AFRITUNES WEEK 108 - "Thula 'Mntanami" (Juluka) Cover by @jasperdick

Hello everybody on HIVE, and especially the AFRITUNES Community. My name is Jasper, and I'm writing (and singing) to you from Cape Town, South Africa! Welcome to Week 108 of AFRITUNES.

I love South Africa and some of the special flavours of music we get here, and I look forward to doing a few posts on AFRITUNES to bring you music from South Africa, or to show you my original songs that have South African inspiration…

Today, I’d like to introduce you to the story of Johnny Clegg and Juluka, whose music I adore and will be covering quite a lot for AFRITUNES!

In the middle of the Apartheid era in South Africa, when racial segregation was heavily enforced by the government and police, Johnny Clegg was a teenage boy living in Johannesburg. His stepfather had left the country, and he didn’t really have a father figure or good masculine role models.

He took the risk to approach some Zulu migrant workers who were living in the Hostels around Johannesburg, (many of whom would have been miners who could have sung last week’s “Shosholoza” song), and asked them to teach him the traditional Zulu guitar styles of maskandi and kwela, as well as the traditional Zulu styles of war-dancing and stick-fighting.

After a bit of scepticism about what this white boy wanted, his Zulu friends realised that he was serious about wanting to learn about their culture, and was a fantastic musician and dancer, and they accepted Johnny Clegg as an honourary Zulu. He later formed a band (Juluka) with a good friend, Sipho Mchunu, that perfectly blended Western Music with traditional Zulu music. Often the verses would be in English and the choruses in isiZulu.

These songs became a big symbol of the fight against Apartheid – and after Apartheid ended in 1994, they became beloved by everyone in South Africa, black and white. The songs “Impi” by Juluka, and “Great Heart” by his later band Savuka are played at rugby matches to get the crowd all riled up and supporting the Springboks!

For today's video, I share will share a simple Juluka song that seems to follow a traditional Zulu style even more closely, and the lyrics are entirely in isiZulu. It is called "Thula 'Mntanami" which means "Hush Child", because it is supposed to be used as a lullaby! I will leave the full lyrics and translation at the bottom of the post.

Here is the original version:

Here is a wonderful video of Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu coming back together as much older men to play the song again in the back of a mini-bus taxi! Unfortunately Johnny Clegg has since passed away from cancer, but he did do a series of final concerts, and I was lucky enough to attend one at the beautiful Kirstenbosch gardens under the shadow of Table Mountain!

Lyrics for "Thula ‘Mntanami” by Juluka

O thula 'mntanami
(Hush my child)
Umam' uzofika
(Mother will arrive)
Wophathel' amaswidi
(She should be bringing sweets)
Amnandi (repeat)
(They are tasty/sweet)
O thula 'mntanami
(Hush my child)
Umam' uzofika
(Mother will arrive)
Wophathel' amaswidi
(She should be bringing sweets)
Amnandi (repeat)
(They are tasty/sweet)
O thula 'mntanami
(Hush my child)
Umam' uzofika
(Mother will arrive)
Wophathel' amaswidi
(She should be bringing sweets)
Amnandi (repeat)
(They are tasty/sweet)
O thula 'mntanami
(Hush my child)
Umam' uzofika
(Mother will arrive)
Wophathel' amaswidi
(She should be bringing sweets)
Amnandi (repeat)
(They are tasty/sweet)
SOURCE: https://genius.com/Juluka-thula-mtanami-lyrics