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Writer's pictureLerato Mohale

The Spirit of Song



"Bawo ! Khusela abantwana bakho... Bawoooooo ! Khusela abantwana bakho !" thousands of voices fill the auditorium. Some voices carry pain whilst others extend healing; some voices bear despair whilst others mirror hope. We raise our hands to the skies as we sing, not only as an act of surrender but to question God's will too. Against the backdrop of the guitar: altos, off-keys and meaning converge. The convergence creates a vibration that grows louder and bolder and deeper until I meet myself at its centre and it holds me still. In stillness there's a silence that allows me to stand toe-to-toe with the truth of who I am; an articulation of God's word. And as I see it within me, I begin to feel it around me. There are waves of intra and inter connectedness where I see myself in the eyes of the stranger standing next to me. In those eyes lies Ntu, the intrinsic oneness in all that exists.


Amapiano is a movement that is dominating the soundwaves from the taverns in the townships of South Africa to state-of-the-art stages around the world. It is a subgenre of house music, a derivative of kwaito fused with jazzy elements. Its sound exhibits the softness of a piano, rawness of the saxophone and depth of the drum slowed down to a BPM of 110-115 on average. It is laced with textured vocals expressing concise words and incoherent chants. It is a sound that was born in 2010 from the painful cries and joyful laughter of the people of the township. It started off as a commercial sound influenced by social conditioning with lyrics centered around drugs, sex and fun. Since then it has gradually evolved and deepened; it now carries our prayers to God and elevates our ancestral vibrations. We pray to God: "yizwa imithandazo yabantwana bakho. Yehlis'umoya wakho wempumelelo. Yizwa imithandazo yabantwana bakho...Nkosi, sikelela," Imithandazo by Kabza De Small. And we give thanks to the spines that carry our prayers to the heavens: "ndiyabulela kini zinyanya. Ndiyabulela kuwe thonga lami," Idlozi lami by DJ Obza. Sicela ushwele uma sisonile and when words fail us we chant: "Iye-e-e ya-ya-ya-ya-aaa! Iye-e-e ya-ya-ya-ya-aaa !" Izono by Kelvin Momo. Our voices release melodies that create a rhythm in our bodies that flows ad libitum. The lyrical content of a song is comprised of spoken words, deep silences and incoherent utterances. Incoherent utterances are a form of prayer and can be interpreted as the language of the spirit. We pray in words and we pray in the spirit. "For I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with understanding," 1 Corinthians 14v14-15.


"There's something about rhythm we hear differently. Every time I thought the song was done and I would send it to him, his response would be 'no man, this song is off...it's off, I can't hear it right. You have to shift the drum.' And I would work on it and send it to him and his response would be 'No'. Until I realized that it's the African rhythm, he will not be able to understand it. I had to insist and say 'this is it'." Black Coffee speaks about the creation of his song I'm fallin' featuring Ry X, a musical artist and producer from Los Angeles. Black Coffee is a multi-award winning musical artist that pioneered Afro Tech pushing the narrative of Africa Rising. Afro Tech is a subgenre of house music defined by 3-step elements: the use of the kick played in a beat of 3, the snare drum that emphasizes the log drum as well as the sub bass. It's a sound that emerged in the early 2000s with close symmetry to Afro House, one would say that the one is a fusion of the other. The depth of this peculiar sound requires an instinctive and intentional ear. In order for you to appreciate its fullness, it requires synchronicity with the bass of the drum. For centuries, the drum has been our source of expression throughout the African landscape. It can be heard in the arid desert of the Sahara, on the lush greenery and golden sandstone of the Drakensburg plateau and it once engulfed the screams that were heard along the slave trade routes in ancient times in West Africa. The drum is the heart of Alkebulan and is the median between flesh and spirit. We are spiritual beings having a human experience; we are in this world but not of this world. Therefore, the drum is a tool used to connect with all that is: the inner, the outer and the in-between.


The drum connects us to the truth of the spirit that exists in all things; we are one voice. The Djembe drum, popularly known as the "African drum" is a percussion instrument that was birthed by Mandinka tribes known as the Numu in West Africa. Some say the name "djembe" stems from the expression "anke djé, anke bé" where "dje" and "be" mean "gather" and "everyone", thus "everyone gather together". It has been the backdrop for storytelling and a gateway used to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next. The djembe was traditionally made from wood and goatskin by blacksmiths and was known to encompass 3 spirits: the spirit of the earth, the spirit of the totem and the spirit of the being whose hands carved it. The djembe's sole purpose is to gather the living unlike the Ngoma which is known to call onto the dead. The Ngoma drum also known as the "drum of the dead" or the "voice of God" is used to evoke the ancestral spirits of the land. It has close relations to the indigenous royal ancestor spirits originating from present day East Africa in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda. The drum moved, evolving into the Ngoma Lungundu. Many centuries ago, Mwali gave the Khalanga people a sacred drum iNgoma Lungundu and were instructed to migrate south into the lakes and waterfalls of the southern tip of Africa. When struck by a divine intercessor from the royal house, the creative cosmology of the waters i.e. hail, fog, rain and thunder would enter the space. Thus, it connected the living being to the divine evoking scientific phenomena.


