Zoo City Part 27

The pair come into the house dripping, and Mrs Luthuligoes scuttling off in search of towels.

"Heita," Songweza bubbles, "I'm Song and we're iJusiand we're going to be ma.s.sive!" Songweza bubbles, "I'm Song and we're iJusiand we're going to be ma.s.sive!"

S'bu punches her arm, embarra.s.sed. "Song! Be moremodest."

Song frowns. "Why? It's true."

It probably is.

But while the twins may be the stars, this is undoubtedlythe Odi Huron show. He indicates that we'll take a strollacross the garden to the newly refurbished studio to get a"sneak peek for your ears" of the new iJusi single, "Driveby Love".

"IJusi is more than a band for me," he says, "it's a signof the future. Song and S'bu are exactly what the new MojaRecords is about. It's not about using the new beats in ourdeal with Babyface; it's not about getting every sub-Saharan Android phone pre-loaded with iJusi FutureSongcredits. It's about this. People say the twins shine whenthey sing. I say that we should all shine; that we can allshine if we just focus, if we just get past what's holding usdown."

To emphasise the point, he sips from his bottle of vitamin water, part of his detox routine. It's a far cry from thetriple shots of tequila that were the order of the day duringthe Detective Wolf era. The evidently healthy and clearly still razor-sharp Odiexudes the air of being a remade man, and iJusi representa new sound that may well see his Moja stable eclipse thealready impressive achievements of JumpFish, whose brilliant rekindling of bubblegum Afropop swept both urbanand pop-rock charts, and Keleketla, the devilishly cleverelectro-pop-meets-kwaito street-jam that seemed to pulsealong every street corner in 2004, before the band splitwith Moja over "artistic differences".

And hey, maybe Odi deserves a break after everythinghe's been through. "Do I regret any of it? Of f.u.c.king courseI do," he says, adding, "I also regret James not making itf.u.c.king clear enough that I didn't want to talk about it."

I press. People want to hear his side of the story. TheBa.s.s Station deaths. Lily. He relents, pinching his lip, unhappily.

"You have to understand. It was the f.u.c.king noughties,not the easy-swing 1990s. We were worried about peoplegetting in in not someone trying to get not someone trying to get out." out." His bra.s.sinessfails him. "Look, there isn't a day I don't think about thatpadlocked gate, don't wish it had never happened." His bra.s.sinessfails him. "Look, there isn't a day I don't think about thatpadlocked gate, don't wish it had never happened."

What did happen was that armed robbers broke intothe Ba.s.s Station in November 2001, half an hour afterclosing. It was still doing good numbers back then, even ifit was attracting a seedier, druggier clientele than when itfirst opened as town's hottest nightspot two years earlier.When the robbers couldn't get into the time-delay safe,they took it out on the manager, Odi's business partner,Jayan Kurian, and a bartender, Precious Ncobo, who washelping him lock up. They tried to escape through theemergency exit, but in violation of fire-safety regs, the gatewas locked. They were shot in cold blood.

"It was a terrible shock. That these men could just breakin and do this to me? To me! I didn't feel safe. I couldn'tcope. I just quit. Walked away. Right out of the business. Iwas finished with it." He looks over the mixing-desk at therecording rooms beyond, his face reflected on the soundproofed gla.s.s. "The doctors diagnosed PTSD."

Practically overnight, Odi disappeared from the musicscene and removed himself from society. He locked himselfin the house, spiralling into depression and illness. Therewere rumours of cancer, even Aids. Certainly, the photographs of him back then, in his studio with a fresh-facedLily n.o.bomvu, show a man wasting away.

"Lily was my angel, my saving grace," Huron says. It's nosecret that the music side of Odi's business had been faltering since the mid-'90s. "The club was too distracting.The Hillbrow scene was rough. Gangsters and drugs andgun-running and the gay scene and the s.e.x that wasgoing on, everyone sleeping with everyone else. I lostfocus. The music suffered."

