Early Life
Also known as Holy-Ghost SabturaH, Sabelo was born on July 5, 1989 in the old Natalspruit Hospital in Kathorus(Katlehong, Thokoza and Vosloorus), east of Johannesburg to Eunice Nkosinathi Kubheka and Nogwaja Stephen Kubheka.
A second of three sons
s, during the time of his birth, South Africa was at the edge of a breaking point either for the worst or for the better as apartheid was practically reaching its demise. He was the first in his whole family to attend creche, as they claimed his IQ was abnormally higher than it should be for a one year old child. It is alleged he knew how to draw images before he learned to speak.
With Nelson Mandela and all political prisoners out of Robben Island, and SACP General Secretary Chris Hani recently murdered, South Africa was proving to be a cooking pot of disaster. It was 1993 when a tribal and political affiliation war ensued in Kathorus, east of Johannesburg. It was a war between the township and hostel dwellers, whilst it was also an ANC versus the IFP, who were then the biggest political parties in South Africa. The world was awaiting a disaster as it unfolded. This in South African history is recorded as the most violent black on black war of all time. About 6-700 young people died during this conflict and as a result, Sabelo was forced to abandon creche, together with his younger brother, were moved to a quiet part of the country for the safety of their lives. He was only 4 years old at the time. They were sent to their father's hometown in Amersfoort, Mpumalanga, also in South Africa. Followed a month later by his older brother, sister, and uncle as the war proved to be getting worse by the day.
The riots ceased and life was becoming normal. The latter returned later on that year, although they were involved in a motor vehicle accident on their trip back with Sabelo, his cousin-sister Ntsiki and his uncle Thokozane sustaining quite a number of severe injuries, life still went normally. At the age of 4, in January 1994, Sabelo was enrolled at a local Kumalo Primary School for the 1st Grade class. And on April 27th of that year, South Africa became a land of hope and new opportunities as the ANC won the national elections and Mandela was to be the very first Black President of the Republic. He continued schooling without any issues and easily passing every Grade. At the school, he participated and won prizes in the school's male pageants, participated also in the school's athletics team as a runner and later became a Prefect on his last and senior year in that institution. At Katlehong Technical High School, he wasn't that very active as far as participating in school activities is concerned, instead, he became a rapper. Inspired by 'conscious' rappers, the likes of 2pac, Public Enemy, Common and many more, his lifestyle shifted to a bookworm who concentrated more on Black History Books and the system of global and local governments. He was never to be the same again as he spent most of his childhood in the library reading and idolizing historic Black leaders like slain South African political figure Bantu Stephen Biko, Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba and others while feeding on the deepest forms of Rap music. He wrote and passed his matric in 2006 after repeating Grade 11 once.
The Dreamer
In 2003, whilst in the 10th Grade, Sabelo founded his very own record label and called it 'Boom-Boom Entertainment', inspired by the American slang for a "dream ballers-party club" the "Boom-Boom-Room". Then in 2005 after meeting with his old primary school friend, Lucky Ngema, the stable name was changed to 'Nhlanhla Entertainment' and Lucky started working as manager of the company and 'its artists'. Much older and more experienced, Lucky together with Sabelo founded a Hip-Hop band by the name Spyland which consisted of Sabelo (SabturaH) as a leading Rapper member of the group, Sjabha (also an old primary school friend of Sabelo) as a Rapper also, T.dot (a personal friend of Lucky) also a Rapper and Shaymar as a vocalist and the only female member of the group and the whole stable. The name Spyland from which the band drew their name is an old nickname of their native township of Katlehong. About ten to fourteen songs were written and composed by the group although they were never recorded. And in early 2007 after the pair of Sabelo and Lucky had an altercation, the group fell apart and every member took their different direction, whilst Sabelo held on to the record label and his newly found alias of 'Holy-Ghost SabturaH'. This marked the end of a short journey and the beginning of another as a solo artist who had now completed school and had the world ahead of him.
Coming from a partially disadvantaged background, he needed to find a job so he could maintain. Fortunately for him, he found a good paying job in a Pressroom product's manufacturing firm just a month before he turned 18. He did not attend varsity then because his parents were forcing him to take a totally different route from that he had previously anticipated, and knowing he did not have money to enroll for his dream career course, he started working. As expected, for an 18 year old from a poor background having his own money, his attitude suddenly changed drastically. He was now heavy on Marijuana and alcohol consumption though he could not let go of his musical dreams.
It was April 2008 when he, together with his neighborhood friend Albert Skosana and Trevor Dedlow, a white colleague, met and discussed the reformation of his stable Nhlanhla Entertainment. The stable was refounded again and now as 'Black Recordz' with him as a recording artist and board member, Albert as a general employee of the stable and board member and Trevor as the sole directing manager of the company. A new artist 'Fibre-Glass' was signed in July of that year and an in-house producer Master-D was also signed in spring of that year. As a full time employee of Eco Pressroom Products, Sabelo did not have enough time to run and manage all his business interests while still making music as an artist of his own company.
The pressure overwhelmed him and he resigned at Eco at the end of February 2009. With all the time in his hands, he wanted to grow the company, and recruited quite a number of people (who were also his personal friends) and gave them different tasks. This did not sit well with Trevor as he felt the intentions of the new employees were not in the interests of Black Recordz. Trevor resigned from the stable some weeks later. The new employees were entrusted with the powers of administering the business and it saw itself changing from a Record company into an Events management company with their first major event hosted on April 4th of 2009 and many more followed. Sabelo as a recording artist who wanted to touch the world with his music, tried to keep alive the record stable side of the company though it was hard. He transformed Black Recordz from what it was into a Holdings Media company that could produce any form of media from music to films and newspapers and called it the Black House Media Corporation. However, tensions grew as the new board members (recruited before Trevor's resignation) could not see eye to eye with Sabelo and Albert. After the October 2 event in 2011, there were talks of firing Sabelo from his own company, and him, together with Albert decided to dissolve the firm. Again, everybody took different paths and Sabelo having appeared twice on a local TV soapie Rhythm City as a supporting cast, he wanted to go back on TV. He was called on Jacob's Cross and got a cameo as a supporting cast but was unfortunately arrested for drug possession a few hours after the shoot and that was the end of his TV career.
