Ishmael, (R & B Singer / Song Writer, Music producer)
Born: 13 Nov
Birthplace: Rustenberg, South Africa
Best Known As: Ishmizzie

Discography:

Solo:
     Album Title: Long way Home
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: 2005

     Album Title: Isikhathi sa khona
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: 2000

     Album Title: Joburg City
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: N/A

     Album Title: Mi House
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: 1998

     Album Title: Beautiful Thing
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: N/A

     Album Title: S'manje Manje
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: Gallo
     Format: CD
     Release Date: N/A

     Album Title: Akuna Mathata
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: EMI
     Format: CD
     Release Date: N/A

     Album Title: Roba Letheka
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R & B
     Label: EMI
     Format: CD
     Release Date: 2000

Group/Duo:

      Album Title: Waar was jy?
      Artist: Skeem
      Category: Rap/Kwaito
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff 
      Release Date: N/A

      Album Title: Salute
      Artist: Skeem
      Category: Rap/Kwaito
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: N/A

      Album Title: Can't Get
      Artist: Skeem
      Category: Rap/Kwaito
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: N/A

      Album Title: Age of truth
      Artist: P.O.C
      Category: Rap/Hip-Hop
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: N/A

      Album Title: Ghetto Code
      Artist: P.O.C
      Category: Rap/Hip-Hop
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: N/A

      Album Title: Universal Solder
      Artist: P.O.C
      Category: Rap/Hip-Hop
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: N/A

      Album Title: Who I am
      Artist: RJ Benjamin
      Category: Neo soul
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: 2004

      Album Title: My First time
      Artist: Unathi
      Category: R & B
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: 2005

      Album Title: Mafoko a me
      Artist: Tuks
      Category: Rap/Hip Hop
      Format: CD
      Label: Impact Sounds/Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: 2005

Soundtracks:

      Album Title: Tsotsi Soundtrack
      Artist: Various Artists
      Category: Rap/Hip Hop/Kwaito
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghettoruff
      Release Date: 2006

      Album Title: Yizo Yizo II Soundtrack
      Artist: Various Artists
      Category: Rap/Hip Hop/Kwaito
      Format: CD
      Label: Bomb/CCP/EMI
      Release Date: 2004

      Album Title: Yizo Yizo I Soundtrack
      Artist: Various Artists
      Category: Rap/Hip Hop/Kwaito
      Format: CD
      Label: Ghetto Ruff
      Release Date: N/A

      Album Title: Gazlam Soundtrack
      Artist: Various Artists
      Category: Rap/Hip Hop/Kwaito
      Format: CD
      Label: Bomb/CCP/EMI
      Release Date: N/A

Production:

     Album Title: Straight from prison
     Artist: Gumshev
     Category: Rap/Hip Hop
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: 2006
 
     Album Title: E e ne:The revelation
     Artist: Morafe
     Category: Rap/Hip Hop
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: 2006

     Album Title: Long way home
     Artist: Ishmael
     Category: R&B
     Label: Ghetto Ruff
     Format: CD
     Release Date: 2005

Nominated:

Best R & B Album - Ishmael (Long way home) 2005
Best R & B Album - Ishmael (Mi House) 1998

Awards won:

Best R & B Album - Ishmael (Long way home) 2005
Best R & B Album - Ishmael (Mi House) 1998

Birth Name: Ishmael
Genre: R & B
Active: 90s, 2000s
Instrument: Vocals, Keyboards 

The return of Ishmael has put back the soul into the music in the Ghetto world, and it was as if he never left, and it takes you back to the early days of P.O.C.,& Skeem.  When Ishmael bounced onto the stage at the FNB South African Music Awards to collect the award for Best R&B Album for MI HOUSE, it was a very public confirmation of something those in the music industry have been aware of for a while; that is the indisputable fact that this singer, songwriter, producer and performer packs a musical talent of staggering proportions.

For several years now, Ishmael has gradually been making his mark on the South African Music in a way that few other performance can match. Whether its Hip-Hop with Prophets of Da City, Kwaito with Skeem or South African-tinged R&B on his solo

projects, Ishmael is skilled, innovative and just plain fabulous.  His musical touch is contributing to the rapid evolution of homegrown sound.

In many ways-and not to sound too trite-its astonishing that Ishmael has come this far.  Growing up for Ishmael Morabe was an experience defined by struggle and adversity. moving from place to place-from Klerksdorp to village near Volmaranstad to Rustenberg and Tsakane near Brakpan- Ishmael often stayed with his grandmother, his aunt and uncle while his parents worked far away.  The fact is I grew up poor. I remember at times being incredibly hungry when I was a teenager. I survived by popping into neighbors houses at mealtimes, but you know, I didnt know any better so to me it wasnt really a big deal. Most people I grew up with in the village had very little.

The one constant in Ishmaels life back then was music. From the sounds rattling in the house when his mother ran a shebeen where they played music from Ishmaels major influences like Michael Jackson and Smokey Robinson, music fuelled Ishmaels days. When I was about 16 and first saw people performing on television, I thought that Id like to see myself on stage, (little did he know what God had in store for him).

