When I was young, at about six or seven years of age, when the music channel, Channel O was a free-to-watch channel, my brother listened to music, and watched music videos from Channel O so much that I ended up being influenced to love music just as he did.
I am talking about the late 90s – back when you would wait for your favourite song to play on the local radio station and record it using a cassette tape. The days when you would manually rewind a tape by inserting a pen/ pencil or your index finger in the cassette reel … remember those days?
Fast forward to my teens growing up in the small town of Margate, KwaZulu-Natal when I came across the song "Fragile Heart" by Yolanda Adams in one of my brother’s many R&B CDs (note the upgrade!), and fell in love with it. Being a young and naïve teenager who had started developing romantic feelings for boys, I thought it was a love song.
While cleaning on Sundays I would sing the lyrics loudly, “You see my fragile heart’s been broken, and you’re the only one who can put it all together again”, and feel it in the depths of my soul because here I was trusting another boy to mend this fragile heart of mine that had been broken into pieces by someone else before him (let’s laugh together!).
When I became an adult, I learnt that I was wrong the whole time and that the song was actually dedicated to a deity. It is strange that this revelation came to me so late because I even had a songbook in which I inscribed the lyrics of all my favourite songs in high school. But then again, who wrote the correct lyrics in their songbooks back then? We all wrote song lyrics based on what we could hear. As a result, because I was convinced Fragile Heart was a love song, I completely missed the many parts where Adams addressed the Lord.
This begs the question, what constitutes a gospel song? Is it the lyrics and the overall message, or the sound and beat of the song? Does a song have to sound a certain way for it to be classified under the gospel genre?
Hidden Spiritual Messages
During level 5 of the national lockdown in South Africa, which was a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, I learnt that DJ Zinhle’s song "Umlilo" was a spiritual song based on bible scriptures despite it being a dance song by genre. I watched a video where DJ Zinhle’s friend, Nomuzi Mabena, broke down the song while preaching at her church, and I was shocked! Shocked because, yet again, I had fallen into the trap of assuming that a song speaking about love related to a love for a romantic partner, just like I did with Fragile Heart in the past.
When I first heard Umlilo, I thought that it was a song by a woman dedicated to her partner, praising him for the kind of love that he gives her. A love so amazing that she just had to tell the world about it.
The part where the vocalist, Rethabile Khumalo sings “Uthando lwakho ludala imilingo, kusukuma izishosha” had me convinced that my assumption on the meaning of the song was correct. “If this love creates magic, then it must be the one!” I thought.
I later realised that, in the song, Khumalo is singing about God’s love because when I think about it in the context of Gospel, she is proclaiming that God’s love creates miracles. “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped” (Isaiah35:5 NKJV). She also later says that she cannot speak on anyone’s behalf, however, she will tell the world about God’s love.
I think I just realised that I am obsessed with the love of men, and this is embarrassing!
The concept of creating different sounds for gospel songs is obviously not a new one, because I have heard a lot of worship songs with elements of R&B and hip hop in them, from American artists.
South African artists are also tapping into this “different kind of gospel” space when composing their songs lately, and I am very excited!
Remember Master KG and Nomcebo Zikode's gospel-influenced dance song, "Jerusalema" that was loved globally?
In December 2020, a local artist from Port Shepstone named Yanga Gani, also known as Gani-Y, released a song titled "Holy". Holy, which is a single from Innovative Talented Young Minds’ (IN.TYM) music compilation titled Respect the Process, is a gospel song by message but hip hop by sound design. Meaning the lyrics praise God, while the sound is young and vibey and very much unlike the traditional distinct sounds that many South African gospel artists create. I am generally not a fan of gospel music, but Holy had me bopping!
Brenden Praise also recently released a song titled "Mukutsuri", which means 'Redeemer' in XiTsonga. It has been categorised under the dance genre even though it is a gospel song by message, and it is a banger!
I hope more young South African artists will be inspired to use innovative methods to spread the word of God through their music and heal people like me who do not like traditional gospel songs in the process.
