Fallen Soldier

Nkalakatha

©Marcus Malumba_Mandoza

Mandoza whose real name was Mduduzi Edmund Tshabalala, was an important figure in South African culture. We all know how “Nkalakatha” became a song loved by all races, playing in both the hood and rugby matches.

The song won Song Of The Year at the 2001 SAMAs, while the album of the same title won Album Of The Year. He also swept the Metro FM awards in the same year – winning five of the 10 awards he was nominated for.

He had a working formula from his lyrics to his fashion sense. He kept it kasi, but with an urban touch – rocking skinny jeans before the cool kids even imagined they would. He was that big a deal.

When Mandoza first stepped onto the kwaito scene in 1999 I was 7 years old in primary school, His song “Uzoy’thola Kanjani? Became my instant favorite because it was playing everywhere carrying with it a powerful and positive message. The phrase “Uzoy’thola kanjan’ uhlel’ ekhoneni?” which loosely translates to “get off your ass and hustle” is an urban idiom that’s still being used to this day.

He strived to give an inspirational message to Kwaito in the lives of people in the townships, the city and overall people who kept it real with making a better life for them.

Mandoza’s husky voice made him really unique and special instructing people to pay close attention and listen to what he had to say, he sang in several of South Africa's many languages, including English, Afrikaans, Zulu, and Xhosa, giving him wide appeal with South African Listeners he had charisma and that is very important in kwaito.

The basic nature of being informed and still being inquisitive should never place a barrier in front of our eagerness to learn and grow from the abundant wisdom that came through the music of Mandoza.

Later in his career he worked with conventional kwaito producers like Mdu, DJ Cleo, Spikiri and Guffy adding more style to his music. Mandoza also had a great run with his crew Chiskop. Songs like “Umunt’omnyama”, “Abasazi” and “Sunday” are timeless kwaito classics.

In the mid-2000s, house and hip-hop became the genres of choice for South African youth. Things started changing for all kwaito artists even for Mandoza who could not survive that era.

When our greatest kwaito legend (Brown Dash) passed on, people mocked his cause of death and made it a social joke.

Through all that, Mandoza never stopped making music, dropping an album almost every year.

He became a tabloid hotspot for his financial crisis and later his unstable health, through the media his popularity kept on declining, until eventually his albums made no noise at all.

There is one thing you can’t take away from Mandoza – he’s a stone-cold legend with one of the best songs to ever come out of South Africa across all genres “Nkalakatha”.

Text by Marc Malumba Mwamba