Car guard a YouTube wonder

05 February 2013 - 02:09 By NASHIRA DAVIDS
subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now
ALEN ABRAHAMS
ALEN ABRAHAMS

Just last week Alen Abrahams was a car guard. He has also worked as a "poop scooper" and once sold headache powder as cocaine to addicts to get money to care for his family.

Yesterday, two crazed fans stopped him in the street, shook his hand and posed for a photograph with him.

They had recognised the 31-year-old from YouTube where his songs - hits such as Justin Bieber's Baby, which he altered with his own Cape Flats lyrics - are getting thousands of views.

On Friday, radio DJ Aden Thomas featured Abrahams on his Heart 104.9FM breakfast show.

When Abrahams took the microphone the station's phone lines lit up. One caller was record producer Gabi le Roux who has worked with Mandoza and Locnville.


Thomas and his team posted five songs online. Though they have everyone in stitches, they have a deeper meaning.

Kerrie is about living in abject poverty. Families often eat one pot of food without meat for a week.

"My music consists of what I see in my community. At the same time, I want to put a smile on your dial," said Abrahams.

His other songs include Meisie (a rendition of Bieber's Baby) about domestic violence, and Pam (based on Jackson's Bad) about transvestites on the street.

The songs have registered 15000 views on YouTube already.

For more than a year a cellphone video clip of him performing in the street did the rounds. Determined to find the man, Thomas started a search. Eventually Thomas's friend, Marlon Kruger, tracked Abrahams down.

"We have two firm offers from record producers," said Thomas.

"We can try to assist Alen but ultimately it is for him to make something good of it."

Kruger said people were keen to book him for Valentine's Day.

Abrahams, from Kalksteenfontein, admits that he was a drug addict who conned drug users out of R250 for a bag of headache powder. But it is his two "beautiful" children who changed his life.

"My daughter is five years old. It is her crown birthday [today]. I've never had a party in my whole life. I haven't even seen a birthday cake and those are the things I want them to have."

subscribe Just R20 for the first month. Support independent journalism by subscribing to our digital news package.
Subscribe now