The Sunday News
DOUBLE identity and yet no identity crisis is the apt phrase to describe 23-year-old South Africa-born radio personality and rising artiste Melissa Nxumalo born to a Zimbabwean father and a South African mother who happily draws on both heritages.
Born in South Africa on 25 December 1994 to be exact, Melissa is a Johannesburg-based radio personality.
She has worked at Hillbrow Radio and is currently at Venrap Radio, a station that deals predominantly with hip-hop.
The beautiful radio host describes dee-jaying as her own way of touching people’s lives and helping in shaping today’s world.
“I just love talking and sharing information. To me, it is not all about being famous but it’s about mending other people’s problems and learning from them as well.
“Being a radio host is my everything. I am where I am today because of radio. It has groomed me and taught me a lot over these last couple of years, that’s for sure. One of those lessons being to always stay humble and get a better understanding of people from different walks of life. Radio had helped me do so much more than I had previously anticipated. More importantly, now I am able to host and motivate kids in school too,” said Melissa.
She says she fell in love with radio very early on in life and that by the 11th grade she knew and had already made up her mind that she was going to be a radio DJ.
She is quoted as having said that hearing people compliment her on her amazing voice and how it was ‘‘radio friendly’’ helped in pushing her towards radio.
She describes her first slot on air (Hillbrow Radio, 2015) as nothing short of ‘dramatic’ as she was a bundle of nerves.
“I had no experience or anything at all, thank God it was a graveyard slot.”
A couple of years on and more radio ‘‘mileage’’, she is definitely up there with the best of them and a star in the making.
Melissa is an ambitious young woman and as such, to her, radio is only but the beginning.
Besides radio, she is an aspiring actress and is pursuing a career in music as well. Having had the honour of being introduced to some local film producers and doing reasonably well after making her debut on one of the local dramas (Holy Visit),
Melissa has set her sights on a long and what she hopes will be a fruitful career in the entertainment business.
“My goal is to see my acting and presenting careers taking shape in America where I see myself representing Africa and I would love to also see myself making the same strides in the music industry, working with big artistes that I would never even have thought of. Radiowise, Metro FM is the station I see myself working at in the next couple of years,” she said.
To Nxumalo, just being on radio, making a cameo on the hit series ‘‘Scandal’’ and being recognised by every day people on the streets, being able to give back, being booked from one radio station to the other and being nominated for the community awards back home in Zimbabwe (Ntumbane Awards in Bulawayo) has been nothing short of overwhelming for the radio host and she says that it goes a long way in encouraging her acting and music careers as well.
As a Zimbabwean and South African child, it is Melissa’s hope that she can gain the recognition and acceptance from both whilst on her mission to leave her mark on this world.
She is driven by her motto which is, “For you to be the best, you got to learn from the best. Stay humble and believe that God put you down here for a reason. Fulfil your life’s goal.”
Melissa has also been involved in community helping project and last year she managed to contribute to a school in Zimbabwe by donating 100 shoes with the help from Dynamos Soccer player Marshall Machazane and Kaizer Chiefs’ Michelle Katsvairo.
She said they were aiming to give more school shoes even this year.
