For seven years, TKZee star Tokollo ‘Magesh’ Tshabalala had to live with the prospect of a lengthy jail term in a Botswana prison after prosecutors filed charges of causing death by dangerous driving. After seven years of legal wrangling, the South African finally travelled to Botswana to stand trial and was acquitted last year.

This week, the lyrical genius regrouped with Zwai Bala and Kabelo Mabalane to announce the imminent release of TKZee’s new album – Coming Home -- their first in seven years. Their first single from the album, S’dudla, is released on Friday.

Your trial and the accompanying legal complications seemed to go on forever. How does it feel knowing you are free, but not really free?

That case really destroyed my creativity and disrupted my life quite a lot. They said ‘you caused an accident’, and I have this big scar on my head, and it all looks like a lifetime burden. It makes you feel tired, you don’t wanna do anything. Uyakhathala emotionally and physically. It had been going on for seven years, and it felt like a dark cloud over my head. I finally said ‘you know what, let me go and confront those charges head on’.

I think what people should know is that when TKZee split, it wasn’t really because we were fighting. We just wanted to release solo projects. That’s all it was. Everyone now has their own label, and we have a couple of artists in our labels. So it was really branching off to try something else.

The public now really needs a TKZee album, it has been a while. We have been grafting in the studio for several months and the album is out mid-October. We (Tokollo, Zwai and Kabelo) are doing the production on the album, as we always did.

It’s a fresh new sound … music grows all the time. It’s hip, it caters for everybody because there are some songs we have done which are cross-overs. The best way to sum it up is that it’s fresh, it’s new, matured and tight.

You released your hugely successful album, The Longest Time, in late 2006. That was in many ways an angry album, what can we expect from your next solo project?

I have at least five songs stored away somewhere, so I don’t have to do much to complete my next solo project. I might drop an eight-track album, maybe next year. I think you will find that I am much freer in my personal circumstance, which will be reflected in the music. The lyrics are much easier. On the last album, I was angry and you could hear that this guy is really bothered.

More than anything else, your peers consider you a lyrical genius. Which comes first, the beat or the lyrics?

I just go to the studio and play the song a couple of times, and I find the whole mood of the song. Lyrics generally reflect what’s happening in my life. It’s memories, bad and good, it’s past relationships, stuff that’s bothering me and a whole lot of other issues happening around me. It’s a summary of everything, but it’s always sound first.

I was with Mdu (Masilela) and Mashamplani when I started. Later, I left to join Zwai and Kabelo to form TKZee. We were at the same boarding school and we used to do musical evenings there, so we just got fond of music. After school, Zwai left to do music in Scotland and Kabelo did some other projects.

When everyone was done, we just hooked up and it was easy because we knew each other so well and had lived at the same boarding school for five years. We came up with a fresh new sound which caught on.

You featured Blackburn and Bafana Bafana striker Benni McCarthy in one of your tracks as TKZee, do you stay in touch?

When he is down here, we keep in touch. We go out clubbing and do a few things together. In fact we are working on another track with him which is in our new album. It’s for the 2010 World Cup which we are hosting.

I don’t sleep. I hate sleeping a lot! Sometimes I push my body so much that from time to time, I just shut down. I hate sleeping with a passion. I always feel I could be doing something instead of sleeping … I’m thinking the world is leaving me behind. When I’m working, if I get a flow of things, I can’t stop.

I just play music and have a couple of drinks in the studio when I’m angry. I like being productive whilst I’m angry. It also depends what kind of situation, but I hate fighting.

I am usually angry when things are not going my way, and when people take too long to do something for you. I am very impatient.

If your house was gutted by fire and you had time to save two items, what would those be?

My music and my sneakers! It’s alright sometimes to wear a suit, but I hate formalities. So you will find I am more comfortable in sneakers. During the trial in Botswana, I refused to wear a suit, fearing I would go to jail in a suit, and looking ridiculous under the circumstances.

She must love music, must like what I like, have a beautiful body and she must have beautiful toes. I love girls with nice toes, they turn me on. That of course means no covering of the feet. She must wear nice stilettos, paint her nails nice and just look nice. And somebody with a good head on their shoulders!

I think hell is when you die, I think your soul stays on earth, and you can’t do anything. You are just roaming around earth, seeing everything you ever liked – and walking into the bedroom of the most beautiful woman you fancied but being unable to do anything; being in the most beautiful car you ever wanted to drive but failing to do anything; wanting to tell somebody something important but they can’t hear you.

It’s just when your soul is burning. Maybe your brother is gonna be in trouble just now and you overheard something, but you can’t tell them. Walking into meetings, and seeing what’s going on but being powerless to do anything. That, my man, is hell! (Interview by Mduduzi Mathuthu)

Tokollo 'Magesh' Tshabalala: Indlovu Iyangena