Eric Kulani Giyani Nkovani, better known by his stage names Penny Penny and Papa Penny is a South African musician and politician, known affectionately as the "Shangaan Disco King" for the musical style he helped popularise.
He was the youngest of 68 children from a local traditional Surgeon/ doctor with 25 wives. His family was poor, meaning he received no education, but he soon became known for his dancing and was nicknamed Penny. Aged 19, he worked on a West Driefontein goldmine near Carletonville, and soon left to escape the region's poor working conditions, although he won several breakdancing trophies before his departure. His breakthrough came with the recording and release of his 1994 debut album Shaka Bundu, which was recorded in a week using little gear but went on to sell 250,000 copies in the country. The music features Tsonga disco sound, which emerged in Penny's native Tsonga culture, fused with contemporary house music from the United States. Unusually, the songs on the album were recorded in the Tsonga or Xitsonga language, or more specifically its Limpopo-region dialect Xihlanganu, one of the least-heard languages in South Africa.