Sipho "Hotstix" Mabuse was born in Johannesburg on 2 November 1951. After dropping out of school in the 1960s, Mabuse got his start in the African soul group the Beaters in the mid-1970s. After a successful tour of Zimbabwe they changed the group's name to Harari. When they returned to their homeland in South Africa they began to draw almost exclusively on American-style funk, soul, and pop music, sung in Zulu and Sotho as well as English.