Sibongile Khumalo

Sibongile Khumalo was born on 24 September 1957 in Orlando West, Soweto, into a household where music was not merely appreciated, but lived. Her father, Professor Khabi Mngoma, was a historian and professor of music at the University of Zululand and founder of a celebrated choir. Her mother, Grace, was a nurse with a naturally rich alto voice. It was an upbringing that made a musical life feel not just possible but inevitable.

She began studying violin, singing, drama and dance at the age of eight under the guidance of Emily Motsieloa, and by fourteen had set her heart on opera. Her father, aware of the near-impossibility of a career in opera for a Black South African woman at that time, initially discouraged her. She pursued it regardless. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts in Music from the University of Zululand and an Honours degree from Wits, before building a career that made the very idea of those barriers seem absurd.

What made Khumalo singular was her refusal to be contained by any single genre. Trained in classical music, she wove jazz, traditional African music and indigenous languages into a sound that was entirely and unmistakably her own. Her debut album Ancient Evenings, released in 1996, featured African hymns sung primarily in indigenous languages and won two South African Music Awards immediately, for Best Female Vocal Performance and Best Adult Contemporary Performance. Live at the Market Theatre followed in 1998, Immortal Secrets in 2000, Quest in 2002, and Breath of Life in 2016, each album deepening a reputation that had long since crossed borders.

Her hits Mayihlome and Thula Mama became genuine household names, and her voice graced some of the most significant moments in post-apartheid South African history. She sang at Nelson Mandela's inauguration in 1994, performed at his 75th birthday celebrations and at the Two Nations Celebrate concert held in his honour at the Royal Albert Hall in London. In 1995, she led both national anthems at the Rugby World Cup final.

Her awards were considerable. She received four South African Music Awards, three FNB Vita Awards including Best Performance in a Leading Role in an Opera, the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music in 1993, the Naledi Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, and the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver from the South African government in 2008. Rhodes University, UNISA and the University of Zululand each awarded her honorary doctorates. In 2007 she founded her own label, Magnolia Vision Records, and later established the Khabi Mngoma Foundation to preserve and promote indigenous music and dance.

Sibongile Khumalo died on 28 January 2021 at the age of 63. South Africa lost a voice of extraordinary range that day, in every sense of the word.