Oskido

Oscar Bonginkosi Mdlongwa, popularly known by his stage name– Oskido, is a South African recording artist, DJ, record producer and businessman. He is one of the pioneering artists to popularize the Kwaito genre of music outside the townships of South Africa thus making him to be regarded as a premier in the South African music industry. He is also the co-founder of Kalawa Jazmee Records (formerly Kalawa Records), a record label which houses musical acts like Mafikizolo and Uhuru.

Born to a Zimbabwean father, Esaph Mdlongwa, who was a politician and a South African mother, Emily Sophia Molefi, on 23 November 1967 in Oukasie Township, Brits, North West, South Africa, Oskido spent most of his early life in Luveve Township, Bulawayo Zimbabwe where he went on to finish his basic education after graduating from Gifford High School, Bulawayo. He returned to Brits at the age of 21 in 1988 to run a family spaza shop before he left for Johannesburg to pursue a career in music.

Oskido’s career came into limelight after he volunteered to perform at a night club where he used to sell boerewors (sausage) after a scheduled DJ failed to show up. After reworking some songs and formulating his own kind of sound into cassettes, he went on to release compilations like Mixmaster and Big Jam thus making him popular outside Johannesburg before he was introduced to Bruce “Dope” Sebitlo, a South African musical act who went on patner Oskido to form the Brothers of Peace band.

Under the Brothers of Peace band, Oskido released and produced eight albums between 1994 and 2004 before he went on to patner with Don Laka and Christos Katsaitis to found Kalawa Records.

Kwaito is a music genre that was originally created in South Africa during the 1990s. It has been described as the music that defines the generation who came of age after apartheid. Oskido and some other artists were among the first artists to produce Kwaito songs by adding vocals to the slow Tempo house beats that went on to become popular in South Africa and beyond. His contribution to the development of music in South Africa earned him a Special Recognition Award at the 2012 Channel O Music Video Awards.