Nelson Mandela’s Release Changed Black Coffee’s Life

Durban, South Africa, is one of the hottest scenes for dance music right now and Black Coffee, real name Nathi Maphumulo, serves as its elder statesman. The 40-year-old first appeared at the Academy 13 years ago as a participant at the 2003 Red Bull Music Academy in Cape Town. We invited him back to the Academy as a lecturer in 2016 to tell us what happened in the interim, an incredible tale of how hard work and talent can combine in a wonderful way. It wasn’t always easy, though: In this excerpt from his lecture, Black Coffee told us the harrowing tale of what happened in 1990 on a day that should have been a joyous one.

On the 10th of February, which was the eve of when Nelson Mandela was coming out of jail, the whole country was excited. There was celebration everywhere. I think it was about nine or ten at night when a group of people were singing past my house. Me and my cousins ran out to join, but we knew how strict our grandmother was, so we wouldn’t really go far.

That night, for some reason, they were calling me to go back home and I was like, “No, I’m not going back home.” I stayed up. I was 14. Basically, we sang, ran around the streets the entire night until the morning. We were, as a group, singing on the main road on our way to a big stadium.

We were almost there, and I just heard these noises and screaming and quite strange noises. A car literally drove into the crowd and just... A few seconds later I woke up. I was on the ground and there was chaos. Everyone screaming, crying. I realized, “OK, we had an accident.”

About 36 people were injured and one person passed away. The people took out the driver. They beat the guy up. They burned his taxi and they burned him on the spot. I sustained an injury. When I look at it today, I don’t think I was hit by the car myself, I just think it was a chain reaction. I think I was pushed. I sustained an injury called brachial plexus, which is the damage of the nerves on my shoulder.

At the time, I thought it was just a fracture in my arm. The first thing I thought was, “My grandmother’s gonna kill me. I’m not supposed to be here.” Someone was like, “Come, let’s take you home.”

On our way home, I’m thinking, “No, we can’t go home. She’s really gonna kill me.” We went back, because then there were cars taking people to the hospital. They put me in one of the cars and I was taken to the hospital. Spent the whole night there. I remember waking up and seeing two of my friends that I was literally walking with and they were there. The other one was sleeping. It freaked me out because I thought he was dead. The other one was in pain. That’s when it really hit me that this actually was a serious accident. When my grandmother came, I was terrified, but she was really concerned, you know?

The following morning I was sent home, and Mandela was everywhere on radio and television. It was a really great, great moment for the country, which, I had mixed feelings because I was in pain. It became a significant day for me in a different way.

Watch the full lecture below.