When you spend enough time in and around the scene, you end up bumping into people from all walks of life, and frankly, I think that’s why I enjoy it. With that, you understand that we all face our own trials and tribulations in this life, and how we choose to respond to them determines our success.

One of those people I met back in 2023 is Skizzy, or as you might know him in his current form as the TikTok/Instagram sensation ubhutikayesu. When we first met, he was the chef; now he’s the content creator who goes viral with each and every video he posts, but before all that, a lot of ups and downs had to come his way for him to find his way.

I thought it would be great to reach out and have a chat for VERVE magazine, so that people could find out more about the man beyond what they see on social media.

I think let’s start off with the kind of childhood you had and what it was like growing up?

“So basically, man, I grew up in King William’s Town, like, Zwelitsha, Bisho, you know. My mother had a house in Bisho, but I went to school in Zwelitsha because that’s where she grew up, where I lived with my aunt and grandmother. I would say it’s like Langa here in Cape Town. So I was back and forth between those two places while growing up.”

“I would say I was a troublesome kid growing up; like you knew when I was around, some kid was going to end up crying that day.”

“With all that being said, though, I grew up in a lovely home where you had to show respect to your elders. We got beatings like everyone else, even as old as 16, 17. I also did grow up without my father, but I don’t want to make that into a “thing” because my mom did provide my sister and me with all the tools we needed to be successful in life. So all in all, I would say I had a good childhood.”

You bring up your father; what kind of relationship did you guys maintain, and how do you think it influenced you?

“My relationship with my dad was cut short. I think I was in grade 2; he just got sick. At that age, he was a vibe, and it did contribute to what I am now. Maybe not as fluent as him because he was a teacher, but I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with him, so my memories of him aren’t that great.”

“I did develop a relationship with his side of the family though, like going to visit my aunts and uncles quite regularly.”

“Some things I did pick up from him were the ability to have balance in my life, in terms of balancing time with family and friends, something he was known for. I try to maintain that in my life, and I’m lucky to have a partner that is quite similar to my mom. He also had an ability to be an influential figure in and around his peers; like everybody knew my dad where he lived, and everybody knew me because of that. You could say he put me on, and I’m proud of that fact. He was creative along with my mom; she makes her own clothes sometimes.”

It seems like your childhood was like any other, so what set you on the dark path for the next decade after leaving high school?

“Yeah, so I went to Walter Sisulu University after high school. I did Civil Engineering there and went through first year; I don’t know how because it was beating my ass. Second year came around, and I wasn’t really feeling it, we were just getting lit and abusing the freedom we gained of nobody telling you what to do, and getting into weed and getting lazy. That then developed into us getting into more of the harder drugs later on that year.”

“I would say it started maybe because I was trying to look cool and fit in with the others around me. I always knew I was cool to myself, but I didn’t know if the others felt the same way I did.”

“Another thing I’d say is that I knew there was something greater than just going down the normal path of going to school, then getting an office 9-5 job; that just wasn’t something I aspired to go down. I knew that I would end up doing something great in life, but I didn’t know exactly what that would be. So I guess drugs were a way for me to escape that feeling and try to figure that out for myself.”

What kind of drugs were you taking and what was life looking like at that time?

“It was a mixture of things at different times, so I took tik, mandrax, rock, cocaine, and weed. It was bad, bro, because all I would think about was what I was going to smoke with the money I had on me at the time, I was trapped.”

“I would get in at around 4am from a night of smoking with the other guys I was with and chill for a bit on my phone, then go to sleep. Then during the day you’ll maybe go and do a few house break-ins, steal a few phones, and sell those phones to get money for drugs. Some person around us would probably bring a bag full of his stuff, and we would smoke that. That gives you energy to go out and do more, especially at night.”

“Some people around me knew, because I had my years where I looked rough and wasn’t taking care of myself. For the most part though, you could say I was a “clean phara” and people couldn’t tell. My family only knew later on around 2015, because that’s when I wanted to get out of the environment and move to Cape Town.”

Cape Town seems like the place people from the Eastern Cape come to when they want a better life. How did you think it would do the same for you?

“I was like, I’m done with this life and wanted to move to Cape Town where I could change my life. 2015 was also the year when I had my daughter, and she was this side, that has always been a motivation for me. I mean, I’m still smoking, but I do realize that I do need to stop because eventually I’m not going to achieve anything in life if I carry on this way. I became like a functioning drug addict, where I could get on with what I needed to do, but still ended up smoking at the end of the day.”

“The plan for Cape Town was to immediately get a job and get paid, so I could feed my child.”

“When I first arrived in Cape Town, I stayed in Langa for a bit. Then I moved to Goodwood to stay with my aunt. I didn’t stay long there, because I was still able to find a spot where there would be people smoking, and I would join them. I ended up moving to Parklands to stay with my lady and worked at Cape Gate. I was taking a MyCiti bus from Parklands to Town, then taking a train from Town to Bellville, then taking a taxi to Cape Gate every day, six days a week. I was doing promotions of hose pipes and irrigation systems. When I left that, I did warehouse work for a couple of years, and I was moving around Cape Town at the same time.”

During this time, there was no thought of possibly going down the content creation route, because you’d been through quite a bit at this point?

