With an entertainment career spanning over 25 years, the name Thembi Seete is synonymous with key moments in South African pop culture. It is hard to imagine an entertainment era that she hasn’t featured in, or influenced.
Having spent her entire adult life under the spotlight, this year, Thembi is celebrating her 45th birthday – a milestone which finds her finally feeling “all grown up” – being a mother, wiser and feeling sexier than ever. Poignantly, it is also her first birthday without her beloved mother who passed away in July last year.
Our first and most telling encounter was via WhatsApp voice notes. We were both in transit from our respective holiday destinations and the issue was a rather urgent one as she was “slightly concerned” with the vision we had for her hairstyles for the cover shoot.
In a very firm, but extremely polite manner, Thembi makes it clear that the chosen hairstyles are not a reflection of her and where she is, mentally and spiritually. She also sends me her stunning references. I’m immediately blown over. I love it, I say in a text.
“I just want it to look right,” she says on her voice note after sending us her preferred hairstyles. “I want to pay tribute to all these creatives, but I also want to be me,” she says. We’re immediately aligned. It’s a go.
Understanding why this is so important to her, the team and I set out to ensure that everything is 100% perfect for the shoot.
The styling is inspired by music from the ‘Thembi decades’, as I now call them. Our journey starts in 1993 with the ground-breaking Janet Jackson album title Janet, and its pioneering cover.
We pay homage to Brenda Fassie, Beyoncé’s Black is King visual album, and in a Karl Lagerfeld ensemble, end our shoot with a tribute to Nicki Minaj. It is an odyssey of high fashion and music through the past years, and Thembi brings her distinct creative energy to each shot with a professionalism that reflects her time in the industry. She gets direction, she finesses reference with her own authentic stamp, and she’s having fun.
Thembi, who started her career as a singer and rapper with the iconic Boom Shaka back in the early 90s, is now also an award-winning actress, and wastes no time channelling these very different musical talents through fashion. We even stop in awe as she dances to one of her favourite tunes – the popular Amapiano tune by Young Stunna, – on set.
