If she’s not being heard on your favourite radio station featured on the country’s most popular tracks she is definitely gracing our television screens with her presenting skills. You might even spot her at high-class events hosting or just socializing with her industry friends. That’s a life any young girl would love to live right? Regardless, singer, presenter, and actress Dineo Moeketsi still feels she hasn’t reached her peak yet in terms of her career. “I think as you go up in the industry a lot of things are revealed to you over time, you learn the game as you grow. So once you’ve learned a couple of things you realise that there is still quiet a long way to go before you reach your desired level.”  

Dineo Moeketsi has shown us she can sing through her recent collaborative effort with singer/producer Kabomo. Her recent work with Kabomo has raised eyebrows because no one really knew she could sing, and raised the question of whether she is signed to Kabomo’s label or not. “Kabomo is one of the contributing producers to my upcoming project I’m not signed to him, people just assume I am because of the recent collaborations we’ve done.” says Dineo.

Well, now we know that she’s not just a pretty face. She’s a very accomplished presenter, talented singer and an emerging actress, but that side of her hasn’t been revealed to us yet. Speaking about her acting Dineo stated that, “I recently did a cameo for a BBC series that I doubt will show here in SA, but I am still waiting to get my first cast on a local project.”

It is clear that Dineo is making sure that her talent doesn’t go unnoticed, but besides all of that, she still has hurdles to overcome and a lot of criticism to deal with. While we were having this conversation, chilled and laughing away at Post, a coffee spot in Braam, we take a break from talking about her career and get into her recent twitter rant.

Dineo was not happy about the shade thrown in her twitter mentions and decided to address it right there and then. “You have a beautiful curvy body but I guess you are stuck to the notion that skinny girls are prettier”, read the tweet.

That didn’t go down well with Dineo and she was not in the mood for such at the time, “It was really the wrong day to be pulling that shit with me” Dineo said with a smug on her face.

“I’ve never been a size 36 upwards, I’ve never even reached a size 36 in my weight gain, but people wanna be like ‘No you are lying!’ How do you know I’m lying? You don’t live my life, you don’t wear my clothes, so how do you know I’m lying?”

She didn’t stop there, the topic seemed to diverge to being about body issues, how males and females perceive her body and the constant comments they make on a daily basis.

“It’s women a lot of the times who would say such things and guys too, but as a guy…” she takes a brief break and looks at me as if the message was directed at me and that I should pay attention and take notes.

“… As a guy, you are saying for your objectification I should stay a particular weight and if you ask me that’s f*cked up, that’s just F*CKED UP!! No woman should be dancing to any dudes tune!” She takes a deep sigh…

“At the end of the day my weight is just a discussion where I’m like it’s really NO ONE’S BUSINESS”.

To close off the topic she goes back to the girl who posted the tweet and states that, “ This is a big girl who said that, if I told her that her body is not working for her PERIOD,  whether I’m on television or not I get called the b*tch”.

These are some of the challenges that Dineo faces on a day-to-day basis. Such things may break one down, make one lose focus, make one doubt who they are and what they do. It all comes down to how you deal with it and overcome the obstacle. All that shade thrown on Dineo in her tweets did not mess with her ambition, she still does what she is good at and stays focused on her goal of building her career and making a name for herself in the industry. She is currently causing quite a buzz on the music side of things. We’ve seen her work with well-known rapper Khuli Chana and super producer PH, she recently featured on a video for a track called “The Frolic” by an up-and-coming rapper named Solo,  a very mellow song that fuses hip hop and a touch of R&B with the contribution of Dineo and Kabomo on the chorus bringing in that soulful flavour.

Does this mean we will be hearing more from her in music scene? “I studied music so obviously I will drop something, I’m just a perfectionist. There was a point where there was material and I looked at it and I was like scrap it all, it doesn’t work.”

She continues- “ Now I start from scratch, the ground work has been done and now its about flipping the market, flipping their view and locking them into this and making sure they buy into it”

To add on to that, Dineo also tells me why she is taking her time with her music project besides her being a perfectionist about it. “I don’t fake the ‘I can sing’-thing, I KNOW I CAN SING, I’ve been doing it for years. I’m just in a position where I am a whole lot more nervous because I’ve been out of practice and haven’t been on stage in a while.”

Well then, we have our ears on the ground and our eyes steady focused on this talented woman. From what we’ve been getting from her so far, we’re sure there’s still a lot more to come. Hopefully the wait will be worth while.

Words:  @Thy_Black_Hippy

Photography: @Ric3hard