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Saturday 12 February 2011

South West Sounds

Some of you may be wondering where the Tsonga Disco has gone to recently. Well, I am having to eke it out a bit. There is only one CD in my collection that I haven't featured previously, and that will be coming up soon. But I am heading off to South Africa at the end of next month and hopefully will be able to top up the stocks of Tsonga music while I am there.

In the meantime, let's leave north-east South Africa where the Tsonga people live and head due west to Namibia. When you reach the capital, Windhoek, you might bump into a local outfit called Mweneni who are responsible for this "re-imagining" of an old Kaiser Chiefs' song. According to their page on Bandcamp, the song chronicles the hard life of a single lady in Windhoek and the lyrics are hilarious - although you really need to speak Ovambo to appreciate them fully.

"Oh My God" - Mweneni

I lived in Windhoek for about a year when I was eight. I have many happy memories but I don't remember anything quite like that. Nor do I remember hearing anything quite like this next one when I lived due South in Cape Town seven or eight years later.

Emile YX? (real name Emile Jansen) is a hip hop pioneer who is from the South African ethnic group known as the Cape Coloureds. It is impossible to try to define their origins accurately, which is the point Emile is making in this song, which I found on a 2008 compilation CD titled "Cherry Picking from the Baobab Tree".

Who Am I?" - Emile YX?

That is a pretty searching question. So is this one.

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