In what can only be described as the most momentous occasion in TVSA's history, we are delighted to reveal that our very own Brown Shuga will be making her television debut this week!
Shuga - credited by her real name,
Lelo Boyana - has landed her own insert on the upcoming SABC1 gossip talk show
The Real Goboza (RGB), called "TV With Lelo"!
She will chat about TV and interview various TV stars in her slot - essentially a TV version of her own TVSA blog,
Shuga's Blogiwood.
In the first episode of RGB we will be introduced to "Mzansi’s biggest TV addict" on TV With Lelo, as well as the following:
- An exclusive tell-all interview with Mzansi’s own Queen of Bling
- Find out which girls raise the temperatures of our local male celebs
- Gen Game’s Sydney Matlaku shows off his favourite toy
- And who is the new girl in Andile Ncube’s life?
The celebrity lifestyle, entertainment and information show is presented by
Dineo Ranaka and
Trevor Noah, and Brown Shuga will present "TV With Lelo" each week during the show.
A human resources practitioner in Jozi, Shuga has made her name as a celebrity- and TV-blogger since she joined TVSA a little more than a year ago.
Hers is a totally unique story for South Africa, and a quite amazing one. The full extent of her meteoric rise in the entertainment industry has yet to be realised, but from what we've witnessed so far this country is in for one helluva ride.
This is her story.
On 2 May 2006, TVSA was launched - South Africa's first television website that was not owned by a broadcaster.
Exactly one week later, on 9 May, a new user registered on the site called Brown Shuga (the online nickname used by Lelo Boyana). She spent about a month acclimatising to the site, posting a few replies to articles, until 13 June when she created her own blog called
Big Brother Nigeria.
Shuga admitted in her first article that she was a BB Nigeria fan suffering withdrawal symptoms, as the show had ended the week before.
She started writing regular articles despite the fact that the show had ended, and soon found that there were thousands of other fans like her who needed a place to express their feelings about the show once it was over.
Ex-contestants on the show soon found her blog and she started interviewing them, in particular when the whole cast paid a visit to Johannesburg and she met with several of them.
Eventually interest in the show faded as the contestants shifted out of the limelight, but by then Shuga's fanatical BB community had dubbed her blog "Blogiwood".
Her last article in her BB Nigeria blog was posted on 24 August, and one week later - on 30 August - she started a brand new blog called Shuga's Blogiwood.
Many of her BB fans started drifting off, only to be replaced by a new readership of fanatical, hardcore fans.
Her third article in Blogiwood -
a review of the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards - was read 15,000 times, and firmly put the new Blogiwood and its author on the map.
Since then Brown Shuga has blogged on TVSA almost daily, achieving record page views and replies along the way. She is well-loved for her gossipy take on local celebs and the music and television industries in particular.
She started a third blog -
Shuga's G Spot - which is dedicated to the SABC1 soapie
Generations, and it too has broken readership records.
She started a "celebrity snapshots" blog called
Shuga Snaps in 2007, which features pictures taken by her of South African celebrities.
Blogiwood has gone on to become a powerful entertainment medium in its own right. Of her own accord, and in whatever spare time she had, Shuga started interviewing some of the biggest players in South African entertainment for TVSA, from producers to directors to the very stars of the shows themselves.
Entertainment heavyweights she has interviewed include
Lungile Radu,
Thapelo Mokoena,
Andile Ncube, Kabelo Mabalane,
Siyabonga Ngwekazi,
Nonhle Thema and
DJ Sbu.
On Tuesday 5 June, 2007 Shuga broke the news of a new show coming to SABC1, called The Real Goboza. "Goboza" is the Zulu word for "gossip".
The show was described by producers Urban Brew as a "48-minute, late-night, live, celebrity, fashion, gossip, popular culture, social news, music, movies, talk and magazine experience".
Shuga was encouraged to audition to be a presenter on the show by Andile Ncube, the host of the music show
One, whom Shuga
had interviewed in May.
She auditioned and impressed producers enough to land her own insert on the show called "TV With Lelo", in which she discusses the latest TV gossip of shows airing on the SABC channels.
We can only imagine it was her beauty, charm, intelligence, humour and exhaustive knowledge of the entertainment industry in South Africa that made her stand out.
Says TVSA co-editor, Tashi Tagg: "One of TVSA’s aims is to have a positive impact on the television industry and we’re thrilled to see this being realised in such an exciting way. We have no doubt that Lelo’s going to be the best thing on the show."
To our knowledge she is the first blogger in South African history to land a television presenting role which has come about directly as a result of her blogging about the television industry.
Our girl is now set for superstardom on what sounds like an exciting show which is destined for major success.
The Real Goboza premieres on SABC1 on Wednesday 27 June, at 21h00.
EXTRA RESOURCESProfile: Lelo BoyanaProfile: Trevor NoahProfile: Dineo RanakaTVSA Mini-Site: The Real GobozaArticle: The Real Gobozas Revealed!Article: Why Phuti Can't Do RGB!Article: New Shows Due, No Presenters!Article: I'm Not A Prophet!