Lily was the turning-point for Odi. After two years of"rattling around in here, feeling sorry for myself", he reinvented himself and adopted a new "life mantra" his lifephilosophy. "I decided no interference. No drugs. No alcohol. Clean living," Odi says. "Good music that would reachout to people, touch them here, in their souls," he puts ahand on the back of his head. "People want things thatstick. They're looking for something spiritual. They're hungry for that."

He discovered someone who could sate that hungerthrough one of his talent scouts: a single-mother churchchorister from Alexandra township. Lily n.o.bomvu madeher debut in February 2003, with "Kingdom Heart", asolidly built, catchy single that didn't pick up much airplay,but sold lots of CDs out of car boots. Odi persisted, pushing the gospel angle at a time when kwaito was ruling thecharts.

In the wake of Brenda Fa.s.sie's fatal overdose in 2004,he positioned Lily as the pure alternative to the fast life ofs.e.x and drugs and disco soul that had claimed the"Madonna of the Townships". She went platinum within themonth.

But on 18 June 2006, two years and two alb.u.ms later,Lily drove her car off a bridge. She was only thirty. The rumours of depression emerged only afterwards. "What canI tell you?" Huron says. "It was a shock. It's not that wedidn't know, it's that we didn't know how bad it was. Thisindustry eats boys and girls in different ways."

Lily's nineteen year-old daughter, Asonele n.o.bomvu, recently hired as the fresh design talent for the hiphop-inspired fashion label Lady-B, feels differently."[Huron] pushed her too hard," she said in a recent interview with the Sunday Times Sunday Times. "He was desperate for her tobe the next Brenda, but how could she live up to that?"

The bereaved daughter is not Odi's only detractor. Moro,who defected to Sony BMG in 2007, pulled no puncheswhen asked about the man he once described as his mentor. "The man's got expectations a mile high. He doesn't letup, you're in that recording studio night and day, and he'sjust sucking it up. He's obsessive is what it is. All that timein that big old house on his own, the dying and s.h.i.t? Heneeds to catch a wake-up, live a little, is what I'm saying."

Odi scoffs at the advice. "What do you think I'm doing?"And it's true that things are happening for the once and future hit-maker. Whatever illness was dragging him downseems to be in remission, and he's got big things plannedfor the twins. "They're going to be bigger than MichaelJackson!"

And as part of his comeback, he's just opened a newclub, Counter Revolutionary. It's all been done site unseen,but he's quick to point out that he approved the architectural drawings and signed off on every decision, down to"what kind of flusher to put on the s.h.i.tters".

True to form, the new venue is already drawing a lot ofpress for the controversial decision to feature animalleddancers. Odi grins as he talks about three separate concerned citizens' groups that have protested outside theclub, drummed up Facebook pet.i.tions and inundated thenewspapers with complaints. It's a provocative move, b.u.t.then, as Odi says cheekily, "Everyone deserves a secondchance."

He's also started getting counselling from a psychiatristwho comes by twice a week to help him deal with the crippling fear that has kept him a recluse these long years.

"Give us a few months to figure out the right medication,and maybe I'll even see you on the dancefloor.

"You ready to hear this?" he says, turning towards themixing-desk. He cranks the volume and hits "play" on thefile called "Driveby".It's an irresistibly catchy head-bopper of a song, sweetand fizzy with dips into a dirty, grungy hip-hop beat on thechorus. Songweza is right. It's going to be ma.s.sive. And sois Odi, once again.

Like Noxx raps in the remix of Moro's cla.s.sic "Cul-desac": Eye on the ball, ma'gents, eye on the ball... Eye on the ball, ma'gents, eye on the ball...

IJusi headline the Mzansi Unite stage on Sat.u.r.day,featuring HHP, Joz'II (featuring Da Les, Ishmael andTasha Baxter), Lira, PondoLectro and R&B/pop sensationJonJon (guest slots by Mandoza and Danny K), with DJsChillibite, Tzozo, Jullian Gomes, and MP6-60. The Worldin Union stage features Mix n Blend, Krushed n' Sorted,Animal Chin, Spoek Mathambo, Dank and HoneyB.

