Born and raised in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Mpendulo “Mpeshnyk (pronounced Mpeshneck)” Calaza was first introduced to the DJ world in the year 2007, where he was taught the art of Deejaying on vinyls by record bar owner and DJ Shane Kuster of Kust*r Re-cords in Melville, Johannesburg.

His newly founded love and passion for mixing different sounds of music through vinyls and DJ turntables, sparked a deep sense of desire and hunger within Mpeshnyk, to want to learn more about how the very songs which he enjoyed playing for people at gigs were made. As a result he enrolled for a 2 year diploma at the Academy of Sound Engineering in Auckland Park (SABC radio park), taking up music production as a major.

His first year of study involved meeting other budding music producers and various underground house music DJs from around Gauteng and this is where he got exposed to the seductive sounds of international deep house producers like Osunlade, Masters at Work, Boddhi Satva, St Germain and Martin Iveson (Atjazz) to name but a few.

Music has always been part of Mpeshnyk’s life , his father was a strict listener of classical music while his mother partook in various choirs together with his grandfather but it was the Soul music and R&B that he heard from his mother’s music collections which captivated his ears.

In the year 2009, after having spent a year searching for his own original kind of production style, Mpeshnyk started making his own productions carving out his sound through remixing other people’s songs into a dry, percussion-driven down tempo medley of deep house and soulful sounds. Some of the tracks which helped Mpeshnyk in finding his trademark sound are The Return’s — Brand (New Day) which Mpeshnyk did as a “Tribal Remix” of, Jill Scott’s — Nothing “(Mpeshnyk Freaky Soul Remix)” of and a “Re-Edit” of Brandy’s—Should I Go, all of these were done as bootlegs (un-authorized remixes) in 2009 and released online in February 2011.

Within the first two (2) hours of publishing online through www.bloodlinemanagement.blogspot.com, Mpeshnyk’s bootleg remixes received a tremendous amount of downloads from some of South Africa’s foremost underground and established deep house DJs. Signaling the warm welcoming of Mpeshnyk’s genre of house music, a sound which will soon be known as “Freaky Soul” – the next level of deep house. This is the kind of sound whenever played, listeners can’t help but bump and sway their heads from side to side while dancing in a manner which is synonymous with sangomas (African traditional healers) in a chanting state of trance.

Mpeshnyk’s confidence in his music production and remixing skill prompted him to enter an international remix contest initiated and managed by Atjazz (UK) and NiteFeva (SA), whereby producers and remixers where invited to remix “Love Someone Feat. Robert Owens” by Atjazz. Mpeshnyk’s remix was chosen as one of the three (3) South Africa remixes.

The Atjazz — Love Someone Feat. Robert Owens (Mpeshnyk Remix) has since been put out as a digital release on www.traxsource.com, www.beatport.com, www.amazon.co.uk and other leading digital download stores around the world. In 2012 he then went on to do remixes for producers like

  • “Sandiso feat. Infinix – Oh Yeah (Mpeshnyk Remix)(Infinite Records)(2011),
  • Marco Finotello ft Sharon May Linn – Shallow Waters (Mpeshnyk Remix)(Seamless Records)(2013),
  • Marco Finotello feat. Lili Latuheru – Weooh (Mpeshnyk Remix)(Tall House Records)(2012),
  • Sgetz & Shando Feat. Colorless – Africa Change (Mpeshnyk’s Freaky Soul Remix)(Rooters Conquest Music)(2012),
  • Soultronixx Deep feat. Lebo – Freely Fall (Mpeshnyk Freaky Dub Mix)(2014)”,

and so on. Then he went on to enter another remix competition managed by Soul Candi and Castle Lite (SAB) ”Mi Casa – These Streets (Mpeshnyk Remix)(2011)” which did not get a lot of votes to go through as one of the winners, but had caught the ears of many locally and around other parts of the world after the competition.

With over a decade of productions behind him Mpeshnyk has signed stellar productions to ITouch Recordings, Atjazz Record Company and now his new beautiful EP titled ‘Indigenous’ has found a home signed to Stay True Sounds.

Mpeshnyk’s deep, percussive and emotive style is now showcased throughout the 3 productions on this EP.

Have a listen to the EP and give us your thoughts in the comment box below. Stream or Buy http://africori.to/indigenousep