South African singer/songwriter Motswedi Modiba (26) has made history by becoming the very first African and black person to compete in China’s biggest singing competition, Sing China. Her first appearance – in episode 3 season 12 – aired on Friday, 11 August.

The award-winning artist, who lives in New York and is better known as MOE (derived from her first name Motswedi), wowed the audience and the judges during her blind audition as she passionately sang two love songs in fluent Mandarin. 

The competition is the equivalent of the popular singing competition The Voice, where the judges do not see the faces of the competitors in the first round as they sing to earn a spot in one of the judges’ teams. The competition consists of three main phases: a blind audition, a battle phase and live performance shows where the fans get to vote for their favourite artists weekly.

Talking to Daily Maverick via her publicist, MOE said that she did not take it for granted that she was the first to raise the South African flag on a stage where it was rare to see anyone like her.

MOE stunned judges as she sang in fluent Mandarin on the Sing China stage and was catapulted to the next stage of the competition. (Photo: Maverick Seizure)

MOE hopes that her representation of African people in China will inspire others to do more amazing things and penetrate markets that one would shy away from, or not normally consider.

“South Africa is definitely in a very interesting space right now in terms of the creative and cultural industries, and I hope we are able to build off of this momentum as I am. I think that it is so special to stand on that stage, not just to represent myself, but to represent South Africa and Africa, and be able to share the music that I love, and our culture,” MOE said.

Born and raised in Tshwane, MOE, whose home language is Setswana, learnt Mandarin early in life after her parents enrolled her at the Pretoria Chinese School from grades 1 to 12. (Photo: Maverick Seizure)

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Fluent Mandarin 

Mandarin is used largely in China and Taiwan. Learning to speak it can be challenging as it is tonal, where one word could mean different things depending on the tone used to pronounce it. Mandarin is also written in the ancient system of Chinese characters.

Born and raised in Tshwane, MOE, whose home language is Setswana, learnt Mandarin early in life after her parents enrolled her at the Pretoria Chinese School from grades 1 to 12.

In Grade 11, MOE competed against 160 contestants from 70 countries in a Chinese bridging competition in which she had to speak, write and perform a cultural activity in Mandarin. MOE won, thriving in the talent section while exercising her vocal skills in Mandarin.

MOE comes from an ‘extremely’ musical family. ‘In my family, if you can’t sing, it’s a bit weird,’ she said. (Photo: Maverick Seizure)

MOE attributes her “superpower” of speaking fluent Mandarin to her parents, who wanted to expose their children to the best possible opportunities.

“It’s all my parents’ doing. They read the trends and tried to find a way to position their children so that we have the best opportunities by taking us to a Chinese school because they figured that China was going to be a superpower in the near future and they were right,” MOE said.

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Growing up in a musical family

MOE comes from an “extremely” musical family. “In my family, if you can’t sing, it’s a bit weird,” she said.

The star began performing when she was six and recorded her first song at the age of nine when she featured on gospel artist Tebs David’s Baba Wethu, which performed well in the South African gospel genre and served as MOE’s introduction to the music industry.

“It’s been a really amazing journey, but all of it started from my family. My dad was also a singer when he was younger and my granny sang in a choir and toured the world. The music definitely comes from home and the love for it as well,” she said.

MOE went on to study music at Wits University in Johannesburg, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree. From there, the artist shot for the stars, going on to work with household names and releasing her own music.

“I was able to work with Dr Tumi as a backup vocalist, which was an opportunity to learn about the music industry, and from then I moved to the US and became MOE,” the singer said.

Entering Sing China 

Before entering Sing China, MOE had been thinking about opening a Douyin page, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, to learn more about the country and its culture.

@moeismusic

Finally, a Chinese friend in New York persuaded the singer to create a Douyin account, and shortly after uploading a couple of videos, her TikTok account blew up, attracting 40 million views.

After watching MOE’s videos on TikTok, a Sing China producer asked her to compete on the show on 9 April 2023.

“We thought it was a joke, but we then saw that it was from a verified account and we realised that they really wanted me to come. After that, things moved very quickly, but we managed to figure everything out,” MOE said.

MOE is currently getting ready for the battle stage of the competition, where she’ll return to Shanghai to fight it out vocally with a member of the opposing team.

This is a full-circle moment for MOE, as she used to be a huge fan of the show in 2015 when she first travelled to China to study, right after matric.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I wonder if I would be able to be on that stage,’ and now that I am, I think that it is kind of cool. It’s like a full circle moment”. DM