For Sinelizwi Mbidana, music simply wasn’t enough.
After years of expressing himself through songs, the Eastern Cape creative has turned a page, releasing his debut book, The Innocent Present Moment, this month.
Mbidana, who started writing the book in January 2025 and finished around November, said the book was born from a simple realisation: “As creatives, we are given a gift of being historians, whether capturing moments through a song or painting. But things I’ve been through in my life journey — a five-minute song won’t be able to cover them all.”
Mbidana, who hails from Mbizana, chose to write it all down: lessons, teachings, and the perspectives he’s gathered since starting his “enlightenment journey” in December 2018.
The book centres on what Mbidana calls “psychological times” — past, present, and future, saying that the core message is that the present moment is innocent.
“We ruin it”, he argues, “by dragging in the past or forcing the future to arrive early”.
“It’s just that we tend to ruin it through thoughts of the past, of something that happened — that’s gone, with few chances to fix it.
“We also tend to enforce the future to happen now. When things don’t seem the way we wanted, we succumb to depression.
“The Innocent Present Moment encourages readers to stop labeling and judging the now. Instead, to allow it to unfold the way it should, because the moment is indeed innocent. We have to be in it, not as an obstacle but as it is,” Mbidana said.
The trigger that led to him penning the book came after a car accident while on the street marketing his first musical project when the crash landed him in Far East Rand Hospital.
While recovering in the ward, a fellow patient lent him a book from his pile: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
He said the book changed his trajectory in life.
“It encouraged me not to be worried and to be present and focus on healing. From that, my view of the world was completely changed,” he said.
The book’s first chapter, Magnitude of Gratitude explores how gratitude became his gateway to abundance from early childhood to now.
Mbidana self-published the book through his own imprint.
The first print run came off the press in the first week of May 2026.
Getting there wasn’t easy, he said, adding that the challenge was getting someone who understands the direction of the book, not just literature.
He eventually connected with Tiegor, an editor based in Pretoria.
Capital to print more copies was another hurdle, but Mbidana said he took his own advice and managed to “accept moments to unfold as they did”.
Mbidana sees the book as a tool to revive hope.
This is his first book. “But, not the last,” he said.
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