TKZee to play at Blankets and Wine

Kwaito is the music that defines the generation that came of age after apartheid and many liberation chants found their way into kwaito songs.

The ruling Africa National Congress helped popularise kwaito by taking the music to political rallies where the crowds would buy the music after the events.

Trendsetting artistes like TKZee made music that spoke of the pressing social ills that faced young people from the impoverished townships: unemployment, violence, crime and racism.

From the late 1990s, TKZee was the biggest selling kwaito group and many fans consider them to have been among the most influential music groups in post-independent South Africa.

The name of the group is taken from the initials of three high school friends: Tokollo “Magesh” Tshabalala, Kabelo “Bouga Luv” Mabalane and Zwai Bala.

Earning royalties

While Zwai attended the Royal Academy of Music in Scotland and was grounded on classical music, Kabelo and Tokollo grew up on the edges of the township of Soweto.

The three met while attending private school in Johannesburg and their love for music led them to form the group, which would explode onto the scene in November 1997.

The arrival of kwaito also signified the arrival of a young, assertive and educated lot of black musicians who, unlike the previous generations of Africans marginalised by apartheid, were able to navigate their way around the music industry, signing recording contracts and earning royalties.

Ironically, TKZee have always insisted that their music is not strictly kwaito, but a combination of house music with shades of African jazz, R&B and reggae and hip-hop grooves, which they call “Guz” music.

The 1998 release of the single “Shibobo” featuring South African footballer Benni McCarthy, made TKZee a household name, not just at home but in many part of Africa where it lit the flames of the kwaito brand.

The irresistible and catchy single, whose title means to dribble or passing the ball between someone’s legs, went on to sell more than 100,000 copies in just a single month.

It also coincided with South Africa’s first ever participation in the FIFA World Cup.

That year was a very successful one for TKZee thanks to the release of the album “Halloween” which enjoyed huge popularity thanks to the single “Dlala Mapantsula”.

That year, the group won five South Africa Music Awards setting a record for the biggest win by a single act at the awards.

In 1998 they were invited to perform at Nelson Mandela’s 80th Birthday party at the Johannesburg stadium.

When international stars like Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Black Eyed Peas and Rihanna toured South Africa, it was TKZee who were called upon to curtain raise.

That success was, however, accompanied by a series of personal problems, which beset the group’s members including drug use and a lengthy court case over a bill of 2 million Rand from the tax authorities.

In 2002, the three members of TKZee decided to pursue their solo careers.

While Tokollo set up his own record label, Zwai started a family and moved into TV as a judge on the Pop Stars talent show.

Kabelo put out several solo albums, recovered from his drug addiction and became a born-again Christian.

After eight years, Zwai, Tokollo and Kabelo got back together again with the album “Coming Home” and a performance at the opening ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The new music is a far cry from the hits that won them many fans in Kenya and other parts of the world in the 1990s like “Shibobo”, “Fiesta” and “Dlala Mapantsula”.

Kwaito producers have been struggling to keep up with the tempo of garage and house music to prove wrong those cynics who say the once popular genre is dead.

Even the base of the music has moved from its hotbed in Johannesburg on to the port city of Durban and the music is now performed in nearly all of South Africa’s languages.

It will be interesting to see if the TKZee brand still bears the magic of the lively music that made the group so famous in the 1990s.

No doubt, those who turn up to watch TKZee at this weekend’s Blankets and Wine will be eager to relive an era long gone when the sound of kwaito ruled most urban centres in Africa.