Meet Gene Thang aka Eugene Maboshe (above), Guest on the most recent edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient ft Jay Hillz. The Experience is our weekly radio show airing at 20.30 hrs CAT every Sunday on Zambezi 94.1 fm and streaming live on the internet. “Where does the name Gene Thang come from?” Wondered Milli Jam at the top of the show. “Well” replied our Guest “Gene is from my first name Eugene. Thang came from the word thing, and somehow the name stuck!” Gene is a well known club and radio DJ throughout Zambia but particularly on the Copperbelt in Zambia. “You’re a Lozi man from this part of Zambia” went on Milli Jam, “how did you come to find fame and fortune on the Copperbelt?”

Gene told listeners that for the most part he had been brought up in Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, his late Dad was an expatriate miner working on the coal mine in Hwange. He had developed a deep love of music from his parents and, as a teenager, had also gained a knack of winning competitions on radio in Zimbabwe and had built up a good library of vinyl singles and albums. On school holidays he would often travel to Livingstone to stay with his granny. Anyway, he had come back to Zambia after finishing his education – to Livingstone in fact, where he had first met Milli Jam and together they had hell raised as DJ’s in the club at Fairmount Hotel in the city – still one of Livingstone’s leading night spots.

Proceeding to the Copperbelt later to further his education, Gene had secured a job as the DJ at The Venue in Ndola. At the onset of local commercial radio in Zambia in the early 90’s Gene had been one of the pioneers as a DJ on Flava FM in Kitwe after some really intensive training. He said it was really tough for DJ’s to get work on radio as they did not have consistent ‘radio’ voices but he had managed and had worked for the station for more than seven years.

The music on our show was good. We opened with new tracks from Luvbug and The Weekend. The guys dropped numbers from Slap D and Jack U ft Keisza. Calvin Harris ft Tinashe and CQ followed. Our oldie of the week was from Judith Sephuma. My pick was Go Hard or Go Home from Wiz Khalifa ft Iggy Azelea and Meek Mil. We closed with ‘What Kind of Man’ from Florence and The Machine.

Gene is a Man Utd fan and his favourite player is Wayne Rooney. We moved on. He’s married and he and his wife have one boy and one girl. He has a wide taste in music himself and gives his late parents credit for this, they were real music lovers and used to listen to many different artists. Asked where he would like to be and what he would like to be doing in ten years’ time, Gene said he wanted to be an established farmer.