My Fashion Experience with SOULCURE -> @artwithohbe_

As we promised, we had an interview with one of the Founding Partners of SOULCURE “Ntwanano Maboko aka Ntwalaa”, a local aspiring clothing brand making crazy waves in Pretoria.
This is a 2 part segment where I bring you local vibrant Brands from PTA to look-out for. Read more below..

Q1: Soulcure being a Brand inspired by brotherhood and street culture. What is it that sparked the movement / the idea to come to life?

ANS: The movement came to live simply from the love of music. One of our Founders namely Ntwanano Maboko known as Ntwalaa started by releasing monthly house music mixtapes and called it SOULCURE on social media for followers to download and then that’s when it started.

A friend Shithembiso Baloyi known as Sthempe jumped in with his music production skills where SOULCURE was playing his music and that is when it was discovered that SOULCURE is a promotional platform.

Shithembiso came with the Tagline Touch My Soul and called the crew DISTINCT BROTHERS. Under Distinct Brothers there was also Nhlanhla Khosa (Terra) and Tshepiso Maghole (Cyp_The_Ninja) who are no longer with us due to other life commitments but are still part of the movement indirectly and ended up having Musa Ngobeni  (DaMus)& Thulani Maluleke(Thuls) as part of the family.

However, since we realized it’s a promotional platform we thought of other ways to touch more people and that’s when we started playing more genres in our platform namely hip hop/Neo Soul/Nu Jazz/Funk  to bring in a different culture to our movement. We went even deeper to broaden the spectrum of our platform and looked into arts as a whole and thats how the idea came to life.

Q2: Coming from Limpopo and residing in Pretoria, how much of your personal influence has contributed in the Brands Existence.

ANS: Thanks for such a questions since it’s a very touching one on our side. Coming from a small hood called Waterval (Elim) in Limpopo, a hood with limited resources, a hood with limited platforms but yet with a lot talent played a  major role in making our brand a success since we wanted to do good and inspire people in that community.

Having being out of the hood to being based in Pretoria/Cape Town and other cities of the country made our minds more open to opportunities but in the back of our minds was to take it back home and inspire a lot of souls who also want to do good in the community and beyond.

On the other hand it is so intriguing and inspiring seeing a lot of talent coming out of that hood since artists are not just waiting for other people to create platforms for them but they are creating those platforms for themselves. South Africa and the rest of the World must better be ready for the artists coming out of Waterval (laughs).

Lastly there is still much to do in that hood and we do believe that a lot will be achieved through persistence of us the artists and the support of the locals since charity begins at home.

 Q3: Lest talk brand footprints, how involved is the Brand Soulcure in addressing current social issues? Or more-so how involved isit in just giving back in that sense.

ANS: As we live and look around us, social issues cannot be ignored but rather be addressed. As young black artists who believe in arts and music, we believe we can use unity in the arts fields to address many social issues such as education, entrepreneurship, unemployment, drugs etc.

Using music as a voice is another powerful tool when relevant messages are conveyed to listeners. Using art like poetry and visual arts that is another way to tackle such matters since the artists are always telling a story through their artistry.

This is the whole aim why SOULCURE is taking a new direction of being an arts hub so that social matters can be tackled in various ways.

Q4: More people are still stereotyped about locally produced garments and supporting local brands, how negatively does such kinds of people affect growing brands like Soulcure and if you were to address such people what would you say.

ANS: Oh man (sighs), this one of the major problems and difficulties we are facing when it comes to the growth of local brands.

People tend to forget that big brand like Nike, Gucci and to name a few started as small brands. Our people tend to undermine the birth of a new local black brand running to big brands and only to find that the quality is the same and the style is more or less the same.

What we can say about such people is that they should start looking at the big picture as to why are there local brands, on the other hand it is our duty to work hard on educating our surroundings or such people on why these brands are made in the first place and all this boils down to business.

Thanks to everyone who is supporting local. Local is Lekker

Q5: Let’s talk vision and 5 year plans. In the next 5 years, where do you vision to see Soulcure.

ANS: Honestly speaking in 5 years’ time SOULCURE will be very far.

We want to see it as being one of the most recognized art hubs internationally and see all the creatives in it doing big around the world.

We want to see our clothing line in very prominent places and big mall around South Africa.

Q6: Last words, in closing. What is it that you would like people to know about Soulcure and where can they get it.

ANS: We would like to tell people that SOULCURE is new brand and we firmly believe that great things are still to be done.

As for our products and services, we are very versatile as to where to find us since we aiming more on pop ups for now.

People should check us on social media for updates:

Instagram : http://www.instagram.com/soulcure1/?hl=en

Twitter      :  Soulcure_

Facebook :  Soulcure/distinct brothers

Email: Distinctbros@gmail.com

 Whatsapp: 0796542520/0732564613