WATCH PHENDULA IN ACTION!
1. If you watch this video with the eagle’s eye Blog Author had borrowed to watch it, you will see Musical Goddess Zahara (out of whose intellectual womb emerged God Phendula) walking into a restaurant where her inspiration bites her bum hard enough to beget Son Phendula.
2. The musical mother goddess gets her drinks and then suddenly succumbs to the inspiration’s sudden attack, borrows pen and paper from the attendant who obliges with the necessesaries: she really HAS TO GIVE ISSUE AND BIRTH!
3. Then you see Musical Goddess Zahara writing her letter to her own God…even goddesses have higher gods…demanding the replies to Africa’s centuries’old cries.
4. Musical Goddess Zahara will have had her meal already when she wanders into a toddlers’ playground. But one of the shocks of her life particularly gripping South Africa these days, MEETS HER!
5. Watch carefully as a bedraggled woman, hair unkempt, kisses her new-born baby goodbye AS SHE THROWS IT INTO THE DUSTBIN! (Ignorant and too-often-drugg-addicted women in South Africa do this instead of handing over to the state babies born by either irresponsible or even unknown fathers.)
6. Stomach lining sufficiently laced with soothing fruit juice, Musical Goddess Zahara will later wander around and see other ills. Her sombre spectacle includes children who not only live in squalid conditions in South Africa (and maybe the rest of Africa too), but seem to be eating from waste found in their god-forsaken environs.
7. The video is dominated by a woman (probably the same dame who threw away her neonate earlier on on the vid). But here she is struggling, tryng to wean off her husband from alcoholism. (By the way, South Africa is statiscally put among the top 5 countries world wide afflicted by binge drinking… the habit of quaffing alcoholic drinks and wanting to get drunk quickest…something said by doctors to be one of the worst health habits and drinker can get into).
8. I love you, Zahara! You are my superstar! And this is the closest I have come to kissing a computer screen just seeing you giving birth to “God Phendula”!
WHEN EXACTLY WERE YOU BORN XHOSA-LANGUAGE MUSICAL GODDESS?
9. There are conflicting dates of birth for the creator of “Phendula”. I should like to stick to the one of today (as lent me by “Smartcape”). And so Happy Birthay, Zahara! Or maybe I should put it in your IsiXhosa mother tongue which is not far from mine, Siswati/Swazi (spoken in the Republic of South Africa, the Kingdom of Swaziland, as well as pockets of the People’s Republic of Mozambique…all neighbouring coutries).
10. “NDIKUNQWENELA USUKU OLUMNANDI OLUYOKOZELA AMATHAMSANQA!”
THE NOOSE AROUND ALL EFFORTS TOWARDS TRANSLATIONS
11. You shall be seized by a most unenviable task if you try to translate into English this artist’s work from her IsiXhosa, one of the Nguni Languages of South Africa and spoken most in the Eastern Cape.
12. However, I will do my best on her song: “Phendula”
13. “Phendula!” could mean anything from “Give-us-the-answer!” to “Say-something-back!”
14. If you want to be more mundate and etymological with the Nguni languages (Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele etc as well as Swazi whith is Blog Author’s mother tongue), “Phendula!” could mean “Turn-things-around-if-for-the-better!” or “Reverse-the-situation-if-for-the-better!”
15. I do not know where Zahara’s emotions came from or what indeed fired her imagination to sing “Phendula!” All I can say is she could not have been intent on spreading with her music the mundate, jejune and commonplace.
16. Zahara saw all the problems her motherland Africa faces and then refused as vocal phenomenon to look at the dismal material world. Like the witch on her broom, Zahara instead flew on her voice to appeal to The Spiritual and Unseen World in order for The Unseen/God/Allah/Africa/You-Name-It to come to her Africa’s rescue.
17. I therefore hazard to think Zahara’s “Phendula!” means: “Grant-Africa-her-Wishes-at-This-Long-Last!”
18. Here is the rest of her lyrics in the song and blog authors translation thereof.
Nkosi yami,
Lord Of-mine,
Phendula,
Show-us-our-wishes-coming-true,
Ndiyacela!
I-beg-you!
Phendula!
Show-us-our-wishes-coming-true!
Sinikela kuwe
We-surrender-everything Unto-Thee
Sincamile ngokwethu
We’ve-given-up On-our-own
Phendula!
Show-us-our-wishes-coming-true!
Umhlaba wonke
The-world In-its-entirety
ujonge kuWe.
Looks-ups To-Thee
Inhlupheko yethu..
All-suffering That’s-ours..
..iyaziwa nguWe.
..Is-well-known By-Thee.
Nezifo zethu..
Even-frailties-and-afflictions Of-ours..
..zophiliswa nguWe.
..Shall-meet-remedy By-Thy-hand.
Novuyo lwethu..
Even-joy That-is-ours..
..luvela kuWe.
..Originates From-Thee.
Phendula!
Show-us-our-wishes-coming-true!
Afrika, Phendula!
Africa, Phendula!
Phendula!
Show-us-our-wishes-coming-true!
THE MUSICAL BIO OF ZAHARA BULELWA MTUKANE
U-GOODMAN MANYANYA PHIRI UKUNQWENELA USUKU OLUMNANDI NOLUYOKOZELA AMATHAMSANQA, BULELWA! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIRL!
YOU DO DO US PROUD AS SOUTH AFRICAN; AS AFRICANS; AS HUMAN BEINGS TOO!
Happy birthday!
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