Madala Kunene was born in 1951 in Cato Manor. He refused to spend so much as a day at school. He started busking on Durban's beachfront at the age of 7, making his first guitar out of a cooking oil tin and fish gut for the strings, soon becoming a popular performer in the townships. “It was my ancestors that didn't want me to go to school. They gave me a talent so that instead of school, I played my music”. Madala is please that in London they called him the King of the Zulu guitar. He feels he plays his own style of music known as Madalaline !