Fruit Vendor Stands Tall Among Giants

Growing up in the Johannesburg area of Eldorado Park he was surrounded by music all of the time, not only the 90s R&B, Hip Hop & Kwaito which was popular on radio and television but also the Gospel music such as Hillsongs which his mother would play in the house. Add the fact that he often listened to his mother, who was the church organist, playing the piano at home almost every day, the seed to become a musician was already planted.
It would take quite a few years of watering and nurturing for the young Josh Prinsloo to grow into the artist we now know as Fruit Vendor.

A few of my friends were from time to time raving about what a musician named Fruit Vendor was up to but they also made him seem somewhat obscure.
At the November 2015 edition of the monthly Expression Sessions Kuils River which we have mentioned a few times before in articles as well as in our News Letter, I finally got to meet Fruit Vendor and see him perform with his fresh combination of catchy sing-along melodies, penetrating lyrics, searing vocals, dashes of spoken word poetry and sprinklings of rap in between.

He was performing solo with only his guitar and to be honest and I at first wanted to simply box him into the Folk Music category, but that is impossible. I actually couldn’t place him into any of the many categories known to me.
Do not get me wrong… Fruit Vendor’s music is not “all over the place’ in a haphazard way. It somehow comfortably and endearingly fills the blank spaces that the mainstream artists in a range of genres have not fully explored. He then blends those newly filled spaces to create his very own unique musical landscape.
His mother would often host the rehearsal of special choral items for the church at their home using her Casio keyboard.
“I used to really enjoy messing with the ‘beats’ function on my mother’s keyboard which would always be out of its bag and plugged in after she had a rehearsal with it.”
“She would get really angry and shout at me because I would turn the volume up on full blast.”
“You could say that this was a foreshadowing of my later obsession with producing beats.”

At the age of 10 his parents sent Josh for piano lessons. It is an instrument he had always had a knack for, but he soon dropped out.
“I simply hated the way such a dynamic instrument was being taught”
His ‘beat making’ started developing when his brother gave him a CD with music software and he soon started to work on his own music.
“My friends described it as sounding like polyphonic ringtones.”

With all this talk of pianos and beat making software, one has to wonder how it came about that his instrument of choice is the guitar.
“Growing up we had two guitars that belonged to my dad and they were just lying around the house. To this day my dad doesn’t play, so I suppose it was predestined for me to pick up the guitar.”
“As a kid, every now and then I would take them out of the cupboard and make random noise on them.”

“My older brother who also plays piano was a really a big influence on my appreciation for what is seen as alternative music.”
“When I was 15, he took a very under-aged me to the Oppikoppi music Festival and there I got to see live music outside of the church environment for the very first time.”
“I got to see South Africa’s first all Coloured heavy metal rock band Nine and that blew my mind. I also got to see Hip Hop live band Tumi & the Volume as well as the then still unknown bands Freshly Ground and Fokofpoliesiekar.”
“I developed a major infatuation with all things guitar. I started teaching myself by working through a guitar book.”
“My brother also gave me a copy of the debut album by all female Hip Hop crew Godessa, and that too significantly influenced my musical taste. “

“When I was 16 we moved to a small town in the West Coast called Vredenburg, and it was there that I joined my first band as a singer and a rapper.”
“What made it easier was that in my band in Vredenburg, two of my mates both played the guitar, so they showed me a few “jazz” chords and I subsequently fell in love with the sound of jazz guitar.

Josh started taking learning the guitar very seriously and he’s now a university trained classical guitarist.

He then started working on his own solo material and his best friend dared him to write a song about fruit. “He thought I would come up with something comical. He was very wrong!”
“The song that I came up with was called “Your Fruit Vendor” which tells the story of a day of the life of a typical street hawker, the kind you might find at St George’s Mall or at the local taxi ranks.”
“It describes the steps he takes to survive and thrive on selling fruit.” “While writing the song, a very strong universal theme of humanity came up; we are all just trying to establish meaningful connections with the people around us.”
“Oftentimes, during our many daily interactions we fail to recognise that the people who cross our paths are human beings, just like us, and that they too have dreams no matter how insignificant they may appear to be.”

“Later, when I was deciding what to call myself, I settled on the name ‘Fruit Vendor’ because that is after all what each one of us is. We are all trying to exchange our gifts, talents and “produce” to create exchange, whether in a financial sense or not.”
“As a music artist, I am literally vending the artwork that I create, which is interesting since every song has a different flavour or style and can allude to the range of different fruits we all get to enjoy.”

Fruit Vendor has among others won the Music Experience’s 2014 Cape Town Folk ‘n Acoustic Music Festival Competition and in 2015 he won the Western Cape leg of the South African Artist Development Association’s nationwide talent competition.
With his style and content which are clearly influenced by the socially conscious protest songs of yesteryear, and his music that is carefully crafted to deconstruct listeners’ pre-conceptions, he has shared stages with an impressive list of South African and International artists.
These include Hemel Besem, Albert Frost, Adriaan Brand (Springbok Nude Girls), Tony Cox, Jitsvinger, Melanie Scholtz, Tribal Echo, Donovan Copley (Hotwater), Majozi, Alysia Harris (USA), David Kramer, Die Antwoord, Kahn Morbee (The Parlotones), Prime Circle, Karen Zoid, aKing and Chris Redmond (UK).

On 27 February 2016 Fruit Vendor released his ‘Giants’ EP at an event held at the top class live music venue Kaleidoscope Café in Claremont owned by Glenn Robertson who we have mentioned before in various articles.
Josh was accompanied by a full band made up of Jason Skippers (drums), Rosco Roman (bass), Eden Myrrh (backing vocals and keyboards), Adrian Rogowski (guitar) and DJ Hearin’ Aid (turntables).
His two opening acts the phenominal singer and pianist Eden Myrrh as well as Hip Hop Artist / Motivational Speaker Jerome Rex are also both highly rated and according to those who attended, they were both in top form.

Fruit Vendor’s performance as usual got rave revues.
One of our regular readers, the musician who at times acts as musical director on other artists’ live music projects, Hip Hop artist, Spoken Word Poet, frequent hosting compere at events who also happens to be a classically trained pianist and someone who I consider to be one of the most authentic ‘cultural activists’ I have met, Nama Xam has not only worked with Fruit Vendor before but also professes to be a great fan of Fruit Vendor’s music.

“Fruit Vendor’s music makes me happy. It places me in a happy space and I wanna sing along at the top of my lungs.”
“His musical journey is a true expression of this artist’s life and it is a real honest sharing of his being.”
“I am happy to be one of those who have witnessed him reaching a new level in that journey with this launch event.”

We at bruinou.com will certainly be keeping our ears to the ground anticipating future offerings from the Fruit Vendor.

To find out how and where you can purchase the Giants EP send an email to info@thefruitvendor.com and you can also Follow @Fruit_Vendor on Twitter to stay up to date with any new projects and live performances.

Some tracks off the Giants EP will be shared for Listening on the Fruit Vendor Soundcloud Page which already contains some of hios older material.

Watch the Opening Song of Fruit Vendor’s Performance at the Giants EP Launch.