On the last season of Idols SA, Cleo penned and produced finalist Mmatema Moremi’s debut single Because Of You – a female empowerment anthem. He says he fell in love with Mmatema’s voice during the Top 16 stage of the singing competition show and started to be vocal about it on social media. As fate would have it, he was then asked to work closely with Mmatema on her freshman single.
Although he is proud of the song, Cleo insists that he wished they could have been given more time to work on the song and tweak certain aspects he felt were flawed.
“If I had more time that song would have sounded differently. We were given like three days,” Cleo points out.
Cleo mentions that he has remained in touch with Mmatema and would like to work with her in the future. However, he says don’t expect a collaboration between them anytime soon, since Mmatema is caught up in a lot of tedious ‘contractual red tape’
“She’s not a free agent. She belongs to someone else. That’s why she doesn’t have a video. That’s why you don’t see her on TV. There is contractual red tape to say she can’t even be seen out there, because it’s conflicting with her contract. Basically all the spotlight must be on the winner for six months and then she can do whatever,” Cleo explains.
