Gab Post SA

Thandiswa Mazwai releases a new album. PICTURE:SUPPLIED Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, has announced that multiple award winning Thandiswa Mazwai is now signed to Universal Music South Africa . The label will be distributing her new album Belede , which will be available from November 25th 2016. Managing Director of Universal Music South Africa and Sub Saharan Africa Sipho Dlamini is thrilled to welcome Thandiswa to the Universal family. “This is such an honour, it’s been a pleasure watching you grow into your space and see the ease in which you occupy it. We are delighted to participate in your project, Belede an amazing album, we wanted to do a deal as soon as we heard it, this is a beautiful reflection of where Thandiswa is in her journey and the message she wants to share with us.” Thandiswa is equally elated, “Having been in the industry for so long, I’ve known the team here from since when I started with Bongo Maffin in 1998...

Thandiswa Mazwai singing on set in December last year. PICTURE:  AFRICAN artists have joined forces in the recreating of the popular   charity single   We Are The World .  The song debuted last weekend at the 2015 MTN Radio Awards, features 180 musicians from seven countries in the continent in the remaking of the single that was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. Locally the track was done with the direction of Lindelani Mkhize and Oskido with the sound engineering of Richard Mitchell using the voices of locals including Kurt Darren, Thandiswa Mazwai, Mafikizolo, PJ Powers, Mahotella Queens, Joyous Celebration and Loyiso Bala. It also features musicians from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Nigeria, Kenya,  Cameroon and Tanzania such as Tiwa Sawage, Banky W, Diamond and Lizha James. Said organisers of the awards: “It is a collaboration called Africa Against Ebola and Xenophobia and is a demonstration of the beautiful music that Africans can make...

To a certain extent I was agreeing with Thandiswa Mazwai about excluding the Die Stem out of the National Anthem, because I also felt it was the language of the oppressors. The language of the same people that told us we were "inferior" to them. The same people that shot at children in 16 June 1976, the same people that took my uncle away from me in 1989 and I have never seen him since. The same people that walked into my home late in 1990, accusing us of being "ANC rebels" and calling us "kaffirs" as a child at the age of 6. The same people that are able to call me a "kaffir" last year at FTV Sandton? Now they expect me to sing Die Stem ? I mean Thandiswa has a point because I also choke when I get to the Afrikaans part, and find myself silent or mumbling the same way that some of our rugby players in the Springboks still dont sing " Nkosi'sikele " parts on full view of TVs and no one says a thing, but as Die Stem approaches th...