Last July I signed a book deal to write a collection of essays about the music of kwaito. For a while I was ecstatic. The picture of me signing the publishing contract, sitting on the red chairs in my office boardroom, is still one of my favourite things. I'd been working towards this moment for 15 years; ever since my 5th Grade English teacher Miss Kandai had read to us The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer, and I'd told her that I would be an author one day. This was me keeping my promise. For a while everything seemed bright and bearable.