In spite of tinkering around with some mates on a homemade guitar and possessing a startling good voice, Ishmael transformed himself into a breakdancer at 18 and began making regular trips from Rustenberg to Johannesburg with a school friend Lucky Mach (now also of Skeem) to dance in Hillbrows many night clubs. The club life was heavy but Lucky and I would go there to dance. We didnt drink or anything like that. We lived for dancing.  Johannesburgs mixture of music and clubs proved a heady attraction and before long Ishmael was in town every weekend, dancing and freestyling on the mike and attempting to hold on to a weekend job pumping petrol. Soon Ishmael had hooked up with Junior (Boom Shaka) and the pair danced and freestyled their way through many nights until they careened into POC, in Johannesburg for a gig sometime in 1992.  It was a meeting that considerably altered the course of Ishmaels life.

Recognising Junior and Ishmaels verve and style, POC asked the two to become the groups dancers and suddenly Ishmael was living in Cape Town with the group, hanging out in the studio and grabbing his share of milk time, singing and rapping. From just being a guy dancing in the clubs, I found myself performing overseas with people like James Brown and The Fugees and playing countries like Norway, England and Germany. It was incredible!

In the mid-90s Ishmael moved back to Johannesburg and entered yet another musical terrain: Djing at Yeovilles Dreamroom club, Mcing over mikes and hooking up with Lucky and Jacob to form Skeem.

Much of Skeem EP, WAAR WAS JY? Evolved in the studio, a creative process, which remains Ishmaels preferred way of working. The EPs title tracks proved to be a mighty and compelling song that seared the group into the consciousness of South Africas growing number of Kwaito fans. Several years after helping define the genre, Ishmael himself remains convinced of Kwaitos importance.  Its vibe is totally South African and thats very important. We have to be supportive of it and play our part in ensuring Kwaito evolves.

The idea of a solo project had been brewing in Ishmaels mind for some time. In between his live and recording commitments to POC and SKEEM, Ishmael and an impressive gathering of talents drawn from the Ghetto Ruff stable (KAYBEE, SHAHEEN, KYLLEX, among others) made the studio their home and recorded MI HOUSE.

The album was foreshadowed by the JOBURG CITY single in 1997,which gave notice, through a slow-grooved homage to the city that helped turn him into an artist, of the arrival of a major new South African talent.

On its release, MI HOUSE did not disappoint. At 16-tracks (including JOBURG CITY ), the album unveiled Ishmael often achingly beautiful, always distinctive vocals, along with a songwriting and production ability of real substances LET ME an uncluttered song, underpinned by the whispered backing vocals and a hauntingly repetitive drum sample, marked Ishmael as a South African artist able to deliver songs that can easily slip through international borders and across radio formats, and 1999 shaped up to be the year in which this aspect of his talent was more than consolidated.

Ishmael has in addition contributed several storming tracks to the enormously successful YIZO YIZO sound track-1 with sometime creative partner, AMU, titled THE GOOD AND THE BAD as well as collaboration with Ghetto Luv, I DONT WANT and a mix of MI HOUSE

August 1999 also saw the release of his solo EP, BEAUTIFUL THING, which simultaneously situates Ishmael back into his kwaito roots and several tracks are destined to become South African, if not global, anthems appealing to a dizzyingly broad cross-spectrum of music lovers. The EP again found Ishmael teaming up with KAYBEE as well as Ghetto Luvs Wanda who contributes the vocals.

In the year 2000 ESMILE/Ishmael released a new album ISKHATHI SA KHONA considered to be a South African R&B classic.  The plug track ISKHATHI SA KHONA became the summer track for the year 2000.  He reached a new break-through in his music and the album shows a startling maturity with ISKHATHI SA KHONA appealing to a much larger audience.

Ishmael continues to work with POC and SKEEM and performs live across the country and international.

My life has never been about a plan, I just go with the flow and move from one thing to another as it rises, he says. I never know whats going to show up around the corner.

Ishmael in the new millennium went back to the studio to cook up new sounds to elevate his stature and his contribution in the ever growing South Africa music scene.  His first single Cell number, email address has been pumping on every radio station from YFM to 5FM, which goes to prove that Ishmael has the most mass appeal of R&B singers in South Africa.

His sounds have sure given hope to upcoming dancers, with songs like Fly-away and Jinda being used as performing tracks in star search competition.  Ishmaels music has grown  with him as you listen to his latest offering Long way Home; you will hear in te lyrics that this young man has conquered.  He sure has proven that he is the voice of S.A. music, may it be Kwaito, RnB, Hip Hop or Gospel Ishmael can lay it out for you good.

Again without being disputed Ishmael brought home the Best R&B album award at 2006 South African Music Awards for his album Long Way Home.

For more information contact Ghetto Ruff at

Tel: +27 11 447 1943

Fax: +27 11 447 1607

Last Updated 2006