A Rhodes University graduate with the gift of the gab has been making waves on the province's most-listened to radio station, as well as starting up an educational company to help aspiring performers in the area.
A Rhodes University graduate with the gift of the gab has been making waves on the province's most-listened to radio station, as well as starting up an educational company to help aspiring performers in the area.
In the past five weeks Tsepiso Nzayo's Nam Ndiyakwazi (I can also do it) Friday night live comedy performances on Umhlobo Wenene FM have become popular and in an interview with Grocott's Mail last week, he said that the public's response has been even better than he had hoped for.
Since his show began taking off people have been booking him to perform stand-up comedy at shows, gala dinners and hip hop gigs. Most of his jokes are related to current events, he said, and at the moment things like the Olympic Games are featuring in his repertoire.
This year he also started his own company, Buciko Communications and Events, that educates people of all ages through comedy. Through his company he also aims to develop upcoming artists and introduce the arts to children in schools in the Makana area.
He runs motivational programmes that help young people to engage with poetry and comedy. Besides being a self-taught comedian and poet, Nzayo is a language activist and after studying Anthropology and isiXhosa at Rhodes, he said he wants to promote his language and educate the youth through comedy.
People can make money from using Xhosa, he said, and you don't necessarily have to do things in English. Nzayo has published two isiXhosa short stories, Ukulunga kwenye kukonakala kwenye through Rhodes's Institute for the Study of English in Africa and Lileta zikaNjongo through the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
He is currently working on publishing an isiXhosa poetry anthology, Ndivumeleni ndithethe. On 25 August Nzayo will be hosting a comedy evening for charity. "All the money that I make from the show, I will take to the Home of Joy in the township," he said. He urges the community to come and support his initiative at City Hall at 9.30pm.
