Shaking Things Up

Is she a sangoma or returning to radio? Unathi Msengana talks about her spiritual calling, why she left Metro FM and what she's up to now

- Molife Kumona

SHE’D been behind the mic at Mzansi’s biggest radio station for 10 years, so her fans were seriously upset when she quit Metro FM’s flagship breakfast show, The First Avenue.

It didn’t help that radio and TV personality Unathi Msengana went mum after announcing her resignation on social media. When reports emerged the singer/songwriter was becoming a sangoma, people assumed she’d left the station to fulfil her ancestral calling.

Now Unathi wants to set the record straight on why she really left Metro.

Chatting to us over lunch after a gruelling session at gym it's clear her personal trainer has been putting the mother of two through her paces. “He makes me work hard but my body’s showing the benefits, so I’m not com­ plaining,” she says.

It’s her first magazine interview since quitting the show in March and she gets serious when we get down to business.

“I’m not becoming a traditional healer,” she says adamantly. “People misquoted and misunderstood me when I said I have a spiritual calling.”

And it wasn’t just fans who were blown away by the reports. “My mom was frantic,” Unathi says. “When she called me she said, ‘Mntana wam, I’m holding this magazine and it says you’re beco­ming a traditional healer?’

“I responded to her calmly and said, ‘Ma, if that was the truth, if anyone would know about that it would be you and your husband’. She was angry but I told her reports had misconstrued the truth.”

She finally sheds light on the sangoma rumours. “In 2006 a stranger walked up to me and said, ‘You are born a healer and one day you’ll heal through song’.”