'My upper spinal cord was damaged': Black Coffee recalls 5-hour surgery to fix injuries from plane incident

• Black Coffee sustained "severe blows" to his body during a "severe travel accident" on his private plane in January.
• He had to undergo a five-hour-long surgery to treat his injuries. 
• The DJ spoke about it for the first time this past week on Kaya FM.

Grammy Award-winning DJ Black Coffee has spoken about what happened to him after a widely reported plane incident in January. 

Black Coffee, real name Nkosinathi Maphumulo, told Kaya FM host Thabo "T-Bose" Mokwele about what really happened and how he felt. 

"It happened for a minute, so it gave me time to think while it was happening. I had time to think while it was happening.

"I had time to hope that it's going to be over, and I had time to think 'okay, we're dying. It's over'. Everything happened and I saw it happening."

He recalled the incident happened during an annual South American tour he goes on and said the company that operated his private flights in the region had no planes in their fleet for him to use.

The DJ had to find a different airline. 

The second airline only had a smaller plane to give him, so he took it but said he felt apprehensive about using it.  

"I remember I said, 'it looks old'. I even took a picture of the floor and the rugs. I just felt uneasy!" 

Once the flight had reached cruising altitude, Black Coffee added he took his seatbelt off and reclined his seat to take a nap. 

"I was listening to a gospel album through my headphones and took a nap then I woke up to something that felt like a dream … or a nightmare … and the plane was shaking violently.

"I opened my eyes, and everyone was trying to hold on. At first, because I was sleeping, I felt like I was in a rolling car."

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Black Coffee was thrown on the floor because of the turbulence before he managed to get back into his seat, but as soon as he did, the plane took a big dip, and the DJ was thrown into the aircraft's ceiling as that happened. 

He was briefly knocked unconscious but came too soon afterwards to see various items, like his water glass and spectacles, strewn around after the commotion. 

The DJ felt a sharp pain in his back and said he struggled to sit after realising he was in pain. 

He insisted on landing immediately and said the pilots were initially against his decision because they wanted to continue and land in Argentina.

They settled on landing in Uruguay, where he underwent a five-hour-long surgery to fix the damage done to his upper spinal cord during the incident. 

"So, I have metal holding onto my spinal cord now. I'm half man, half machine," he joked to lighten the mood. 

He spent a week in hospital recovering, and his sister and friend flew out to stay with him and accompany him home after he was discharged.  

In a similar fashion to AKA, who turned back to his religion shortly before he was killed, Black Coffee reached out to Pastor Kabelo Mabalane for guidance. 

"What a beautiful, blessed man. He gave me a perspective of life and faith that I never knew existed." 

In addition to his near-death experience, Black Coffee said his journey had reached a point where he felt as though his life was not aligned with his purpose.

He mentioned to T-Bose he had some incredible wins and losses under his belt, both personally and professionally. 

Touching on his marriage to Enhle Mbali Mlotshwa, the DJ said he felt as though the acrimonious end to their marriage felt like a failure to him because he had an idea of marriage that his union did not live up to.

In retrospect, he alluded to acknowledging his desire to make his marriage fit the picture he had in his mind bordered on controlling, most times at the expense of the contribution his ex-wife could make to the marriage and their family. 

"Every time I would make a move that I thought was big for us and it wasn't received like that, a part of me was dying." 

He made an example by recalling when he bought Mlotshwa a car, and she did not react as he hoped she would.

The clip of this moment went viral, and the DJ was lambasted for expecting that reaction out of her when he had allegedly repeatedly cheated on her during their marriage and fathered children with more than one other woman while married. 

"I expected her to even cry, and she was like 'oh … it's nice, thank you' and it sat with me heavily for a long time as someone who was not appreciative."

He said he learned he had mistakenly imposed his wishes on her during their marriage. 

"There's so many of those things that hit me later. Not to say that I want to try [the] marriage again but just understanding it where I'm like I could have been easier on that. I could have taken time on that…" 

Black Coffee admitted taking the time to see where he was wrong and added he has worked on forgiving himself for the part he played at the end of his marriage. 

He did not indicate whether he has tried apologising to Mlotshwa or making amends. 

At the time of his accident, Mlotshwa shared she had reached out to him to check on him because news of his what happened to him had troubled their children.

She said he did not welcome the message from her.