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Shosholoza sung as a welcome to Eugene Skeef by Tongues of Fire choir

2,322 views · Published 2 December 2013 · 5:40 · Indexed 3 October 2026

Channel: Eugene Skeef · 2013 · Music

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Shosholoza! -- sung to me as a welcome by Tongues of Fire, Yani's adult choir in Brisbane.

I first taught this song in the UK when I left my homeland South Africa to go into exile. I used to teach people to sing it as a way of sustaining my memory of the joy of my cultural heritage that the racist apartheid regime would never be able to extinguish. I taught the song to orchestras, children and teachers in schools, inmates of prisons and in communities across the UK and Europe.

Nothing had prepared me for the uplifting experience of hearing a mixed group of people sing one of my people's most popular songs back to me with such passion and conviction as if it were their own -- which indeed it is. In my global travels, rarely have I been made to feel more proud of coming from where I come from. Rarely, also, have I felt this unadulterated sense of humanity that makes us one, no matter where on this planet our seed may have been planted.

Thank you eternally, Tongues of Fire!

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