Maswanganyi was born and grew up in a township in
Soweto, where she lived with her grandparents for the first eight years of her life. Her grandmother worked as a schoolteacher and her grandfather was a priest. At that time South Africa was still segregated under the laws of
apartheid. Maswanganyi stated of that experience, "I'd say my family had the middle-class black person's life in Soweto – which is different from the middle-class person's life in the white community. Soweto has a different spirit. There used to be shootings, but I didn't experience that directly. Sometimes the army would come by in cars and let off tear gas. We'd be playing in the garden and suddenly you'd have to get inside and lock the doors. Sometimes the police would come and start knocking and bashing doors in for no reason. In those days, people were not allowed to have visitors – even your cousins or family – you'd have to have some kind of permission to have people visit you." At eight years old, Maswanganyi moved to
Giyani in northern South Africa to live with her parents. She remained there through her teenage years. While there she attended high school for a few years at
Risinga High School, but the Bantu school system did not provide any lessons in music to their pupils. She was, however, an active member of her church choir which was directed by her mother and performed
a cappella music in the African choral tradition. As a result, Maswanganyi had very little exposure to classical music and was unable to read music when she entered
University of Pretoria with the aspirations of pursuing a degree in music. Her lack of experience prevented her from being accepted as a music major. However, a one-year "bridge" course for music at the university enabled her to supplement her lack of musical knowledge and eventually join the program. ==Career==