To tell you the truth, I love radio so much that I did not even realise that I was not getting paid. I am extremely happy with OFM.

I work under a management team that believes in my talents. They give me guidance and I always look forward to doing my job because I learn new things each day.

When did the love for radio develop?
While growing up I used to listen to radio, although I didn’t have a passion for radio at the time. The passion kicked in when our government introduced community radio stations.
I actually enrolled at UFS for a BSc Statistic undergraduate degree, but I did not enjoy it because I had no passion for it. I eventually found my passion two years later, but it was too late to enroll for the relevant course.
I was left with no choice but to drop out of varsity and go straight into radio, because I had a passion for it.

What sort of events has your company hosted?
The annual Mangaung beach party, which has been running successfully for the past five years now. The event is one of the things I pride myself in.
It was my first ‘baby’ and it’s growing each year with all the sponsors coming forward. To think in the beginning people questioned the practicality of having a beach party in a dry place.

So far it has been awesome, attracting a lot of sponsorship from big companies like Sovereign mini, Redbull, SAB and KZN department of tourism.