The sound of becoming

Apiwe Bubu's first album is the culmination of a decades-long journey across continents, studios and genres

- Kibo Ngowi

On Thursday, 31 July, Apiwe Bubu dropped his debut solo album Reflections of a Sound Mind — an eight-track collection of piano compositions that has been two decades in the making.

It was a long road that saw Bubu travelling to Boston, Valencia and Los Angeles before coming home to record and release his first album at the age of 41.

Born in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, Apiwe is the second of five children. His early years were spent in his birthplace before he moved to Johannesburg at the age of 12 for boarding school. It was there, amid the piano rooms tucked into every quad, that he first started “twiddling” with the keys and discovered a passion for music.

He moved to Pretoria to complete his final two years of high school.

Upon matriculating, Bubu found himself unsure of what his next steps should be. He initially embarked on a path that would sound reassuring to his parents, briefly studying aeronautical engineering at Wits.

"I was, like, 'No, this is too much,'" he recalls, realising halfway through his first year it wasn't the right fit.

After taking the rest of that year and the following one off, during which he worked at a branch of Roman's Pizza, serving slices while pondering his future, music emerged as the clear direction.

To appease his parents and ensure they would take his career choice seriously, he framed it strategically.

"Let me not present it as music. Let me present it as sound engineering," he recounts. "The engineering is still going to make them feel like, 'Oh, there's a job behind this.' They can still say their son is an engineer."

Bubu enrolled at In-House in Randburg, Johannesburg, where he earned a certificate in sound engineering a year later.