“At that time I wasn’t really thinking about that. I mean the people around me knew that I was a little bit of a mad man and we knew about the skits being done by the likes of Tafire, but it never felt like the right time.”

“I probably felt I didn’t have a good quality phone to record on, or I wouldn’t have a phone at all. I think I was also still insecure about myself, because even though I was working, I still had the question of what I actually wanted to do with my life.”

“Around that time, there was a friend of mine, CNT, and he was a DJ. That was the first time I saw someone that was creative in my presence, and also he came from East London. We also live together in Maitland, so I got to see what he gets up to with him DJing in Long Street. Also, he has a manager, and I just got to be around and witness him trying to push his DJing career.”

“Even with all this, I was still kind of a nuisance when we would go out to these clubs in Long Street, and I would cause trouble for the managers at them. I would say that I was killing it on the dance floor, though.”

Still being a nuisance as you say, how did you end up straightening things up?

“I would say things changed when I met Base, I’d say around 2020. We went to the same community church back home, and we came to find out that our grandfathers were related to each other, so we became really close with each other. He kind of sat me down and asked me what I actually want to do with my life, because I’d moved away from warehouse jobs and more into retail work, like Clicks.”

“He did end up suggesting that I take mushrooms, saying that they would help me understand what I actually wanted to do. So I took the mushrooms, and I feel like everything just changed from that point. I had a good experience during my trip, where I saw myself in a positive light and having a positive mindset, understanding myself better and having a creative mind. Ultimately, I was not afraid to make decisions with my life.”

“After that, we started doing our own things, like hosting events at our place in Obs. Things like hosting Bravo Le Roux’s first ‘iStrato Sethu’. That was the beginning of getting to network and meet different people in and around the scene, like X from Colab 22, Khusta, George The Groove and everyone in and around those people. I also started going to culinary school and would make food during studio sessions.”

Why culinary school?

“So the chef path was something that came easy to me, and I was under pressure to get some sort of qualification from back home, since I was reaching 30 and hadn’t become anything.”

“Cooking is something that I also love, and I’ve grown up cooking for myself and my family since I was 8, you know, coming from a home where we had to respect our elders and do what we were told.“

Would you say your journey with drugs was coming to an end around this time?

“With the drugs coming to an end, I just felt like I couldn’t continue chasing things and following everybody all over the place. I didn’t want to live always not knowing what I’m going to eat, because that’s not how I grew up.”

“This was also when I started having constant mental breakdowns where I almost died twice in a year. Life was really hard, where I had no job, no money for rent, and ended up having to live on a couch for a month.”

“This was also when I met my current partner and felt like she was the one for me and made me happy with life. When I met my girl, a big shift happened, and I wanted to actually take the steps to change my life and also be a present father in my child’s life. Smoking was the biggest part of that, where I was experiencing some dark stuff with the people I was around, and I had to leave that life behind me.”

“These days I’m more into being at home and being indoors with my kids. My mother trusts me more, because for years she didn’t. I finished school in my 3 years there, so yeah, I’ve just been focused on that.”

I just wanted us to touch on your content creation career so far and your ability to constantly evolve, since that’s what brought us here.

“Personally, there isn’t much to talk about in terms of the content creation at this point, because it’s something that’s happening at the moment. It’s content, but it’s also my reality at the same time, because I speak about situations that are happening in my life or that have happened in the past.”

“In terms of constantly evolving, I think it’s because I’m someone who naturally vibrates highly as a Gemini, and every year I gain a new name. People that I grew up with don’t know me as Skizzy, the name Bhutikayesu I only got last year in 2025. In university, I was Baby Milo. I think it’s just in every part of my life I vibrate differently, and I know how to gas myself up, and it’s going to shift into something else later.”

Ok since you can’t go into that much detail, let’s try how you started doing the videos and what you think of the space currently?

“I always knew it was something I could do, because I would watch other people and feel like I could do better than them, it just needed me to be focused and consistent. In the beginning, it was my boy Creed Oasis who was actually like, “bro, you’re funny, post this stuff”. I had a lot of content, and I was putting it out, but I didn’t understand the algorithm at the time, so I stopped for a bit. Then I decided to post a random video on TikTok, and that shit just went crazy. I think when three videos were on 50k views, that’s when I knew it’s chai.”

“The skit/content space is in a good space, the other guys that have been doing it for a longer time than me have been really helpful in guiding me and being open to collaborating with each other, like Zatu Reasons. It needs to happen naturally, though, I’ve had my times of hitting up people and not getting any replies. I like to know the person first before we get to working with each other.”

“I am trying to go beyond the content at some point in all of this, like how I have the Bwoah T-shirts at the moment, but that’s going to evolve into something bigger down the line. I just can’t go into much detail right now.”

“The content creation for me now is very much about risk-taking.”

I think this interview for me reiterated why I wanted to pursue this as a career: humanity and its many facets. Firstly, this city has so many people who come from all over the country to try and make something for themselves, which we might take for granted sometimes. This expands our talent pool, adding greater depth to it.

Secondly, people are constantly evolving beings, and that’s something we need to embrace in ourselves. Skizzy’s journey of feeling lost for years and finding the light at the end of his tunnel shows us the beauty in not giving up even when life seems to be at its worst.

Ubhutikayesu: A Story Of Resilience

Between Service - Culture on a plate

To Be Or Not To Be Baked