Three people can’t speak for us

LET me start by saying I love Khaya Mthethwa’s work. Although he wasn’t my favourite contestant on last year’s Idols, it’s undeniable that he is immensely talented. That he’s here to stay is just one of those things we have to get used to.

So, for some it was no surprise when his choir won Clash Of the Choirs last weekend. But others wondered whether he really was the most talented choirmaster of the first Clash Of the Choirs season in South Africa. I don’t think so. The first thing Mthethwa had as a disadvantage was experience. Being put on a stage with artists such as Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse, Winnie Khumalo, Thembi Seete, Judith Sephuma, Zwai Bala and Zakes Bantwini meant that Mthethwa was the underdog. Everyone else has been making music for a while and know what it takes to perform on a stage.

Then comes the issue of the judges panel. From the onset, the selected bunch were always questionable. Except for Lindelani Mkhize, the other two, Rebecca Malope and Anele Mdoda, were in over their heads when it comes to choral music.

Granted, Malope has about 33 gospel albums, but all those are solo projects with Malope and a few back-up singers.

Mdoda is a radio personality who has probably never played a choral song in her career. This mismatch showedwhen the three officials had to assess any act, and three things would happen each week: Malope would tell the contestants that she loved them, Mdoda would say what worked for her, but only Mkhize gave a profound technical assessment and advice to all groups.

This suggests that not enough thought was put into the question of who should have been on the judges panel. Imagine if Mkhize was joined by Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and someone from Ncandweni Christ Ambassadors.

These would have been a formidable team. We are, after all, talking about a choral show.

The next glitch was that choirs were named by region. Each choirmaster had to go to one of the provinces to dig and find the best voices there. What that does, as usual, is fragment the country on provincial grounds. Given that all South African provinces do not have the same number of people, some areas instantly have an advantage over others. A similar argument is raised with Big Brother Africa, given that Nigeria keeps winning.

Why not choose teams based on talent and just name them “red”, “blue” or “green” so that voters do not look past the talent? As it is, anything put to public voting with a KwaZulu-Natal contestant is most likely to go there. It happens even at the Samas and it gets you wondering if people vote on merit or to support their own.

It really did give Mthethwa a push that his choir was from KZN, but it guaranteed him the top spot when he, too, happened to be from there. If Mthethwa was not billed to win, why didn’t he get another province, like Mpumalanga or Limpopo? Bantwini is also from KZN; why didn’t he get to represent his home province instead of Gauteng?

Makes you wonder just how much of this show was real.

Apart from having the most popular choir, Mthethwa had the Joyous Celebration crowd in his corner. Being a close follower of Idols last year, I would bump into several members of the choir at the live recordings of the show. They all openly professed their love for their own and there is nothing wrong with that.

What should never be underestimated is the influence Joyous Celebration has, not only locally but across Africa.

Still on Joyous, it didn’t help that one of the judges, Mkhize, is affiliated to the winner of the competition. Doesn’t that pose some questions when it comes to impartiality?

Also, the only time he spoke of Mthethwa’s crew doing a bad job fit to warrant eviction was when there were no evictions that week. Coincidence? I think not.

There is a need to revisit just how much power the judges have from the onset.

The voting lines should have been opened from the first episode after auditions were completed.

It was wrong for judges to have a say on who should stay and otherwise because perhaps South Africa felt differently. Three people can’t speak for a nation.

Well done, Mthethwa and crew. Here’s hoping this is not read as an attack on the person but merely on the organisation of this production, which had many oversights that in turn might have had some serious repercussions.