Durban-born songstress and ballerina Lusanda Ngcobo has come a long way since evolving from a content creator who forged a name for herself doing covers on TikTok. The singer-songwriter has transcended and blazed a new path for herself, taking the courageous step to be an artist in her own right and to give her voice to her own artistry, making music her dance floor and turning her vocals into dexterous feet that know their way around complex routines.
The singer-songwriter talked about the format of her latest project, By the Time I Wake Up. From reflecting on her past experiences as a young varsity student in her early 20s on “Progress” to embracing her passion for music and converting it into a professional career on “By the Time I Wake Up,” Lusanda talked about the structure of her body of work and why she opted to go the unconventional route.
“I know a lot of people think of what I’m doing right now as an EP, but I want to clarify that it’s actually a maxi-single. My team and I decided to go for this approach to give people a taste of what I can do conceptually, sonically, and artistically. Think of this project as a little get-to-know-me, a canvas that I coloured on so people can understand my mind and my writing as well. After my debut single, I wanted to come out with a little more, which ended up with me putting out two more singles – which are also in this project,” she said.
Lusanda | SUPPLIED
She spoke about the thematic scope of the maxi-single and the inspiration behind the lead-song title.
“I gave the project this name because by the time I wake up, I wanna see the silver lining and the good things that I slept on. After all the disappointments and the frustrations, the trials and tribulations, I want to come into a space where everything is bigger and brighter, a place where I know that everything I went through is now over.
“My intuition made me go for a maxi-single. I’ve been doing all the writing behind my music thus far, and for this project I wanted to do something that is authentically me. Everything was based on lived experience. So it wasn’t a matter of me wanting to sound like this or that; I let my experience guide me through the making of the project,” she said.
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The crooner talked about her state of mind and contentment with the current pace of her career. She also spoke about her ultimate ambitions as a musician and her desires to grow her reach.
“There are so many things I want to do with myself and my career, but for now, I am satisfied—I always am. But my being satisfied and thankful doesn’t mean I’m not hungry. I still want more,” she said, laughing. “Musically, I have producer goals and songwriter goals. There’s a lot I want to do with my music, and I want my reach to be bigger. I want to expand here in South Africa, then Africa and then take things overseas. That would be the ultimate.”
Besides writing a lot, Lusanda spoke about the significance of her dancing background and how the discipline of doing ballet has stood her in good stead regarding the cultivation of her musicianship.
“I’ve always been a dancer, and I thought that was going to be a career path I was gonna take. I’m back at it full-time and getting my stamina back. I do ballet every week, and I’ll be doing contemporary up next. I’m mentioning dance because it and music are very similar. I find myself taking lessons from ballet and passing them into my music because both things need you to be disciplined,” she said.
Lusanda | SUPPLIED
Lusanda rounded up the conversation with a promise of better visibility and more displays of her personality for her fans to connect with.
“There’s definitely going to be more of me after this project. I’ve always been someone who fears being seen, and that led me to being a mysterious person. So there will definitely be more performances, more posts, and more me. I want people to understand the real me without doing too much,” she said.
Check out “By the Time I Wake Up”:
