They have been in the music industry for several years, but it wasn’t until they released “John Vuli Gate” (in collaboration with Ntosh Gazi and Colano) that the two-man South African band Mapara A Jazz caught the attention of the nation and even earned a little global resonance.
The title of the song has made some people assume that “John Vuli Gate” is a person. It isn’t. The title was actually adopted from a scene in the flick Tsotsi. The scene shows a lady being kidnapped along with her child. The desperate woman had implored the security man to open the gate. Thus came the phrase “John Vuli Gate.”
Released in August, many slept on the song until two months later, in October, when the song blew up and went global with a dance challenge that is ongoing. Determined to milk the recently found publicity and fame from the success of the “John Vuli Gate” song, the band mates had released an album of the same title.
“John Vuli Gate” the song had elicited some controversies after it blew up. McMillan “Man Malaya,” one of the songsters who make up the Mapara A Jazz group, has been accused by his own brother Ndivhuwo Nephawe of stealing the “John Vuli Gate” song from his band Scara Chilli Ya Baba.
Ndivhuwo Nephawe had claimed that Mapara A Jazz had stolen the song when they were invited to a listening session by Scara Chilli Ya Baba in July. That’s a month before Mapara A Jazz released the song.
The controversies notwithstanding, “John Vuli Gate” is one song with the capacity to jazz up your day and take you to new planes of musical ecstasy. If you care for the exuberant – for a liberating musical experience – you should have “John Vuli Gate” on your playlist.
