Nkosilesisa Ncube, Sunday Life Reporter
Having completed a national and Canadian tour and being scheduled to perform in Austria and Germany later this year, one just knows that Nobuntu’s performances are pure perfection. Their video for Inganekwane is no different. Inganekwane comes as part of their second album, Ekhaya, which in its simplest form translates to “home.”
With the Inganekwane video, the viewer is taken through four minutes of purely African music carried effortlessly through the first half by Duduzile Sibanda’s leading vocals and the second half by Heather Dube, while the rest of the group members back up in unmatched harmonies.
The video opens with a guitar solo which runs throughout the song. It is the only instrument used in the song and with its slow tempo sets the right mood for the telling of the story or as the song title suggests, the telling of inganekwane (folktale).
The divine nature of the song is complemented by the choice of Matobo as the setting. Matobo is culturally considered as a spiritual place as it was the initial Ndebele capital, King Mzilikazi’s final resting place and till this day serves as the venue for the Njelele rainmaking ceremony.
The video is set in rural Matobo, with the main sights being the balancing rocks, the clear blue sky and the sparse green bush that makes constant appearances throughout the video.
No other setting could have been more suitable for this particular video.
The ladies of Nobuntu are dressed in white for most of the video. Immediately the viewer is drawn to the purity that the white apparel suggests. The white attire could also suggest that the ladies are angels, which explains why they are telling a tale of a conversation between God and the rest of creation.
Their white clothing is coupled with traditional ancestral headgear, which alludes to man in his most natural form and further emphasises the spirituality surrounding the video.
The three dancers in the video are dressed in white and green, while in the other shots the vocalists wear naturally occurring colours like green, yellow, red and brown, in a way bringing the viewer closer to nature and spirituality.
This spirituality however, is not confined to any particular religion. As a result, the lyrics refer to “Umdali” (meaning the creator) without attributing Him to any religious sect. The creator in this case becomes relative to whatever the viewer believes in.
The creator can even be Brahma, the Hindi god of creation, as at one point in the video; the ladies spread their arms out like the god Brahma spreads out his many arms.
The choreography in the video is rhythmic, slow and controlled, quite like a religious meditation ritual.
This metrical routine is carried out through the video until the last few minutes where it is mixed up with elements of contemporary dance and ballet when the song talks about oneness of people of different cultures and nationalities.
The chants “kolobeja” and “jefunde”, which recur in the song, are Ndebele chants which children repeat when listening attentively to an old folk-tale.
This reference to childlike chants reinforces the idea that the song is actually a story and also this allusion to childhood appeals to the viewer’s inner child and purity, in essence, returning the viewer to his or her true self. The video takes a nostalgic approach towards folk-tales as a tradition that is no longer since people have found alternative methods of storytelling.
The only other living creature shown in the video is the blue lizard. In some Bantu communities, lizards signify mortality and the human cycle of life.
Again this is a connotation towards returning to one’s most true self.
Ultimately, the Inganekwane video becomes an age old tale, executed through nothing short of musical genius, while using seemingly ordinary things to explore human spirituality. It is a beautiful video, as one would expect from the all female group.
@nkocykay