He was 12 the first time he was arrested. He ended up sweeping the floor of a prison radio station with no vacancy.

Today, DJ Fosta has shared stages with Black Coffee and Skrillex, played Glastonbury, and co-founded a music academy in Langa, the township where he grew up.

Thulani "Fosta" Headman grew up in a Langa home with a grand piano, a father in a band that won Shell Road to Fame in 1986, and a constant stream of musicians coming and going. His father also drank heavily, and Fosta says the violence he saw at home helped pull him toward crime. By his teens he was living three lives at once: the trusted schoolboy who played piano for his school, a Jehovah's Witness knocking on doors, and a name the township knew for the wrong reasons.

He was sentenced to 11 years for armed robbery, reduced on appeal to seven, and served about four. In a single cell, he asked himself one question: what do I want for my life?

The answer started with washing dishes. The man who ran the prison broadcasting programme had heard inmates claim they were producers before, so Fosta changed tactics: first the dishes, then the cleaning, then the sweeping. One day the man came back and found him at the piano.

In this conversation with Richard Sutton, you'll hear:

- The courtroom moment he asked his mother never to bring his brother and sister to visit
- Why he chose the name Fosta
- Coming home in 2005 to find his family had divorced, and blaming himself
- How O21 Records shared songs by Bluetooth on campuses and handed two-song CDs to taxi drivers, and how the song reached number one on 5FM
- The first Bridges for Music workshops, with Black Coffee and Skrillex
- Cycling from London to Amsterdam to raise €94,000 for a music school
- Playing Glastonbury back to back with Skrillex, and why he chose not to play what Europeans already knew from Black Coffee
- What he would tell himself in that cell: "You can change. You can get out of this."

A story about identity, belief and second chances. "People need to see that I can become the person I've become while still in Langa."

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About Shift Happens with Richard Sutton:

Shift Happens with Richard Sutton is a podcast about transformation, growth and becoming the best version of yourself.

Through people's stories, we explore what happens when life applies pressure, when things change, and when doubt or failure forces a shift. These are honest conversations about the moments that shape us and what we can learn from them.

This is not about perfect stories. It's about real ones and the often unseen shifts that change everything. A podcast designed to help you learn through the experiences of others and navigate your own.

Richard Sutton is the founder and CEO of SuttonHealth and The Performance Code, and a global expert in stress management, resilience and human performance. He is the author of The Stress Code, Stressproof – The Game Plan, and Shift Happens, distilling 25 years of science and lived experience into practical ways to navigate stress, burnout and self-doubt.