(Grand Parade Fan Park, gates @ 4 pm for big-screengame; concert 7 pm; tickets WebTickets.co.za) My new ride is a '78 Ford Capri in burnt orange and good nick, apart from a few rust spots and a nasty scratch on the pa.s.senger door. It's not the only one that's a little rusty. I haven't driven in three years and the car handles like a shopping trolley on Rohypnol.

Huron's heavy, James, handed over the keys without a word. Didn't bother to reply when I asked for the spare key. Wasn't there to help when it took me five tries to get the engine to turn over with a strangled choke, followed by a bout of spluttering and finally a sickly roar.

With 22 years experience in treating addictive behaviours and other compulsive disorders, other compulsive disorders, Haven Haven provides a multi-disciplinary provides a multi-disciplinary approach, including counselling, the 12-step programme and approach, including counselling, the 12-step programme and cognitive-behavioural therapy. cognitive-behavioural therapy.

A residential facility set on a tranquil and secluded country estate near the Cradle of Humankind, estate near the Cradle of Humankind, Haven Haven provides a safe and provides a safe and supportive environment in which to reclaim your sense of self. supportive environment in which to reclaim your sense of self.

I take a drive out to Hartbeespoort Dam, that favouritewatery weekend getaway for landlocked city-dwellers. The urban sprawl thins out as the road deteriorates; kitmodel cl.u.s.ter homes, malls and the fake Italian maestro-work that is the casino give way to B&Bs, stables, ironwork furniture factories and country restaurants. The hawkers selling giant plastic mallets and naive Tanzanian banana-leaf paintings and the guys handing out flyers advertising new townhouse complexes get increasingly pushy as the s.p.a.ces between traffic lights grow longer. A grizzled bush mechanic sits under a corrugated-iron leanto, rolling a cigarette and looking out for customers attracted by the badly hand-painted sign propped up outside advertising exhaust fittings. A tea garden proclaims itself HOME OF THE ORIGINAL CHICKEN PIE! And then civilisation falls away. The road narrows to one lane and opens out into dusty yellow gra.s.slands and farms cordoned off with electric fences under a ferociously blue sky, with puffy white c.u.mulus clouds already threatening a late-afternoon thunderstorm.

I nearly miss the turn-off to Haven, despite the very specific directions I was supplied with when I phoned to lie about setting up interviews for a non-existent story on the rise of rehab safaris for Mach Mach magazine. magazine.

"After the sign to the lion park, turn right onto a dirt road. You'll see the sign," the warmly professional male receptionist had said. It would help if the name Haven was not one of nine small, precisely lettered arrows on a discreet sign-pole, including the Shongolo Hunting Lodge, Moyo Spa, Vulindlela Country Hotel and the Gra.s.sy Park Country Living Estate.

After doubling back (twice), I finally spot the sign and pull up at an intimidating black gate framed by electric fencing. I buzz the intercom and give my name. The gate slides open Sim Sala Bim. I drive up the dirt road, if "drive" is the right word for what I'm doing with the Capri, which is behaving like a rhinoceros on rollerskates spoiling for a fight. I compensate by accelerating, kicking up billows of dust behind the car as it skids through the corners, past a copse of trees and a blue satiny wedge of dam with cormorants in the reeds.

I barrel round the bend and a sprawling farmhouse comes into view. It's repurposed rustic chic: stables and warehouses converted to dormitories, judging by the neat rows of windows hemmed by sunny yellow curtains. There is an aloe garden in front, being tended by a twentysomething in denim overalls, her hair in c.o.c.ky little twists. She looks up, shielding her eyes from the morning sun, and waves me towards an acacia tree and a row of white lines in the gravel that mark out the visitors' parking. I pull in between a Bentley in racing green and a white minivan with tinted windows and HAVEN stencilled on the side.