Vuyelwa Booi
Vuyelwa Booi is a South African actress, singer and television presenter best known for her role as Alyce Morapedi on the SABC2 soapie 7de Laan, from 2001-2004 and again from 2006 to 2010.
Along with Duncan Senye, she replaced Dosto Noge as the host of the SABC2 consumer rights show Speak Out for its fourth season, in 2010.
Vuyelwa was born in Soweto. It is also where she lived for the first 20 years of her life.
She attended primary school at the Dominican Convent in Belgravia Johannesburg and for high school moved on to Potchefstroom High School for Girls.
Vuyelwa got involved in the arts at a very young age – she started singing in the choir at school and doing school plays in her primary school years and continued with that into high school, which is where her singing career also started to grow.
In 1997 Vuyelwa was among a group of young singers chosen to be part of the North West Youth Choir that was to tour Europe in July of 1997. They performed in five countries, participating in competitions and choir festivals.
After she matriculated in 1998, Vuyelwa went on to study for an associate degree in Theatre Arts at what was then called Midrand University, now Midrand Graduate Institute. In 2000 she got a lead role in an Industrial play that was performed at the Market Theatre and around Johannesburg.
In 2001 Vuyelwa was cast in 7de Laan to play the role of Alyce. A year into playing the role of Alyce, the producers of the show decided to incorporate Vuyelwa’s singing into the show and that’s how Vuyelwa started performing at corporate functions.
Vuyelwa took a break from 7de Laan at the end of 2004 and in 2005 got a sponsor who helped her to travel to New York to spread her wings and learn a bit more about the industry.
She enrolled with the New York Film Academy to do a course in acting for film but unfortunately could not finish the course as her sponsor pulled out after the first semester.
In December of 2005 Vuyelwa was cast as a member of Drumstruck, a musical which was being performed off-Broadway and she was cast as the female lead. She also did backing vocals for musician Wyclef Jean for the remix of the 2006 World Cup theme song he did with Shakira.
She returned to South Africa – and 7de Laan – in November 2006. She played in 7 de Laan until 2010.
After 7 de Laan in 2010 Vuyelwa started her presenting career on SABC 2 on the non-scripted reality tv show Speak Out. Speak Out travels all over the country engaging disgruntled consumers. The show educates consumers about their rights and businesses about their responsibilities towards their customers.
After Speak Out Vuyelwa left for New York again and when she returned to South Africa again she started presenting another reality show on MNET called Dream School SA which takes youths that have “dropped out” of school and gives them a second chance.
She also played the lead role of Pabi in the third season of the SABC1 youth drama Soul Buddyz, in 2005, made a guest appearance on the SABC2 music game show Noot vir Noot and was a guest presenter on the SABC2 lifestyle magazine series Pasella.
More recently Vuyelwa can be seen in a movie called ‘Sink’.
Vuyelwa has had a lifelong struggle with depression which she has been very vocal about. She is fluent in English, Afrikaans, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Sesotho and Setswana.