TROLLED OVER ANTHEM BUNGLE
Kurt Darren admits singing wrong lyrics at Varsity Cup final but asks, is this really news?
“WHY on earth am I trending?” asked Kurt Darren during The
Eusebius McKaiser Show on talk radio 702 yesterday morning.
“I’m not going to disrespect our anthem, I love singing it. It’s always an honour to sing our anthem. I woke up to this massive storm, and it’s so funny to me... is it really news?
“Yes I messed up one line in the anthem, but singing in front of 20000 students at the Varsity Cup final is a completely different animal to singing to a test or Super 15, it’s just crazy… know the anthem, I know I was there to sing it and do it properly and it’s weird that it erupted this way.”
McKaiser asked: “Why didn’t you know the lines, though? It’s the national anthem, you had 25 years to learn it.”
“Are you carrying on with it now?” Darren replied.
McKaiser said: “You are a professional singer – 25 years later, you had only one job to do.”
Darren sighed. “Anyway, all right, have a lekker day”, before dropping the line.
If you need reminding, the Afrikaans singer landed himself in hot water for getting the national anthem wrong during the Varsity Cup finals between Maties and Tuks at the Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch on Monday night.
In a video clip that went viral, the Kaptein hitmaker is heard stumbling over the Zulu and Sesotho part of the anthem.
He sang, “Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso” instead of continuing with
“O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho”, then he quickly reverted back to the end of the first stanza, singing:
“Yizwa imithandazo, yethu”, getting everyone confused.
The spectators and the players kept looking at each other with puzzled looks.
Twitter started bashing the singer for not knowing the national anthem. “You could have practised. You could have. You could have asked someone to help you. You could have refused to stand there and insult us. But no” tweeted @ AnalysisPirates.
“Kurt Darren proudly and confidently belting out made-up lyrics to the national anthem in a packed stadium is the best example of the kind of peak mediocrity nurtured by a corrupt racist state (and its continued legacy),” commented another Twitter user, @ MaS1banda.
“It’s disgusting that Kurt Darren took the gig when he knew he didn’t know the national anthem,” added Twitter user @iamkagi_styles.