Apple Music Home Session: Bongeziwe Mabandla

For a special Africa Month edition of our Apple Music Home Sessions—in which we ask artists to record stripped-back versions of their biggest hits, along with covers of some timeless classics—South African folk singer Bongeziwe Mabandla revisits some of his favourite homegrown hits. Here, the artist reimagines Brenda Fassie’s 1989 hit single “Too Late for Mama”, and maskandi duo Shhi no Mtekhala’s 2004 single, “Ngafa”.

“Brenda has been very influential in my life as an artist,” Mabandla tells Apple Music. “I remember when I was young her music was always around me, and I grew up admiring her, so to do this cover so many years later takes me back to my childhood. It’s also the lyrics. It’s very interesting to me that Brenda was known for pop songs, but in this song you hear another emotional quality and a strong message. It was special bringing out the meaning that is sometimes missed."

“It is the same with Shwi no Mtekhala,” he continues. “I fell in love with their music and how it seems to contextualise South African life. I have always loved ‘Ngafa’ but it was only after a long time of knowing the song that I started to focus on the words and, when I did, I was in tears hearing such vulnerability.”

He also reimagines “soze”, his own track from the 2023 album amaXhesa. “I’m an artist who is forever trying to evolve and grow and I think this track is testament to that,” Mabandla explains. “It’s a very experimental song for me and it has elements that I have never done before. 'Soze' means ‘never’, with the sentence of the chorus being ‘I will never forget you’. The song is about understanding that life is short and that there is not a lot of time left, so it’s important to say how you truly feel. It’s about remembering someone beyond the physical world and having a love or connection that is eternal.”