Lindiwe Suttle - Her true calling found
Fashion icon and multidisciplinary artist Lindiwe Suttle is to premiere her debut album Kamikaze Art at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival next month.
I am the CEO of my life and an entrepreneur of the music industry. An artist must approach their career with a business mind
It is an extraordinary feat for a debutante to land in a festival that is so highly selective on the talent content of the show.
With an MBA in entrepreneurship and marketing, Suttle was primed for a posh career in business. But she literally became "the monk who sold her Ferrari" when she instead worked in the fashion industry - as fashion stylist for big names such as super stars Beyoncé and Ciara - and later switched to music.
"I had worked for several years in the fashion industry after my MBA, then moved to South Africa.
"I was working for a company in South Africa as a buyer and really felt that I could not express the level of creativity that I wanted. I quit my job and moved to Hamburg, Germany, for a relationship that eventually went bad," she says.
"This relationship inspired me to write lyrics again and I worked in a studio for the first time with a producer. I brought my demo back to South Africa and signed on as lead singer of Rus Nerwich and The Collective Imagination in 2007. I launched my solo career in 2009."
Ironically, Suttle is to play her first major show in Cape Town, a city which she famously said treats "black people as second-class citizens," an accusation she is no longer prepared to entertain - she surgically cut it out of the questions that had been sent to her.
The dynamic performer says: "I produced and recorded my album in Berlin last year. My travels and experiences are what I write and sing about, the songs are a diverse reflection of these global experiences," she says.
She says her education enables her to understand the operations of the music industry: " I am the CEO of my life and an entrepreneur of the music industry. An artist must approach their career with a business mind.
"Music and performing are my passions. I live by the quote 'What you do in life echoes in eternity'."
She has come to prefer her own happiness over material pursuits.
"My parents [Dr Earl and Felicia Mabuza-Suttle] are big supporters of education. They have taught me that life is not about making money, having homes in every city or buying designer clothing. Living a fulfilled life and following your passion matters most."
