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The seventh annual Channel O Music Video Awards are coming up on Thursday (4 November), with a live broadcast starting at 21h00.

The red carpet will be broadcast on Sunday (7 November) at 18h00, followed by a re-broadcast of the Awards at 18h30.

To get into the vibe of them I wanted to chatter to two nominees who I never get to speak to at the actual awards: Zimbabwean-born Buffalo Souljah and Mozambican muso Lizha James.

I've seen and heard them perform at previous awards but in all the craziness of things there's never time to talk.

Both have been nominated again this year so I decided now is the time to find out more:

Lizha James' nominations are for the single "Vou Te Atacar" featuring Loyiso, in the categories: Most Gifted Female Video and Most Gifted Video Of The Year.

Tashi: *schmancy accent* Vou Te Atacar ... what does it mean?
Lizha: Well, it's: "I'm going to attack you". It talks about a situation of two people that like each other but they don't confess or they're still pretending that they don't know each other and one is saying: "I will attack you".

Tashi: Attack them in lust and love obviously.
Lizha: Love, yes.

Tashi: Why did you hook up with Loyiso for it? How did it happen?
Lizah: It's just something that happened naturally. We met each other at the awards a lot - it's the fifth or the sixth time that I've been nominated. Because of that we started creating a friendship and we spoke about it, like: "Let's do a song."

I sent him the music because the instrumental was done by a Mozamibican artist - so I sent him the song and he liked it. That's when we decided to do the song so I came to South Africa - I recorded my album in South Africa - we communicated and things happened.

Tashi: What are your main musical inspirations?
Lizha: Well, I don't have like a specific artist ... actually Beyoncé has been an inspiration, she is to every women because she's brave and strong, a very good artist but I don't have one specific artist because it depends on the song I'm doing.

I might listen to Pavarotti and do slow music because there's something that Pavarotti did and I liked it - and then I might listen to Kelly Rowland for something more dance orientated. It depends.


Tashi: You have your own fash. sense and style, your own unique image. Could you tell us more about it?
Lizha: It depends on the song I'm performing but I really like to perform in an African style. That is a style that is Mozambican - it's animal influenced, animal hides.

Sometimes I perform with that kind of clothing but sometimes I also wear designs by fashion designer Taibo - he designs my style and does it for me. It's cool because he's in Mozambique so I just go to his studio and he does something for me. He's designing my dress for the awards.


Tashi: What's been the biggest moment of your career?
Lizha: For me it's still when I won the first award at the Channel O Awards in 2005 because we were young people, with no experience. We did this video and we just did it for fun and suddenly we got nominated in four categories.

I won for Best Female - that gave me a very good jump, it was a very good step for my career. When that happened it gave me a lot of inspiration to work more and that's why I'm still here today.

Tashi: What's been the most difficult aspect of your career?
Lizha: The difficult part is when there's somebody that is trying to stop you or somebody that's trying to do something bad to your career.

Tashi: Has it happened to you??
Lizha: Yes, the artist's are not united - when somebody tries to do something to your career, you get disappointed and it puts you down. That's the worst part of it. When the artists are not united there are people envying your career and that's not nice. Everybody's fighting and that's the worst thing.

People start their careers and then they fight with the people who are there, in it. You have to get united with those people instead of fighting with them and also, those who are there need to help the youngsters.

That's why you see, in some countries, there are only two or three people who are big and rest are not. The big artists are afraid of helping the younger and new artists because they're afraid they might fight with them.

Tashi: If you were a voter or someone watching the awards, who would you vote for in your categories, besides yourself of course?

Lizha's choices in red ...

Most Gifted Female Video:

Witness for Attention Please (East Kenya)

Kenny Saint Brown feat. Da Grin for Turn Me Around (West Nigeria)

Mo'Cheddah feat. Othello for If You Want Me (West Nigeria)

Thembi Seete for Free (South Africa)

Lizha James feat. Loyiso for Vou Te Atacar (SADAC)

Most Gifted Video Of The Year:

Teargas for Party 101 (South Africa)

D-Black & Kwaku-T for Breathe (West Ghana)

Lizha James feat. Loyiso for Vou Te Atacar (SADAC.Mozambique)

M.I. feat. Djinee for Safe (West Africa)

TKZee for Dikakapa (South Africa)

K'Naan for T.I.A. (East Somalia)


Tashi: What do people actually call you? Buffalo? Buffalo Souljah or BS?
Buffalo: They call me Buff.

Tashi: And your family?
Buff: My family call me by my first name, my government name Thabani. (surname Mdlovu).

Tashi: Bob Marley's your biggest inspiration?
Buff: Yeah, yeah.

