Q:In your view, what can be done to accelerate the pace of transformation in the Cannabis farming industry in South Africa?

ML: I think you see when we are talking about the South African context with regards to the Cannabis farming industry, it is fairly new, extremely new, an infant industry so I would like to maybe answer it in rephrasing that ‘transformation’ and talk about the fast pacing or the acceleration of inclusivity within the industry, and how we look at accelerating the pace of inclusivity within this industry. When I talk about inclusivity, we need to remember the fact that we’ve got your historic growers, you know, your Rastafarians and we look at certain provinces that have historically been growing Marijuana for hundreds of years, the Eastern Cape being a good example of a province, and rural growers within your Transkei regions –your Mount Frere, Matatiele, I’ll call your Mpondo regions of the Eastern Cape. These type of individuals unfortunately do not have the right tools with them to access the necessary financing, and the necessary resources to truly be players within the industry. And I feel like the government needs to look at creating either breaking down those barriers into entry for these people that been growing historically, generationally growing Marijuana within South Africa to be able to now play on the global stage, to become participants that now contribute on the global stage through the South African industry.

Q: From your upbringing to now you being a successful young & emerging farmer –can you tell us more about your background and your journey leading up to now?

TS: So I’d like to start by saying my upbringing was challenging, not in the financial sense but more in the sense of just the rebellious nature that I had you know growing up, I was always a rebellious child, struggled to listen and really thought I had my life figured out whilst I was still young. And I was really hit with the stark reality of how tough it is out in the world once I took on my first job after my first degree, and things were very hard, you know, things were very hard outside of my parents’ home, and realising how tough it is out there on your own. I ended up deciding to leave work and go back and study again, and in me finishing that again I was then a graduate that was looking for a job and struggling to find the type of jobs that I wanted, you know. And that left me with a lot of free time as an unemployed graduate were I started taking up gardening and my very first plant was Marijuana, I decided hey... you know I was an enjoyer of Marijuana in my leisure time and I thought ‘why not grow it’. That’s where my love for gardening started, you know, and I went into this rabbit-hole where I just started doing Intensive research on Marijuana, on how you grow it, on the processing and all these steps into getting a finished product and multiple different types of products that you could make out of it. So yeah, that let me into wanting to grow now a whole other variety of plants, and I really went into it man, I was very passionate about it and I started going down further this rabbit-hole of going beyond the Marijuana and now looking at other people that had this similar passion, young farmers that were out there, checking out what it is that they were doing and that inspired me to actually go for it. That’s when I relocated from Gauteng and I made the great move... we call it the exodus in the family. I made the exodus to come the Eastern Cape and pursue my love for farming here.

Q: Do you believe that government’s NDP will effectively alleviate poverty, create jobs and provide equality, especially in regards to the farming and agricultural sector? More so in the Cannabis farming industry?

ML: I believe that the government’s NDP in black and white sounds very great, it sounds very promising, it gives a lot of hope. But what I doubt is the government’s political will-power to actually implement and act on all these resolutions that you find in the NDP. I think it also goes to say with the Cannabis Masterplan, there was a lot of planning, a lot of consultation with various groups, advocacy groups, Marijuana growers, Marijuana connoisseurs and different people within the industry, you know... and a very well written, well put together document came out as a result. But what we keep on seeing is a lack of political will to go out and implement these resolutions that take place.

Q: What skills do you think that new or emerging Cannabis farmers need to survive in this industry?

