Guitar ladies deliver fantastic show

Patience Bambalele

On Saturday night music stars Zahara, Msaki and Berita strummed their way to the hearts of music lovers with their guitars at the Emperors Palace in Kempton Park.

  The guitarists gave splendid performances at the Theatre of Marcellus.  The night of fun started out with Zimbabwean-born Afro-soul singer Berita warming up the stage and gearing up the music lovers for serious entertainment. She proved to be a crowd pleaser as she delivered one of her greatest live show.

  Berita was followed on stage by Msaki, who is among leading composers in South Africa today. Msaki began her set with a song that addresses gender-based violence against LGBTI+ community and women.

  Msaki showed off her vocal flexibility with a variety of song types, via titles such as the soulful Liwa Lentliziyo and dance-floor hit Fetch your Life among others. She ended her set with her famous hit Imfama Ziyobona, one of the germs contained in her album Zaneliza: How the Water Moves.

  Msaki told the audience that her performance was in honour of her home girl Zahara. “I love how she has taken the guitar to another level. We had women who played the guitar in South Africa but Zahara just took it to the forefront. She inspired many young musicians. I connected mostly to the story of her first album uLoliwe which was very honest and sincere. Kids in my village in Gqamakhwe knew that there was this beautiful girl, who tells stories that sounded like something they were going through. I just want to honour her tonight,”

Msaki said.

  Multi-award winning Zahara closed the night with a powerful performance.

Zahara was welcomed on stage with roaring applause, kicked off her performance with a well-loved church hymn Lizalis’ idinga Lakho which was written by Tiyo Soga, a multi-talented intellectual, journalist and composer who died in 1871 .

  She went through big hits like Loliwe and Mgodi , while also pleasing the audience with a traditional dance called umxhenso. Sowetan