Tashi: Why did you choose that name specifically instead of something else from his songs like Natty Dread?
Buff: Well I did research on the Buffalo Soldiers themselves, besides the song itself, because it comes with history. Freed slaves in America, they were freed and they fought the war against the native Americans also.

The Red Indians didn't have a name for them, they knew that they were black soldiers with dreadlocks so they referred to them as the buffalo's. In the Amazon you have buffalo's with the hair which look like dreadlocks almost, so they called them Buffalo Soldiers.

They were first black freed slaves so from there comes the history, they were free, born in America. After my research it kind of caught me - I'm not fighting any war, the only war we fighting is the system war. We're fighting evil and all that, it's not anything political.

Tashi: Has Bob Marley been your inspiration forever?
Buff: Since I was young - I come from a musical family, my father was a musician and he had a big poster of Bob Marley and his family.

I always used to ask my father about the inspiration for the poster, "who's this guy" and then when I was about seven or eight I knew about Bob Marley's music but I wasn't singing reggae. I just knew I wanted to follow my father to be a musician, he played brass sax in a band.

Buff's been nominated in two categories: Most Gifted Ragga Dancehall Video for "Too Many of Me"; and for Most Gifted South Video for "Ezandhla Phezulu" (Hands Up)

Tashi: Are you rastafarian?
Buff: I'm not really in a religion. I grew up in a Christian background, my granny and my mom were Catholic. I'll tell you something, how I evolve myself in relation to Rastafari - I know the rules and culture and I believe it. But even, like me being Christian, I don't go to church like that no more.

Tashi: Would you describe yourself as spiritual and not religious?
Buff: Definitely, definitely because I know about it, I'm aware of it, I know about Rastafari, I believe in it but I'm also a Catholic because that's how I grew up - before I discovered other things.

I think anyone who's Rastafari now would probably agree with what I'm saying - we maybe grew up in a Christian family and wanted to find a different way.


Tashi: The track Too Many Of Me - where were you when you wrote it?
Buff: It came from people. I'm originally from Zimbabwe, I've been in South Africa for almost 15 years but I've always gone back and forth. I'm involved in things there, uplifting other artists, movements, those sorts of things.

I've just formed a movement called UNA, United Nations Of Africa and I've got a lot of African artists involved like Wyre in East Africa, Teargas is also interested in it.

When I came up with the track, most artists used to ask me: "Why is it that only you've been nominated for an award? " I had a lot people, even in Africa, asking me: "How come you always win?"

Last year Buff was nominated for three awards and won two, in the categories: Most Gifted Ragga Dancehall Video and Best Duo or Group, for his collaboration with Gal Level and Taygrin on "My Type Of Guy".

And I was like "Ja, I always win because we vote. You need to make sure people vote for you. If you just let fans vote they'll send one SMS and that's it but we have to vote."

I have a movement, a database of people who are loyal that I send out a message to - and they'll vote.

When I came up with the song, it was to say: "There's too much talent, there are too many people like me, too many people that are even better than me," but you know how it is - talent isn't enough, you also have to be connected, that's how the industry is.

I was trying to console upcoming artists and those who are still not getting recognition. The chorus says: ... we all great to one annuda, no-one is better than the other, we all great in our own way."


Tashi: Who do you think your biggest competitors are in each category you've been nominated in?
Buff: I always want to speak on a higher level, meaning, going deeper, every artist coming from the nation, these are guys representing.

For me, everyone's competition but I also say we aren't competition. Music isn't a competition, it's a mission. You are competition to yourself because you are a champion in your own world.

Tashi: What's been the highlight of your career?
Buff: For me, a lot has changed over the years. I've become a brand and the future's brighter and brighter. The only thing we still need to work on is for African artists, we need to look at ourselves and say: "Yo, I wanna inspire another youth to be a musician."

Right now we're not inspiring any youth to wanna be in the music industry because it's getting tougher and there's not that much money.

Music isn't a competition, it's a mission. You are competition to yourself because you are a champion in your own world.

Artists are fighting amongst themselves instead of coming together to build an empire. That's why I've formed the UNA, so that artists can represent each other in their country, look out for them.

So an Angolan artist will talk about Teargas in Angola and a South African artist will talk about a Nigerian artist in South Africa. We need a network among artists so we recommend our fellow artists in the union.
.
It's also a record label that I've formed, we're opening a music store in Randburg in December that will be selling only Pan-African music. Because you get all this music playing on the music channels but it's nowhere to be found.

A link to the 2010 nominees: 2010 MVA Awards.

*PS: My special mission for the awards: to see how many musos walk the red carpet twice - arrive and then re-arrive. It happened with some last year! Will spill natch.

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