Anele Mdoda is no stranger to the limelight. In fact —
scrap that — she is the limelight! Whether on radio or TV,
her enigmatic energy is sure to draw you in!It’s the morning of our October cover shoot and I arrive at
Morrells Boutique Hotel — our set for the day — to loud
music pumping in the background and Anele’s booming voice
laughing at something the make-up artist had just said. After
introducing myself, I step outside to make room for the tons of
heels Anele’s brought, as well as the sea of sequinned items our
fashion team’s sourced. Photographer extraordinaire, Nick
Boulton, arrives and Anele literally jumps out of her chair to
greet him. Their casual banter points to a relationship that
t moment, I knew this would be one of our
tertaining cover shoots ever.
ast-forward to the day of the interview...I
arrive at Anele’s house nervous as a first-
grader on their first day at big school, but
my anxiety eases when she — dressed in a
glam cut-out black top — meets me outside.
‘She’s quite dressed up for a casual day at
home,’ I think to myself. We walk to the
living room for the interview — and it’s
surprisingly quiet for a place that’s home to three children.
Anele excitedly explains that she’s busy running errands for
their family holiday — first, Mauritius with the kids, then Japan
with her man. By now, you would have seen the evidence of
the epic getaways on her Instagram!
BROADCASTING
As we move from one shoot location to the next, Anele’s Bluetooth
speaker – blasting 90s hit after hit – keeps us company. She
bursts into song when Mbongeni Ngema’s Stimela saseZola
comes on, asks for the volume to be turned up when Beyoncé’s hits
By MBALI SOGA Photographs NICK BOULTON
THE
CROWN
FITS
start playing and requests repeats to Tevin Campbell ballads.
“I’d say I was 11 when I knew for sure that my future career
would be in broadcasting,” says the animated TV and 947
Breakfast Club host. Be it family functions, birthday parties
or anniversaries, she recalls how — growing up — whenever
people needed someone to talk, they’d always call her. “Speaking
came naturally to me,” she explains, reminiscing about how
she felt when she first watched Oprah Winfrey on TV. “I was
like, ‘That’s an older version of me’. I knew then that we were
similar in many ways — we had the same personality and sense
of humour. Mine, obviously, developed with time”.
Anele kickstarted her career in broadcasting at Tuks FM,
the University of Pretoria’s campus station. This marked the
start of an illustrious radio career that has seen her work for
Highveld, 5fm and now 947. I muster the courage to ask why
she has, so far, aligned her brand with radio stations known
to have a predominantly white listenership. “Tuks FM was
purely a rock station. ‘Jou ma’ was our slogan. White radio
stations scout from there, so I was always going to get scouted
by them,” she shares.
She remembers being so besotted with her Highveld gig
that her then co-pilot, Grant Nash, had to persuade her to
move to 5fm. The pair worked together at Tuks FM, and are
still the dynamic duo they once were — except that Grant,
now, prefers to work behind the scenes at 947. At first glance,
it seems as though the industry has typecast Anele but her
versatility continues to set her apart. “There once was a point
where I wasn’t white enough for certain things and a time
when I wasn’t black enough,” she shares, adding that she lost
and won jobs because of this.36 |^ OCTOBER^2019 | WWW.TRUELOVE.CO.ZA