TS:First and foremost I believe that looking into the future the Cannabis industry is going to be one that’s extremely technologically intensive, so I believe that’s one skill that’s going to be very important for emerging farmers. People need to be tech-savvy and have an understanding of the tech that’s involved in producing Cannabis, especially if you talking about Cannabis on a medical standard, you know, you need to have a very controlled environments, and there’s a lot of machinery and technical nuances that you need to be familiar with as an emerging farming to stay competitive in an ever growing industry... and it’s going to grow at a very exponential rate. It’s just the beginning at the moment. I think another thing that’s very import is just simply having a passion because you really need to be there constantly, you need to be there and monitor throughout all these processes from your growing stages, especially when you’re talking about it in the formal aspect, your cloning side of things, the bud development. If you don’t have the technical expertise yourself, have a team around that is able to manage each and every stage growth of your plant, so you need to have that technical power you know, it’s a skill on its own to have the technical know-how of knowing how to manage each and every stage because there are nutritional requirements according to the different growth stages of the plant. And I think what’s even more important is how the drying is done, how you manage your drying process, your curing process as well, these are all technical skillsets that you need to have. And last but not least, very important as well; is marketing, marketing, marketing. This is an industry that thrives-off of good marketing, and I think a very good aspect that people kind of overlook is the packaging, which is a very big marketing component especially with this product. Your packaging is everything especially when you’re talking about a plant that you would probably be sending to all corners of the world.

Q: Greatest lesson/s you’ve learned about being in the production industry?

ML: The greatest lesson we’ve learned about being in this industry is that qualifications don’t really matter, it’s not a necessity to have a qualification of any kind in the media industry. I believe everyone is born for something so I would say that if it’s something that God has purposed for you, dark or blue come hell or high waters you still can be able to do it, as long as you set your mind right and you give it your all. One of the biggest lessons that I realised in the production industry is that whenever you feel like you wanna do something, don’t even think twice – just work on it and give it your all, all you got to do is start what you want to do, people will catch up and you will also grow and improve as time goes by.

Q: Foreign investors’ confidence in South Africa is low at the moment. What do you think needs to happen to restore investor confidence in the country, more so in the farming of Cannabis industry?

ML:What we need is more young people with an entrepreneurial spirit and an entrepreneurial mind-set that are willing to break the mould, break the status-qou and be disruptive. I think with this industry the winners, and we are seeing this in places like America in the state of California, that the true winners are people that are being very disruptive and very innovative. I think that kind of correlates a lot most of the time with young people, young people that are creative enough to come up with innovative ideas, seek help from the government to aid us with resources with our endeavours. My advice for people who are struggling to make it would be just get started and start small, I think what’s very important is proof of concept, you need to demonstrate your ability to show a working system irrespective of the scale to the person that would be able to lend you help.

Q:As a young & black emerging farmer in this sector, what are the challenges that you have experienced/ are experiencing, and what advice do you have for people struggling to make it?

ML:First and foremost the challenges that we face as young black farmers are never ending, they are recurring on a daily basis and what we need to do is just reserve the problem solving mindset because on a daily basis there’s a new problem and you need to think about how you can solve it and that the only way to move forward. And I think one of the most prominent challenges that we face as young farmers in the industry is access to capital, it is the biggest challenge because a lot of us don’t come from homes that have generational wealth.

Q: From a challenging upbringing to being a successful Actor, Writer & Director –can you tell us more about your background and your journey leading up to now?

TL: My journey wasn’t easy at all because I grew up in a poor family and this has made accessing opportuni- ties in the industry harder for me, I missed so many opportunities. I couldn’t afford to attend auditions due to not having money as most of them were being held in Johannesburg. I also had trouble finding an agency or an agent to work with due to these financial constraints. To succeed in the industry I had to school myself on the trades of my field, I had to use my own knowledge and using whatever that was available for me to get what many other actors and actresses were doing, I read books and watched movies, local and international productions

Q: Where and when did you realise that you’ve got a talent for being on stage and television?

TL: To tell the honest truth, since from kindergarten/crèche my love for performing started showing itself then, because when we pre- paring for the graduation stage to go to pre-school in grade-1 I was involved in almost all the productions, dancing, drama, singing and gumboots dance. This was something that most of the other kid’s parents complained about why I was in each and every activity and why I was always the lead. I can say when I think about clearly that it really started at a very young age, when I got to primary school I was leading again in most of the activities during Arts and Culture classes. By the time I got to high school most of my teachers and peers were starting to realise that I have multiple talents. It got quite hectic sometimes as everyone wanted to be in the same team/group that I was in as they knew that our acts are going to be the best ever compared to the other groups, sometimes even the teacher/s had to complain that “not all of you can be in the same group as Lejaka”.

