VUYOKAZI NGEMNTU

I don’t think we give amahubo the credit they deserve. Songs that act as battle cries, as invocations and as declarations of the intent to return to the centre? Come on. Faith-based music as a whole, actually. Minus the dogma and scapegoating, I’ve seen myself get touched (without consent…hmm…problematic!) by a ‘gospel’ song. One minute you’re in the middle of your personal resistance struggle, the next you’re compelled to surrender. As soon as the first teardrop trickles, the cave in your chest collapses. Your lungs stretch out their arms, desperate to grab on to some air. Skin tingling all over and pulse racing, you submit to the song. Let it submerge you and wash you in its truth. If all goes well, you’ll be left to dry for that entire day, grateful someone else found the words to give full vent to the feelings you’ve been too afraid/ hesitant/ busy to feel.

There is a level of honesty in these songs that we hardly attain in our conversations with the world about ourselves.

It’s not good manners to walk up to a stranger and confess, ‘Ndililolo mna, int’ engenabani, int’ engenabani!’  Nor is it polite to break down in public and scream, ‘Bizan’ umam’ avele, nd’yonakalelwa!’

But in the middle of a field, inside a vinyl tent, filled with strangers who are honest about their own need for healing? Totes! There, the drumbeat commands it, sending its rhythmic pulse through your feet, up your spine and down the network of veins, internal organs and bones that constitute the body you are yearning to escape, even on a subconscious level, having realised how it holds you back from formlessless. You’re instantly compelled to travel as light, feet shuffling in tune to the music, voice charging your chakras as you twirl and jerk your limbs this way and that.

You’re not even sure who starts it but soon a circle formation erupts, bodies moving in a uniform, cyclical fashion. Energy bursting forth from one body to another in a sacred spiral. A connection circuit of ascending energies. Beauty. Honesty. Vulnerability. Community. Catharsis. I should be crying. There is no reason why I’m not in despair. A lyric from a devotional song by a musician on my list of friends, has been my anchor since yesterday. The moments in which I have felt this song’s fibres massage my diaphragm are more than I can count. A gentle salve. A reconnection network. A surrogacy in prayer when my own words have temporarily lost their wings. Chosi-camagu.