{"id":227041,"date":"2025-05-06T16:10:05","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T16:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/african-music\/jabulile-majola-crafts-an-intimate-soundscape-of-remembered-spaces-on-debut-ep-isitifiketi-texx-and-the-city\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T16:10:05","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T16:10:05","slug":"jabulile-majola-crafts-an-intimate-soundscape-of-remembered-spaces-on-debut-ep-isitifiketi-texx-and-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=227041","title":{"rendered":"Jabulile Majola crafts an intimate soundscape of remembered spaces on debut EP Isitifiketi \u2013 Texx and the City"},"content":{"rendered":"


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We featured the incredible Jabulile Majola<\/a> early last year as one of our first ever #SpotlightOn artists. Back then, he spoke of the ancient spirit that was inherent in his music, the sacred energy that permeated his words, like an old person telling a folktale.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that when people listen to me they feel like it\u2019s their grandfather or their grandmother speaking to them,\u201d he told us.<\/p>\n

His falsettos ache with sympathy, offering an acoustic vulnerability that spans the realms of memory, faith, love and loss, and he draws on these themes for his debut EP, Isitifiketi<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Zulu word \u201cisitifiketi\u201d translates to \u201ccertificate\u201d in English\u2014something witnessed and recognised. And for Majola, this project is exactly that. An archival record of where he\u2019s been, who he\u2019s become, and the stories that have shaped him.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up in a Children\u2019s Home in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, storytelling was everything for me,\u201d Majola says. \u201cFrom folk tales to stories about the world beyond. Life in the countryside was slow, and our imaginations made distant places feel close. Isitifiketi<\/em> is a window into that world\u2014a reflection on my faith, my memory, and my journey of becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through sparse arrangements and a gentle lyrical nature, Majola crafts an intimate soundscape of remembered spaces. Fields, kitchens, gardens\u2014places where love and its absence seem to coexist.<\/p>\n

Familiar favourite \u201cWoza Mntana\u201d\u2014now remastered by Mike Zietsman and mixed by Ross Dorkin of Beatenberg\u2014sets the tone for this delicate seven-track offering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsineke\u201d featuring Thando Zide and \u201cuBhubesi\u201d follow, showcasing Majola\u2019s incredible artistry \u2013 as a lyricist, an instrumentalist, and as a composer.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s closing track \u201cUyinkosi Yamakhosi\u201d that really gets you. It\u2019s listens as a lullaby, with a melody that is at once strangely familiar. The words \u201challelujah\u201d have never been sung with such specific tone, such tender intonation, yet, somehow, it\u2019s like we\u2019ve heard them a million times before.<\/p>\n

Even if you aren\u2019t religious, even if you\u2019ve never step foot inside a church before, Majola\u2019s final hymn is a universal incantation that evokes an invisible thread, a kind of understanding or invisible feeling, that connects us all as human beings. And this is his greatest achievement on Isitifiketi<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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