[imagesource: Nomcebo Zikode / Instagram]

When I first heard ‘Jerusalema’, my initial thoughts were along the lines of ‘meh’. Then I heard it again, and again, and again, and slowly but surely it became a song that gets the feet tapping.

Now it has well and truly swept the globe, and last month it became the most Shazammed song in history.

Shazam is an app that can identify a song in a matter of seconds, grandparents.

Cristiano Ronaldo is a fan, it’s getting giraffes and elephants jiving, our own Ndlovu Youth Choir has joined in, and the dance craze has swept the world in a way perhaps not seen since the days of the Macarena.

Not at all bad for producer Kgaogelo Moagi, known worldwide now as Master KG, who comes from “a village in Tzaneen, known as, Skororo, some call it Calais village”, in Limpopo.

Whilst his name has been up in lights, earning him a record deal with Warner Bros in France, there’s somebody else who deserves her fair share of the limelight, too.

Nomcebo Zikode is the voice that lights up the track, but before her starring role on ‘Jerusalema’, she almost gave up on her dream.

The Guardian’s Helen Sullivan spoke with Nomcebo about the call that changed her life in December last year:

She says that last year, when Master KG called late one evening to ask her to come to his studio in Midrand immediately to listen to beats he had just written, she was close to giving up on her dreams of becoming a solo artist.

“I was like, ‘now?’” she says. But he was insistent. After listening to the beats she asked if she could take them home to work on lyrics. When Master KG refused, she chased him out of the studio so she could think alone.

After listening to the track a few times, the lyrics came to her, and she began to sing in isiZulu.

At that point, she called out for Master KG to come back into the studio, and they began recording immediately, finishing later that same night.

She knew it would be a hit, and so did Master KG, and the rest is history:

Since its release in South Africa at the end of 2019, where it was one of the biggest local songs of the summer, Jerusalema has become a global hit, reaching the top five on music charts in Belgium, France, Hungary, Netherlands and Switzerland. It reached number 4 on Billboard’s world digital song sales chart…

In September Jerusalema became the most Shazammed song in history. It has been streamed almost 55m times on Spotify, where MasterKG has amassed 9m monthly listeners. The music video has been watched more than 170m times on YouTube. On TikTok, #Jerusalema has 385m views.

When asked how a song in isiZulu can prove so popular with so many around the world, Nomcebo said that “when you’re singing in your own language you are comfortable,” which “resonates with people”.

As restrictions on international travel are lifted, she hopes to perform around the world with Master KG.

Read the full interview here.

May as well add one more YouTube view to the 170-odd million, hey?

[source:guardian]