Lawrence Maleka joins Boity Thulo on Club 808
|||Not so long ago, we caught up with Lawrence Maleka, when he took over from Bonang Matheba on Mzansi Magic’s Clash of the Choirs. He was a confident, young presenter who stood by his word that he would do a good job. And he did.
Now, in another situation which is reminiscent to the Clash of the Choirs one, Maleka finds himself as the new presenter of e.tv’s Club 808 and he is just as confident that he’ll do a great job. He joins Boity Thulo and takes over from Cyprian Ndlovu who had been presenting on the show since last February.
“I have wanted to make a contribution to popular culture. So I spoke to my team about it and they started meetings with e.tv. It wasn’t specifically for this show, but just what I could bring to them,” said an elated Maleka.
He is happy to be taking over, thanks to the fact that he had been a fan of the show for a few years.
“I do not know when Cyprian Ndlovu’s tenure ended, but I think, given that we had been talking before, it seemed like a case of good timing when I was selected to take over from him. Before that, I could not commit to any of their shows because I had other engagements, so when I was less busy I made sure that I wasn’t working on anything else that I was interested in except this. I was really interested in Club 808. I was a fan of the show way back when it was hosted by Nonhle Thema and Mo Flava. I have always been a fan of the platform and wanted to be part of it,” he explained.
Now that he is on the show, Maleka is not satisfied with just that as he has a lot of things he feels he could add to the programme.
“I think for me, being on this show is about improving it. I don’t mean that there is anything wrong with it, but in an effort to challenge myself, there are some things that I feel we need to add to make Club 808 great. Like for instance, the show has to be longer, but those are conversations we can have another time,” he said.
Maleka has appeared on the show twice to date, and so far is doing well and he feels things will only get better.
“The feedback has been humbling. This is not a situation where they were just looking for a presenter. It is actually a merger, where my team ha?ve a lot of plans that we want to share with the channel. We are sitting on the prospects of what we can do with the show and some of the conversations we have had have been really positive. I am a ‘let’s do it’ kind of guy as opposed to ‘let’s talk about it’. So when I came in, I brought some ideas of what can be done now,” he said.
Club 808, Fridays, 8.30pm, e.tv.