DJ Sbu has confirmed that he will be leaving Vuma FM‚ less than a year after joining the Durban-based radio station‚ saying that his brand is heading in a different direction.

The media personality and entrepreneur joined Vuma in June as part of a radio venture that saw him broadcast simultaneously on Vuma FM and Rise FM.

Vuma FM station manager Pearl Sokhulu told TshisaLIVE on Friday that the station and Sbu had decided to end their relationship because their brands were no longer aligned.

We felt like the station and Sbu were growing in different directions and that we needed to make a change. It was a mutual decision. We are grateful to have had Sbu on our station. He has been an incredible asset‚” Pearl said.

Sbu said that his passion for empowering younger people was a big reason for his departure from the station.

“I feel great to have been part of the Vuma Family. I am going to miss my listeners and my team. It was a new territory for me and I learnt a lot about myself from it. My passion has always been to empower young people and unfortunately Vuma (FM) has an older audience and I want to focus more on younger people‚” DJ Sbu said.

Sbu confirmed that he will be leaving the station at the end of February but promised fans that he would soon return to radio with an exciting new project‚ set to launch next month.

“I am going to focus on other projects that empower young people and I have an exciting new project in the pipeline that involves the radio space‚” Sbu said.

In the meantime‚ fans can look forward to engaging more with DJ Sbu on his popular breakfast show.

“Times Media will be redirecting the DJ Sbu Breakfast content distribution towards a new digital home. Over the next 10 days Times Media will be launching a fully integrated multimedia hub within the SowetanLIVE environment that will offer our online audiences the ability to watch the shows live‚ catch-up and engage directly with Dj Sbu and his show guests‚” Times Media Group’s head of multimedia Dan Calderwood said.

Sbu confirmed that he will remain as a breakfast host on Rise FM.