Q:What would you say have been some of your biggest Challenges since you started out in the industry?

TL: Yho! My biggest challenge has been theatre. Theatre has been one of the biggest challenges for me in the industry as I started first in film and theatre is totally different from it. Even now it’s still a bit difficult but ‘kae tsena, kae tsena’ (I go for it head on), It’s a bit difficult because there you have to project, you exaggerate so you have to cram your lines and sometimes you’re given a script with over 80 pages because there’s no ‘cuts, or takes’ on scenes, you must be precise, your timing has to always be right. You must be clearly audible so that even the person seated at the highest chairs in the auditorium can vividly hear what you’re saying, there’s really no room for mistakes.

Q: You’ve been doing this for a while now, What have been some of your greatest successes?

TL:Apart from others it’s honestly Naphtali, Naphtali because it was the first time I was directed by someone who’s popular (Motlatsi Mafatshe). And my first acting in a production written by someone who’s popular again and a professional actor himself (Thato Molamu), and I was acting with people who have been in the industry for quite a while, Mandla Kaduda, Sello Zikalala, Ntshepiseng Montshioa, Tebogo Chologi, Bonolo Tlaletse and others. Yeah, this was my first biggest success where I got to work with great people in the performing industry.

Q: GIf there’s anything about the entertainment industry that you would change to make it more accessible and easier to navigate, especially in your fields, what would it be?

TL: I would create more opportunities for young people, especially those in the rural areas such as myself, to have access to institutions of learning arts related courses. It is my dream to see the talents of other young people in this country being seen by the rest of the world either on screen, theatre or even on social media as these platforms have the ability to make a person. Increasing access for funding for programs that are about the performing arts, opening up the industry basically for others to leverage the power that comes with being in these fields.

Q: What would you say/ advice to anyone especially the young up and coming creatives that want to be in your industry?

TL:My advice especially to the young up and coming actors, is that when you go to auditions don’t be intimidated, especially when you see someone you know/seen on TV. They must never limit themselves, if you know I can do this, then do it, do it! Nna setlatla, botlatla bwa gago botla go berekela (Be a fool and believe in your craft, your faith in yourself will work for you). Do your research, research about whatever that you want to do, if you going to audition, its best you find out what happens at auditions and understand what those judges are looking for. The last thing that I would tell them, which most people take for granted is prayer, pray, whether you a singer, dancer or actor, go on your knees and pray to God to be with you always.

Q:What is your ultimate goal that you want to achieve through the work that you do?

TL:It is to see myself as one of the biggest producers in the film industry, I want see myself producing movies in my lifetime. I want to take Bokone Bophirima (North West) to higher heights, especially Maftown (Mahikeng) because it has a lot of talent. I want to write as much as I can, I want to also open an art school to teach others about production/ producing and this will help me also to improve and enhance my craft.

Q:Which project has really been the one that you cherish having been involved in? That one show that you honestly had fun and felt fulfilled being part of?

TL:The show Pull. *Chuckles* The show Pull, directed by Tlotlego Thwane, It was the first time being in a theatre production, the first time I saw and experienced big lights in my face and all around me, the costumes, my very first big production. *laughs* you’re making me remember some incredible moments in my young career, that’s the show that made me realise that I’m really in love with performing and I had the greatest fun being part of the cast.

Q:Who is that one individual that you would like to work with in the future? Even if you’ve worked with them previously before in the past?

TL:I would like to work with Mandla N. And then with regards to other artists, I would like to work with obviously my friend Tebogo Chologi, Warren Masemola, Presley Tshweniyagae and Sindi Dlathu, those are some of the professional actors that really inspire me because I love their craft.