Zulu Boys

Zuluboy is one of those hip-hop rapping people. He is also, as the name suggests, a Zulu. He has released a number of albums in South Africa, including "Igoba" in 2009. That is the one I grabbed a copy of while in the decidedly non-urban Plettenberg Bay a couple of months back.

A lot of the tracks are fairly straight hip-hop, of which I have never really been much of a fan (in the words of the late Granny Goggins when I used to subject her to Top Of The Pops thirty or more years ago, "It's all just bang bang bang"). But on some tracks he samples more indigenous sounds, like these two which are reworkings of songs by Bayete and Sankomota - two of the most popular bands in Southern Africa in the 1980s and early 1990s - respectively. Those ones I like a lot more.

"Mbombela - A Touch Of Bayete" - Zuluboy

"Now Or Never - Reloaded" - Zuluboy

 From the same part of the world, and with a very similar name - just add "cow" - here is a bonus track from Themba Msomi, the self-styled Zulu Cowboy. It is very mellow stuff. Think Don Williams singing in Zulu, as unlikely as that sounds.

"Abafana" - Themba Msomi

I could have gone from the Zulu Cowboy to Jim Reeves singing in Afrikaans, but I am saving that up for a rainy day. Instead let's go from Zuluboy to the only slightly less authentically African Tarzan Boy.