Tsonga Tuesday

As long-standing readers may recall, there was a time when this blog had a mission - to bring Tsonga Disco to the masses. Discovering the delights of this pop music from north-east South Africa and southern Mozambique (the home of the Tsonga or Shangaan people) was what motivated me to start the blog in the first place.

That was 11 years ago and the mission has long since been abandoned, I'm ashamed to say. Not because of any reduced enthusiasm on my part, but because my sources of new Tsonga Disco have largely dried up. It is still the most popular stuff on the blog though, and every few months I'll get an email from an enthusiastic DJ - usually from the US or the Netherlands for some reason - asking for my help in tracking down more of it.

That happened again at the weekend and it got me thinking. I may not have acquired any new LPs for two or three years, but there are many tracks on the LPs I have got that haven't featured here yet. So my New Year's resolution is to get back into the old Tsonga swing of things, and to post a couple of tracks at least once a month.

We kick things off with a couple of folks who have each only featured here once before and for whom a follow up is long overdue.

"Kholwa" - Simon Baloyi & The Manguru Sisters

"Ava Kuli" - Lucy Shivambu