We are Beyond Vocal (BV) for those who don’t know.
We are a group of guys that started from church and I think we identified each other’s strength from there. We formed this band and after then it was just blessings after blessings. So, from there it just grew from stream to stream.
We started out at church as a gospel outfit. There’s a lot that we did, it has been an amazing journey. We worked with a lot of people and most of our listeners would know us from Spirit of Praise Volume 3. It was a massive project, we worked with The likes of Benjamin Dube and pastor Solly Mahlangu. We also did another project with Lebo Sekgobela part of a DVD. So there’s a lot that we have done in the gospel space. We have also worked with the likes of Kabomo, Wonder Baloyi and Daki Ndou. We were part of fill up FNB with Casper Nyovest, we got to work closely with him. We also did vocals for the Caiphus song, and we did vocals for tribute to Flaba squatter camp. That did not only open our eyes in as far as how massive the music industry is but it really went as far as making us realise that we can actually do more in as far music is concerned. It was then when we decided to cater for a wider market, that’s how we decided then to spread our wings. The message is clean; we still do gospel but we are a hybrid band now. We pretty much do a lot of things so we tend to do music in accordance to what we want to achieve at a given moment, we are not going to a memorial service and making people dance. The gospel in us, it is still there but we have sort of expanded our sound and experimented more.
Mentioning the shift from gospel to this broader sound, what can we expect from your upcoming project or album?
It’s a project that’s still in the way, it’s going to come out some time. We’ve got Busiswa, she’s known for Gqom and making people dance but in our album she sings so that’s something to look forward to. We got JR who is known for Rap music but he sings in our album and strange enough he is an amazing singer. We worked a lot with him because we used to be under his company. He is one of the guys who identified us during the gospel days and he was like these boys are onto something good. We believe you should stay away from people who tell you to stay in your lane, you cannot box yourself like that. Life is too short to stick to one thing and fail for so many years. What if that is not what you supposed to be, so we’re happy we have expanded, we have gone to different levels because we have been trying stuff out and finally arrived at a good place. Being signed under Universal Music gives us an additive advantage because we can collaborate with anyone in the world. We also got Ntsika from The Soil. You’ll expect acapella groups to have beef among themselves but we are very close, we spend a lot of time with the guys from The Soil. We also did a song with Loyld Cele. We’ve done a lot and it was and it’s still an amazing journey. We are excited about our album. This album captures and embodies a different element in us, it’s going to be non-conventional.
One of you guys mentioned the importance of making mistakes for you to learn and grow in your journey. What have been your biggest lessons in your journey?
You got to pay your dues and by that I simply mean that you need to have that emotional intelligence and embrace certain things that come your way, like being taken for granted, like people who will make you do stuff for exposure. There are certain things that you will be forced to do as part of paying your dues. I’m not talking about wrong things, but if there’s one thing that has kept us going for this long it is the fact that we understood from day one that everything takes time in this industry. They say it takes ten years to be an overnight sensation in this industry. We started from the bottom, so it would not be seen as mistakes because it’s all part of growing and all part of the journey. For us it’s just been a journey and everything that had happened we feel that it has been a learning curve. So, for us one of the greatest lessons was to stay true to who we are because this industry will swallow you whole and people have opinions about you, about what you do and how you should do it.
Lastly words.
All we can say is we are available; we are at our friends’ disposal. We love interacting with our friends (fans). We don’t call people who support us fans, we want them to experience us, so they are our friends. Sometimes things are not as they seem. By that I mean; We are the most chilled boy band there is, we are easily accessible and if you want us we will come if we are available. There’s this false perception that once musicians reach a certain stage they are not easily accessible, they become different people and I suppose that’s why Nkosana is emphasising the fact that we have always been true to who we are. Never allow the music scene to change who you are. If you are a nice guy you are a nice guy, don’t be influenced by certain energies that comes with you being at a certain place and at the certain time. We are very easy to work with. We want to take our music to the people, we want to take our music everywhere. So if you want to experience Beyond Vocal because we are an experience. You will mostly enjoy us during live performances because we take you on a journey. We are easily available, follow us and we do follow back. Follow us on social media. Get in touch with us on 072 507 9503 if you want to invite us or chill with us. It’s all about music, we’ve got a lot of music and stories to share with people.
