Those months were a season of mess,” says Johannesburg-born singer-songwriter Langa Mavuso as he reflects on the turbulent chapter of his life that gave rise to his most personal and urgent music yet. At the heart of his new work lies the raw terrain of grief, the redemptive power of love and the slow unveiling of healing — emotional territories few contemporary South African artists traverse so unflinchingly.
Mavuso first made waves with the EP Liminal Sketches, a project that emerged from a place of mourning after the death of a loved one. According to his biography, he used the collection of songs to “resolve issues” around loss and to find himself again. He then followed that with Home, born from a painful breakup and steeped in themes of betrayal and abandonment. The journey from those early expressions of hurt to the present moment has been winding, but in our conversation he describes how letting himself be vulnerable became the very foundation of his growth.
He laughs when asked how he now sees that earlier phase. “I wouldn’t call it glamorous,” he admits. “It was chaotic, it was messy, and I surrendered to that.” That surrender, he says, opened the door to a deeper kind of authenticity in his songwriting. Rather than sweeping the pain under the carpet, he chose to embody it: the heartbreak, the longing, the anger, the question of self-worth. In doing so, he began to transform his experience of loss into a kind of offering.
From “a season of mess” to a song of healing: Langa Mavuso on grief, love and finding his way back
Love, for Mavuso, is not simply a romantic refrain. It is the glue that held him when everything felt like it was coming apart. In his lyrics he hears echoes of relationships that hurt him and relationships that saved him — love not as an easy shelter, but as one of the only honest places to land when life collapses. He tells me that when he wrote a song, the process often lasted long after the music stopped: “I would catch myself in the middle of the night thinking of the person I lost, or the person who made me feel alive again. That’s when the truth comes.” That truth made its way into the music, and his fans heard it.
What makes his story compelling is the fact that he didn’t hurry the healing. “Lots of people expect you to pick up right away and carry on like nothing happened,” he says. “But grief doesn’t give you an expiry date. I stayed in the sorrow, I stayed in the confusion, until I found something I could lean on.” The leaning-on included his craft, yes, but also a network of friends, family and familiar routines that grounded him. He emphasises that healing is not linear: “Some days you feel hopeful and the next you’re back sliding. That’s normal.”
In the songs he’s releasing now there’s a sense of emergence — not a triumphant return, but a soft arrival. The jagged edges of hurt are still there, they just don’t dominate the landscape anymore. There’s room for light. In his latest work he explores forgiveness: forgiving himself, forgiving others, forgiving the past. Because, he argues, if the past isn’t forgiven it keeps shackling you. “It doesn’t mean forgetting,” he clarifies. “It means holding the memory without letting it pull you under.”
Mavuso’s transformation resonates with many listeners who have watched him grow from vulnerable auteur to voice for those whose pain is unspoken. His honesty offers a mirror: the grief you thought you had to hide, the love you thought you didn’t deserve, the healing you hoped might happen someday. He says he writes so that others won’t feel alone: “If I can sit with my mess and turn it into a melody, maybe someone else will feel seen enough to start their own turning.”
As he looks ahead, Mavuso doesn’t promise perfection — only authenticity. His next chapter, he says, will carry the scars as well as the sunlit days, because both are part of the story. “I’ve learned that healing isn’t about being whole again,” he says. “It’s about showing up in the mess and letting love keep showing up with you.” And in that simple statement lies the power of his journey: a soulful invitation to rise, not despite the mess, but through it.
