We recently connected with Peter Ngqibs and have shared our conversation below.
Peter, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?
When I was 16 years old, I was working at a seafood restaurant during the weekends to make extra money. I would save up my tips each month and go book sessions at a local recording studio I had found in the yellow pages. De La Rey’s Recording Studio, it was called. They helped me create beats and I’d topline – I laugh now when I listen to those 4 songs! Anyway, after a session that ended right at closing time, this gentleman came and knocked at the studio door. I guess he was a known client who wrote songs. He was putting together a demo that was going to some publisher for a big Afrikaans artist who was about to start cutting a new album. He wanted some back up vocals and the session musicians were all gone. He and the producer both asked me if I would sing the back ups for them. They fed me notes to sing in my ear, and I just sang them back. I never got to hear the full song. I was paid R50 for that 15 mins.
Every dollar. I earn now, 20 years later, is from. music.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am South African American musician. I fell. in love with music in elementary school where I sang in the school choir, played in the guitar club that accompanied school assemblies, and took violin lessons. I was never. interested in the violin – I only took lessons because I had a crush on someone in the group class. By the time I registered, the class was full so I was stuck taking private lessons for a year!
During those years, I would make cassette tape recordings on our stereo at home using a microphone I had bought with my pocket money. My parents saw how much I loved music. They had me audition for the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School. A boarding school in the heart of the Drakensberg Mountains. That was the best 4 years of my life. There I took piano lessons, organ lessons, and voice lessons. We had two choir rehearsals daily, performed weekly concerts, did 2 national tours, and one international tour each year. That was where I learned the discipline needed to excel in any area of my life.
My high school did not have a music program, but my friends and I found a way to create student musicals and I was able to share and bring my skills. I studied music in college at Montclair State University, and my first job was Director of Music for a presbyterian church. Now I also teach elementary music and theory.
Throughout all of this, my own focus has been on songwriting and performing. I have released a lot of music as an independent artist. My second album, WDYS?, is a body of work, I am most proud of. I landed some major artist collaborations for it – Moonchild Sanelly and Kyle Deutsch – while working still with other independent artist collaborators. I am also grateful to have worked with a producer like Gavin Bradley. This man helped me bring my vision to life and has upped my game in an amazing way. The album is a concept album about self-discovery. WDYS? stands for “what do you see?” It opens with that question. What do you see when you look at yourself. Who are you after all your labels are stripped away? Labels such as your job title, relationship to people, what you do, how you identify. Throughout the album I sing about some sort of label. I now see myself as the endless potential to be, have, or do whatever I choose to focus. We all are.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
When I was a child, I wanted to be a doctor. However, music stole my heart. When I was working at the restaurant I mentioned earlier, my parents were going through a very difficult divorce. Music helped me deal with and process my emotions. Songs I heard and listened to. And later songs I wrote. I realized the reason I wanted to be a doctor was to help and to connect with people. And I learned how to do that through music. I get the kindest messages from people on social media saying how much certain songs resonated with them, or how much they and their kids enjoy them.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
What I have been working on in my personal life is shifting my perspective on events as they happen, and what value I’m assigning to those events. So for instance, in March I traveled to South Africa to shoot a music video with Kyle Deutsch for our song “I Miss You” from my album. We had styled ourselves and I had purchased everything we would need. The package arrived the day before I was to leave and was stolen from my apartment building. I was so tired I didn’t have the energy to be angry about it while I was packing. I knew things were going to work out and I had no choice but to trust that. A friend of mine connected me with a stylist and she did an amazing job of creating our looks and getting the dancers in awesome outfits. Not only that, my friend Moonchild Sanelly, created an outfit for one of the looks too! She makes one or two outfits a year for other people.
Yes, the ordeal cost me more money. But I got to find someone who is now a part of my team in South Africa, leveled me up, and the looks were better than what we had come up with. A lot of pivoting, in my opinion, requires one to trust the redirection and let go of being so attached to an outcome you have. Things will work out.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.peterngqibs.com
- Instagram: @peterngqibs
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/PeterNgqibs
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterncanywa/
- Twitter: @peterngqibs
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/PeterNgqibs
- Other: VEVO – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOIPNwW1xa7PRJEfFqymG_g