“All the design companies are white-owned, the most successful ones,” he said. “So that creates this perception that design or the arts are a white thing. And I always say, ‘No, no, no, it’s not.’ Africa has been the bedrock of creativity from years gone by.…For me, it’s trying to break that stereotype and say, no, you can be Black, you can be young, you can do this thing. It’s for all of us.”

Still, there’s a ways to go before some Swazis will be interested in buying a contemporary piece of art.

Aleta Armstrong, a friend of Khulekani’s and a fellow artist, has also experienced the challenges of building a market for art within the country. Armstrong and her husband own a gallery near a shopping mall in Swaziland’s wealthy Ezulwini Valley area, a prime spot for tourism traffic.

But art can’t thrive on tourist money alone, and Armstrong wants to appeal to locals as well. When we spoke last year, she said that 95 percent of the gallery’s sales are to people who don’t live in the country.

“I think in Swaziland, what is contemporary is not understood,” Armstrong said.

In the year-plus since the day Khulekani and I sat over cookies and coffee, he has continued to draw clients in fashion, sculpture, and interior design, many arriving via word of mouth. He has taken his creative mind to Swaziland’s Alliance Française and a new sugar-cane museum, and he designed an installation/sculpture for the new American Embassy.

Khulekani seems tireless, and his energy is infectious. His hope is that Swaziland continues to grow in the arts, building a rich environment that creates “more Khulekanis.”

“I wish to live in a country one day whereby any child can really dream, and that dream they have can actually be attained through a system which encourages, shields, harnesses, and allows one to be expressive, allows one to be different, allows one to make, create without any hindrance, without any interference,” he said. “Because it’s only then we can truly see great innovations, see great minds coming to the fore.”