It is sad to witness the unfortunate mismanagement of Naledi Aphiwe. She is just a little girl whose only rise to fame was through recognition by an American R&B sensation Chris Brown. That, on its own, is massive, but not enough to sustain your budding music career.
The people who sustain your career in music are your fans, who fall in love with your craft and use their money to buy tickets and stream your music. Your fellow artists of any genre are a crucial part of your growth as a young artist like Naledi Aphiwe, they will invite you to feature on their songs thus expanding your reach and tapping into their fanbase. Respecting these two aspects of your music career shows that you respect your craft and take it seriously.
You are a brand, after all, how you handle your music brand becomes extremely important.
Naledi Aphiwe is loved because of her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, where a video of her leading a song in the classroom went viral. Chris Brown sampled that viral video in his Shooter song. Naledi has used this fortune to launch her career, credit to her and her team, that is smart. She has a couple of songs that are receiving a positive response in South Africa.
Normally you would want to use this connection with the people to your advantage as a young artist, but this is not the case with Naledi Aphiwe. Instead, she is creating enemies and fighting with people.
Not long ago she had a war of words with Ladies from a popular Facebook page called Ladies House. She said some unkind and disrespectful things that may affect not only the haters whose comment she may have been responding to but also the people who had nothing to do with whatever was said by those haters.
The recent incident where she had bottles and other dangerous objects thrown at her while she was on stage is awful for her music as well as her brand. She could have suffered serious injuries. And for her manager to put her in that position shows a clear mismanagement of this little girl. This is not something you can dismiss by looking cute on your page. Imagine that the video finds Chris Brown and those associated with him. It is not only bad for her but drags his image into this debacle.
Background to the incident: the event organizer decided to cut the performance of the most popular Maskandi Artist by the name of Gatsheni. This artist is loved not only because of his big hits but also because of his humble and respectful personality. Now a circulating video shows Naledi demanding the mic so she can start her performance while Gatsheni is still on stage. The DJ had already started playing her song at the directive of the organizer.
Naledi started singing and walked past Gatsheni and his dancers who were still shocked at what was happening behind them. The crowd demanded Gatsheni’s performance; this is when all hell broke loose. Objects were thrown on stage including beer bottles. Gatsheni and his dancers ran for safety but the young Naledi decided “No I’m gonna continue my performance during the rain of dangerous objects on stage.” Until someone decided to run to her and grabbed her off stage.
People may have been pissed at the organizers for cutting Gatsheni’s performance, but Naledi became an image of the whole incident, a bad image at that. Her attitude to walk on stage while another artist is there showed that she is an amateur. Her actions do not spare her criticism in this incident. She added fuel to an already burning situation. Her record label needs to find her a good manager and a publicist otherwise, this will be another “I blew it” moment for Naledi Aphiwe. And none of us want that.
To Naledi please respect your craft by respecting other artists. Respect will take you places sis wami.