Later on that year he penned Beyond The Wheel which took about 8 months to complete and was later titled I'll Be Waiting after a review by his last High School English teacher Shakespeare Khonza. This was a play, which was only submitted to Thabang Moleya an internationally recognized director, who never replied. There were later rumors of the play being changed and turned into a famous TV soapie Isibaya which Thabang didn't have any stake in and never participated in its production from inception, that airs on weekdays prime time on a South African pay-TV. However, he disassociated himself from the rumor and carried on with his life as if nothing happened and he had been a fan of the soapie. For a hobby that began in his early teens, Sabelo has written a few plays since, namely, Where Dreams Collide, Inside Job, From Germany With Love, Beyond The Wheel (I'll Be Waiting), The Yellow - Line, Black Jesus, and Solve For ☓. The screenplay Solve for ☓ is his last and it was intended for a local low budget movie. The production of the movie was never executed though the film's soundtrack A Kid Called ☓ did reach release for public consumption. The record was released by Illumination Records, a company he had earlier co-founded, while the movie rights were given to Black Dog Productions, a mentoring company to Illumination Records and his previous projects, owned and founded by John Black Mthembu, the man who discovered Lundi and Kelly Khumalo.
After failing to make his first film I'll Be Waiting in 2012 and with Black House Media Corporation slained, he teamed up with Dj Malefactor (Marvin Muṱodzi, formerly known as Terror the Producer) and Sin Skeleton (Charles Mtshali) to form 'Self Made Studios', which later became Illumination Records and later Masir Intertainment. Here he recorded the mixtape UNDERWANDER: Studied With Perfection 2013 that precedes UNDERWANDER: Coming Soon 2015 his final studio record, which were follow-ups to his previous projects from Black Recordz and were both later completely destroyed by Dj Malefactor after the pair had had a financial quarrel. Dj Malefactor and his then wife decided to turn this stable into a family business and later bought SabturaH and Sin Skeleton out of the company but still managed to keep a professional relationship between all the parties involved. Sabelo appeared in quite a few compilation records and albums by Illumination Records after his departure as one of the executives. As a former member of the local Rap family the Microphone Addicts Klan, he appears in M.A.K and Friends, A Kid Called ☓ (soundtrack to Solve For ☓), 21st Century Love Issues, and Daddy Long Legs (a Sin Skeleton album) all produced in 2015, the year he announced his retirement from the whole entertainment industry.
The Grind
Having buried his father in January, Sabelo completed his 3 year Vocational course in Finance, Economics and Accounting at a local Ekurhuleni West TVET College in 2016. Here he had entered a Business Plan Competition hosted by the college and powered by the National Department of Trade and Industry, the DTi of South Africa in 2015. Along with 16 other participants whose Business Plans were deemed to make sense were enrolled to attend a year long provincial business seminar backed by various highly recognized sponsors that took only 2 Sundays per month. He won a Top 20 Award for his car restoration business Kathorus Fly Ridez and started pursuing the idea in 2017 when he bought an old car to restore. The restoration was successful however, the car was not in the required standard for it to be sold. He used it as his own personal vehicle and later physically destroyed it.
A month after he got rid of the car and sold it as scrap, he bought another one, a sedan version of the hatchback he had just had. This one was way better than the previous one. He again restored it, using most of the spare parts from the wreck, and again successfully completing his project. This time around though Sabelo was slowly drowning in a pool of alcohol, he spent most of his time drinking than working. Driving around in his 'project' car, he was frequently crashing into other vehicles and walls, always fixing the same problems. He got a job at a local auto panel beating and spray painting firm. His intentions were acquiring as many car building skills as possible, and he did achieve his goal. As he had become heavy on intoxicated beverages, he sold his car and bought another one, a Mercedes this time, 1992 C200 model. The car however, was amazingly sold before he could even drive it around, he owned it for less than a week. More than that he had bargained for, the owner of the firm, a relative of Sabelo's old friend tasked him with running the business on his behalf while he was away. This gave him an opportunity to prove that he could run this type of business using all the information he had previously learned at the college and business seminars. The business did so good that it tripled the profits and labour volume had to be increased. On his very own, he took major decisions that fortunately worked in his favor. On return, the boss was impressed and promised Sabelo a heavy December incentive. Approximately seven days before closing shop for the Christmas holidays and getting paid, Sabelo got involved in a motor vehicle accident along with his colleagues that almost cost him his left hand. He was rushed to a nearby local Thelle Mogoerane Regional Hospital where he was admitted and spent 3 weeks only to be discharged in the second week of January 2018.
Now semi one-handed and still on painblock medication, he was forced to quit his job. He also never received any of the paychecks due to him from the previous year and there were suddenly many stories. The year went by without much going on and he finally healed between June and July, six to eight months after the accident though 2 of his fingers have been permanently paralyzed. He continued with his business Kathorus Fly Ridez though the clientele was relatively very small. He would stay months without a job and when he finally got one, all the money went to satisfy the most basic needs. While on that, he also started a 'school-bus' transportation business taking kids to school as his every day job and car restoration as part time. He started in January 2020 and kept going, it was hard at first but it got easier and worth it as he got used to it. All was going great until the unforeseen Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak that forced the whole country to be on lockdown and the world at large. With all non-essential businesses closed for days, schools, churches, sports, he was forced out of business.