At Koa, real-world learning is not something students encounter in theory alone. It comes to life through meaningful opportunities to explore, create, ask questions, and learn from people actively working beyond the classroom. One of those opportunities this year was Majozi’s Creative Circle – a small-group creative mentorship experience led by Koa’s Head of Arts and Culture and well-loved South African musician, Majozi. Across a series of online sessions, students stepped into a creative space where they could explore songwriting, poetry, music production, performance, creative confidence, and even the business behind the music industry. At its heart, the programme gave students the opportunity to experience creativity in practice: as something that can be explored, shaped, shared, and developed with guidance from someone who has built a life around creative work. A Safe Space to Create From the first session, Majozi carefully established the kind of environment he wanted the Creative Circle to become. Students were asked simple but meaningful questions: What do you enjoy making? What inspires you? What do you feel drawn to create? Their answers were wonderfully varied, ranging from music production, singing covers, and songwriting to poetry, guitar, painting, and doodling. Nthato spoke about his love for making music, while Jessica shared her passion for singing covers and drawing. For Caiden, creativity was closely connected to self-expression and the opportunity to share a part of herself with others. Kaithandi described poetry and guitar as ways to communicate deep emotion. Throughout the programme, Majozi returned to one particularly important idea: creative work may be an extension of who you are, but it is not your entire identity. That distinction matters, especially for young people. Sharing something creative can feel deeply personal. A song, poem, performance, or piece of writing often carries emotion, memory, and vulnerability. When someone does not respond in the way you hoped, it can be easy to feel as though they are rejecting you rather than responding to the work itself. Majozi helped students begin to separate the two. The message was clear: your creativity matters, but your worth is greater than anything you create. Learning to Begin with Honesty In the second session, students began with a writing exercise. Majozi asked each of them to write one honest line about how they were feeling. It did not need to be polished. It did not need to sound like the perfect song lyric. It simply needed to be true. He explained that writing is often the foundation of the creative process. Whether a student is interested in poetry, singing, music production, storytelling, or visual art, writing can help them discover and shape an idea before presenting it to the world. The results were honest and striking. Some students wrote about school stress, tiredness, and exams. Others wrote about feeling happy, calm, hungry, excited, or emotionally overwhelmed. Kendall wrote, “Today my heart feels like a quiet storm,” while Gustav described the world as having “turned soft around the edges.” From there, students expanded one another’s lines into poems, lyrics, and short creative pieces. The exercise became about more than writing. It also became an opportunity to listen. Students had to take someone else’s feelings seriously, interpret what had been shared, and build something meaningful from it. That is an important creative skill, but it is also a deeply human one. From Nervous Ideas to Original Work By the third session, students were ready to share what they had created. Their work took many forms, from poems, lyrics, and rap verses to melodies, guitar pieces, a cappella recordings, and self-produced songs. Many of the students felt nervous. That was part of the learning. Majozi consistently reminded them that the group was a safe space – not because their work needed to be perfect, but because sharing an original idea takes courage. When Leon first read the lyrics he had written, he explained that he imagined them as a song but had not yet worked out how to sing them. Majozi gently encouraged him to try. The moment Leon sang the line aloud, the idea came to life. Majozi recognised the shift immediately, telling him, “Never be shy. This is your vision.” It was a small moment, but a meaningful one. Leon was not only receiving feedback on a song. He was learning to trust the creative instinct behind it. Akhani reflected on how difficult it had been to write lyrics on the spot and later shared that performing one of his own songs for the group felt new and nerve-racking. Caiden transformed feelings of stress into imagery of waterfalls, storms, and the calm that can follow change. Linomtha and Matt shared poems exploring emotion, vulnerability, love, sadness, and joy. In each case, the experience went beyond creative technique. Students were learning how to express themselves, receive feedback, and continue developing an idea even when it still felt unfinished. Real-World Insight from Working Creatives One of the highlights of the programme was a guest session with music producer Chxrl, who joined Majozi to introduce students to the world of music production. From the outside, music production can feel intimidating. It is easy to imagine expensive studios, complex equipment, and specialist tools that are difficult to access. Chxrl helped students see the process differently. He demonstrated how a song can begin with something as simple as a laptop, a phone microphone, a voice note, a guitar line, a beat, an everyday sound, or even claps recorded in a room. Students were introduced to real production concepts such as digital audio workstations, plugins, equalisation, compression, reverb, delay, panning, autotune, quantisation, and layering. Importantly, Chxrl explained these concepts in a way that made the process feel accessible rather than overwhelming. Mia later reflected, “I think one of my favourite things from the session was how simple he made music feel.” She explained that people often associate music production with “big fancy things”, but Chxrl brought it down to something far more realistic and achievable. That shift in perspective mattered. Langa
