South Korean accountant in South Africa falls in love with chutney music

A South Ko­re­an liv­ing in South Africa who loves chut­ney mu­sic? When we saw the video of Min-Jae Cho jam­ming en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly to Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine and De­vanand Gat­too’s 2023 track ‘Shake It Ba­by’ in his car, we had to reach out to find out more.

The 30-year-old char­tered ac­coun­tant, nick­named MJ, who shared the clip on his so­cial me­dia on Oc­to­ber 23, ex­pect­ed noth­ing out of the or­di­nary. Ini­tial­ly, he as­sumed the genre was na­tive to South Africa. But with­in days, the post amassed over one mil­lion views be­tween Tik­Tok and In­sta­gram. The wave of com­ments left him com­plete­ly baf­fled, as thou­sands of strangers filled his feed with red, white, and black flag emo­jis.

“I was not sure why peo­ple were com­ment­ing the word ‘Trinidad’ and send­ing the flag,” Cho tells WE Life and Cul­ture in a re­cent chat from his home in Edge­mead, Cape Town. “But af­ter I did my re­search, I was sur­prised and grate­ful. The Trinidad com­mu­ni­ty has giv­en me so much love.”

The un­ex­pect­ed con­nec­tion be­gan while cel­e­brat­ing his best friend’s Hin­du nup­tials on Oc­to­ber 17.

At the pre-cer­e­mo­ny, the groom, orig­i­nal­ly from KwaZu­lu-Na­tal, where chut­ney mu­sic is very pop­u­lar, played lo­cal chut­ney tracks, and Cho found him­self caught up in the vibe and en­er­gy of it all.

“On oc­ca­sions that we used to hang out, he played chut­ney and Bol­ly­wood mu­sic,” he ex­plains. “At that time, I didn’t think much of it. But af­ter hear­ing it again on the last night be­fore and his wed­ding day, it made an im­pact on me. The way his friends and fam­i­ly were danc­ing to it, singing to the lyrics and hav­ing so much fun made me ap­pre­ci­ate chut­ney mu­sic. It has such an up­beat, hap­py feel. It got me want­i­ng to dance de­spite not know­ing any of the songs!”

Though the dis­cov­ery is re­cent, he al­ready wants more, say­ing, “I would love to ex­plore oth­er gen­res from Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Vis­it­ing the birth­place of his new­found love and im­mers­ing him­self in the cul­ture first­hand is now high on Cho’s to-do list. “The com­mu­ni­ty seems like such au­then­tic, gen­uine, fun, and friend­ly peo­ple—I would tru­ly like to ex­pe­ri­ence it live. If there is any­one who would like to spon­sor me to go on a trip to pro­mote Trinidad and To­ba­go, I am all ears.”

Cho has been around mu­sic for as long as he can re­mem­ber. He learned to play the pi­ano, elec­tric and bass gui­tar as a child. “It can make me feel hap­py, sad, mo­ti­vat­ed, and all the oth­er emo­tions. As a South Ko­re­an in South Africa, I am blessed to be able to be in­tro­duced to di­verse gen­res, and each has an im­pact on my life. And I can con­fi­dent­ly say that chut­ney is def­i­nite­ly one of them!”

Grow­ing up be­tween dif­fer­ent worlds made him the man he is to­day. He and his fam­i­ly ar­rived in South Africa in 1996 when he was just one year old.

They set­tled in Som­er­set West, Cape Town, the fol­low­ing year af­ter the fi­nan­cial cri­sis in South Ko­rea. His par­ents chose to live in Africa rather than the Unit­ed States, the Unit­ed King­dom, or an­oth­er West­ern na­tion.

“I am blessed that my par­ents took that call. I have learnt and ex­pe­ri­enced so much in this coun­try that I would not trade for any­thing else.”

Fit­ting in af­ter apartheid, though, was not easy. He was the on­ly Asian child at an Afrikaans pri­ma­ry school and was teased for look­ing dif­fer­ent. He fel­low­shipped with a Ko­re­an church in Cape Town, but he was not ful­ly ac­cept­ed there ei­ther be­cause he couldn’t speak the lan­guage flu­ent­ly, nor did he meet their beau­ty stan­dards.

“So for a long time, I felt alone and not part of any com­mu­ni­ty.”

De­spite feel­ing iso­lat­ed, his par­ents en­cour­aged him to per­se­vere, work hard, and ig­nore the chat­ter.

Cho took that ad­vice to heart. At the same pri­ma­ry school, he was elect­ed to the Learn­er Coun­cil in Grade 7.

In high school, he served on stu­dent lead­er­ship again while earn­ing ho­n­ours for his per­for­mance in aca­d­e­mics and mu­sic. And at uni­ver­si­ty, he found­ed the first-ever Ko­re­an so­ci­ety to help bridge the gap be­tween the two dis­tinct cul­tures.

“I did not al­low ad­ver­si­ty to de­fine who I was or want­ed to be in the fu­ture,” he says, re­flect­ing on his past. “I em­braced that ad­ver­si­ty and cre­at­ed my own path to make a pos­i­tive im­pact on peo­ple’s lives.”