In the spotlight: From an artist to a poet...

In June 2020, South African poet, professor and sculptor PITIKA NTULI completed a collection of sculptures made mostly of bones. A number of his lifelong friends and collaborators recorded praise songs to accompany these works in what became the international award-winning virtual exhibition, Azibuyele Emasisweni (Return to the Source).

Sibongile Khumalo was one of these people. Ntuli remembers her here …

Where do you begin to write something about a legend like Sibongile Khumalo? A consummate artist. A moving spirit armed with deep memories of our beginnings. With a voice like bazookas. But then, a voice with healing herbs to soothe our pains. At home and abroad we rubbed shoulders, linked together by our love for our people and art as the language we used to carve spaces of expression without fear or doubt.

After 33 years in exile, one of my dreams was to work together with her. By then she was a leading light shining across the globe. Celebrated and loved.

Her work with Princess Magogo on traditional and classical compositions set a standard unmatched to this day.

She has ancestors, and when they command her to open her mouth, people must begin to move in their own rhythms, responding to her songs.

When Azibuyele Emasisweni, the bone exhibition, was gestating, Sibongile was one of the first artists I approached to collaborate. She was joined by Yvonne Chaka-Chaka, Napo Masheane, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and others. What a contribution she made. Her words, lucid and uncompromising, gripped us with such power our eyes were unable to remain dry. Tears of joy, loss, hope, desire and dreams flowed. During one of my birthday celebrations she was caught by ancestors who demanded a new song, unrehearsed, spontaneous and riveting.

She sang under my wife’s armpit! Her family, our family, our country and the world have lost a force, a voice inimitable, deep and free.