Ubongoma is a spiritual practice that one can only gain access to through a gift. This gift is from God and granted to a specific bloodline for the sole purpose of healing: healing self, healing the family and healing the nation. Healing is extracted from the source [God] by the spirit [idlozi] through the conduit [the body] and is manifested into the physical environment. Ubungoma means "to be with song" and is expressed through chants, song and dance at the rhythm of the beating drum. Rhythm and drumming permeate the brain as a whole. The sound of drumming creates neuronal connections in all parts of the brain, even where there's significant damage or impairment. The sound engages both the linear, rational left side and the creative, intuitive right side of the brain. This becomes the channel that taps into the light of consciousness and grants the healer access to a well of knowledge and wisdom. Through ingoma a road is mapped and a story is told from the first ancestor down the bloodline to the current custodian of the gift. Song becomes an expression of the seen and unseen, the known and the unknown.

Heka is introduced, an innate sense in human beings that brings forth intuitive creativity. Ancient Kemetic practices exercised Heka (the god of magic) to commune with the celestial sphere. "Scent, sound (chant and music), ritual gesture (including dance), and the observation of celestial phenomena were choreographed with the use of sacred literature to evoke the divine presence into the human sphere." [The Sacred Magic of Ancient Egypt]. Intuitive creativity is the key that unlocks healing.


The power of a song lies within the spoken words it carries; words are assembled by thoughts. A thought is a wave of light through space and time where all possibilities have potential in the spectrum, thus we all have the potential to create through our thoughts. A thought embodies potential energy which is transferred into kinetic energy through the enunciation of a word. Each word has a certain vibration that conforms to or disrupts the flow of energy in the quantum realm. Masaru Emoto was a Japanese pseudo-scientist who proved that human consciousness could affect the molecular structure of water. His theory was that positive words/music created identifiable water crystals whereas negative words/music yielded disruptive molecular formations when frozen. Our bodies and brains are made up of 70% and 80% water respectively. Thus, the soundwaves our words create can either encourage or disrupt the flow of energy in one's body. Words affect not only our consciousness but the consciousness of those we are in contact with. This is achieved through entrainment. Entrainment is the adjustment or moderation of one behaviour either to synchronize or to be in rhythm with another behaviour. All rhythms of life seek harmony by the very nature of the cosmogenesis. Let your words carry light so that life is created within you and around you.


There are two ways sound affects our bodies, through psychoacoustics and vibroacoustics. Psychoacoustics is a science that focuses on how our body receives and interprets sound from a physiological and psychological perspective. Vibroacoustics on the other hand is a science that analyzes how incident soundwaves impact the body on a cellular level. In between the two brain hemispheres lies the pineal gland. Biologically, the pineal gland is documented as an organ that regulates the circadian rhythm by secreting a hormone called melatonin. Spiritually it is known as the "seat of the soul" and has been religiously labeled "the third eye". The third eye is the 6th chakra known as the Ajna which means 'perceive', 'command' or 'beyond wisdom' in Sanskrit. It is a focal point of energy where intuition, insight, inspiration and imagination converge. It can be stimulated through music where a certain frequency activates it and releases a positive charge in the brain. According to quantum physics, everything is energy and energy is vibration. Each cell in the human body has a unique vibration and frequency. Therefore, listening to a certain sound comprised of waves at a frequency that assimilates with the inner vibration of the body elevates it into a higher state of consciousness.


Music composition includes notes where there is an absence of sound known as a "rest". Rest is a moment of silence which holds one still; for outer silence creates inner stillness. There is music in silence, an undeniable vibration. This vibration is felt in the rhythm of your breath, to the thumping of your heart and tingling in your toes. There's a flow of energy illuminating the chakras within God's temple, your body. Silence carries a loudness that is almost deafening. The deeper you go into it, the closer you are to the sound of God's voice. "Be still and know that I am God," Psalms 46v10. Allow God's voice to flow in you and through you designing a higher vibrational frequency leading you to your innate creativity and healing.





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