Award-winning singer Danny K recently visited MacG’s “Podcast and Chill”, where he opened up about becoming a pop star back when South Africa was a newly democratic country.
In welcoming him to the podcast, MacG joking referred to him as the “original J’Something”, pointing out that the only difference was that J’Something married a black woman and Danny K didn’t.
The veteran musician responded: “It was nothing personal, I assure you. I had some good times, but never got to marry ... I did date black women, now am I legit?” he asked co-hosts MacG and Sol Phenduka.
When MacG questioned him on what it was like dating a “black girl”, Danny K said: “The same as dating a white girl. Back when that was happening, South Africa wasn’t the South Africa of today.
“We were trying to become, but it still felt unusual ... My upbringing didn’t care about what society thought or who I was friends with, my parents didn’t care about that,” he said.
Danny K went on to share that his father had exposed him to different cultures and music from a very young age.
“The first concert my father took me to was a Lucky Dube concert ... No one in my school knew Lucky Dube, so my father was introducing me to those kinds of experiences very early on ... I was starting to experience the world differently to my peers, and I was so grateful for that.
“I started being inquisitive about cultures, music, and most people back then, and even today in SA, are not really looking at these things ... I might have been the only white face with my dad at the Lucky Dube concert,” said Danny K.
He also remembered going to Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse’s concert at The Market Theatre.
Recalling his first stadium concert in Soweto, Danny K said he was the only white artist on the line-up.
“That’s where I met Mandoza ... I was like the white economic empowerment token artist ... I remember going there and the reception I got, and then I learnt that I shouldn’t be fearful and it was so emancipating.
“The rest of my career, I would go anywhere, I would do anything, there was very little that made me afraid.”
He talked about being the first white artist to appear on SABC1’s variety TV show, “Selimathunzi” and “Jam Alley”.
“I think in those instances, I was a bit of a unicorn, like what’s this guy doing here? Funny enough most of the producers of these shows were white. The reaction from the black community when they saw me on these things was overwhelmingly positive.
“There was that element of cynicism, whether I was being true to myself, true to what I was doing and not just trying to fashion a career out of something that wasn’t genuine?”
The interview continued with Danny K in a heated discussion on “white privilege”.
"It's a very difficult topic in SA. The minute you say white privilege to a younger South African who has grown up in a free South Africa, the concept of privilege is somewhat lost or alien to them ...
"I came from a time where I was on the cusp of seeing what white privilege could really do for my parents, for my father who gained some success in commerce because he wasn't up against a free country.
"I identified that everything that I got in my life by virtue of the fact that he was privileged, I was the beneficiary of that privilege," said Danny K.
He also weighed in on the legacy of the late president Nelson Mandela and how amapiano was taking over the world
Watch the full interview below: