Shot out in the picturesque views of iziNtaba Zokhahlamba, veiled with a hoary mist and the flowing lush emerald meadows, Bergville duo Inkabi Zezwe are statues of their roots on the single cover of ‘Umbayimbayi’.
Arrayed in identical Brentwood gear, Big Zulu and Sjava not only fulfil their roles as each other’s kindred spirits, their modest fashion dovetails with the emakhaya aesthetic. With their maiden single, ‘Umbayimbayi’, the pair looks as comfortable together walking the territory of neo-maskandi as they do on the cover with their authoritative postures and stern gazes.
Soft-launching the novel sub-genre dubbed “Ushun’” by Big Zulu, ‘Umbayimbayi’ is a stew of sparse piano loops, understated bass thumps, shy cymbals swishing, and the tangy flavour of an undulating organ. The XOWLA-produced song deftly walks the tightrope of minimalism characteristic of maskandi, but any similarity to it stops there. Although the backdrop is fitting for Inkabi Zezwe to reincarnate the most unapologetic versions of their forefathers in look and thought, the discipline of afro-soul from Sjava grounds the sound, making a hybrid out of ‘Umbayimbayi’.
“Umbayimbayi” upholds the tireless strength of love, paralleling its undisputed power to that of a war-designated tank. “Sengizok’ thengela uMbayi mbayi we dali / Udubule intaba / Khona uzongibona njalo njalo,” the Nkabi Records mastermind sings. With the lyrics, he conjures up the scene of his lover knocking down the mountain, standing in the way of their love with umbayimbayi. Throughout the song, Inkabi Zezwe butters their lady lovers with sweet words, praises, and charm mageba style.
There’s a Zulu ism that prevails that says, “Intombi ishelwa ngamanga”, which is to say that a man can only snag a woman of his heart by spinning around her web of lies. Looking from the outside in, the premise reeks of malice and duplicity. However, in the game of Zulu love, playful lies are merely shifting goalposts to be taken with a pinch of salt, something never done in bad faith. Even when the promises are a red herring, a placeholder for something else totally different.
This phenomenon can be seen in Blaq Diamond’s single, ‘Ibhanoyi‘, in which the duo promises their lovers airplanes, only to realise in the end that ibhanoyi is another term for a taxi. ‘Umbayimbayi‘ exploits that pocket of trickery, with Inkabi Zezwe steering the ballad from start to finish with the controlling metaphor of umbayimbayi.
With Ukhamba, their first album together, slated for release on the 12th of May, Inkabi Zezwe have already set themselves apart with ‘Umbayimbayi‘. With Big Zulu’s maskandi-influenced musicianship and Sjava’s cosmopolitan experience with Afropop and native soul, the duo have developed a potential goldilocks zone for Ushun’ to germinate.
Their first-ever single sounds like something one has already heard before, but not quite the way Inkabi Zezwe have done it.
Listen to “Umbayimbayi”: Spotify Embedded
