Karabo Mogane flies off to face his destiny today.

The Idols SA winner steps out without his hitmaker producer Robbie Malinga and without the safety net of the TV reality show as he releases his first single in almost two years.

But he has an ace up his proverbial sleeve. He has roped in the services of master producer Godfrey "Guffy" Pilane, who had but all disappeared from the music scene.

With the new single, titled Nginothando, Mogane believes he has the winning formula that made his last album, Matters of the Heart, produced by Malinga, highly acclaimed.

"What an honour to work with Guffy. I love the song and for me this is it. Whatever that means, but this is it. The single drops in five days on all digital platforms, and Metro FM is going to play it for the first time on Friday [today]. I'm so nervous and excited at the same time," he says.

Mogane is a graduate of the school of hard knocks at Idols. He had a rude awakening when, five days after winning Idols, he recorded the album Love is a Verb.

He thought the millions that voted for him to win the show would go out and buy. Alas, the album sales tanked.

"I was confused. I wondered what happened to the millions of people who voted for me. Could it be that's because the album was recorded in a week? At this point, my confidence was going down.

"This was not the deal. This was not what we agreed on, God, I told myself. Or maybe in my prayer I should have said take me all the way, even after Idols. Wasn't I specific enough? Why is radio not playing my songs? It was a bit awkward."

Mogane says he was stressed, confused and angry at the turn of events. However, he never lost the hope as his label hooked him up with Malinga, who was his stable mate. Things didn't go smoothly there too because the album was not widely available and the marketing was nonexistent, he says.

He took his last money and invested in a PR company to promote him and still didn't get the desired results, until his money ran out.

"The first time I was introduced to debt was by owing a PR company. This was the new life now - constant disappointments, hurt and failure. By this time depression was creeping in. All I did sometimes was to wake up, sit and cry."

He was nominated for the SA Music Awards but still didn't get the renewal he longed for. He concluded that this was not working and he planned to go back to school or find a job.

His last hope was a PR company he's currently signed with.

"I asked to meet the boss. I was broken, I had tried everything. I told her that I didn't have money to pay for PR and all I had was my voice. She listened."

Mogane has since hosted a successful show at the Lyric Theatre.