Old School Kwaito singer Msawawa performed to a confused audience in Botswana. It’s hard to believe that Siboniso Dlamini, also known as Msawawa, was once a Major Kwaito hitmaker. Msawawa made a name for himself when he was eight years old and became a child star.
The young man made history when he released his first single called Wawungakanani, sampling a song called My love is Free by an American band called Double Exposure. The song is from 1976.
Msawawa broke records with this song, giving the high rollers of the industry at the time, like Mandoza and Mzambiya, a run for their money.
A few years after that, he fell off, and it was reported that he was broke; Dlamini also left Johannesburg and returned home after getting on the wrong side of the law.
The video that is circulating of him performing to a non-responsive crowd comes as the artist is in the process of reviving his music career.
Msawawa took a gig in Botswana and performed vigorously, but the audience didn’t recognise his music or him.
Dlamini is now in his 30s; he has been out of the music industry for over 15 years; the people who once enjoyed his music are now fathers and mothers who don’t attend these concerts anymore. Also, most of his fans are in South Africa, and the song he is performing has never been heard before.
These are the feelings expressed in Entertainment blogger Musa Khawula’s post about Msawawa’s performance.
Msawawa kept calling for people to sing along to this song and it was crickets.
The comment section went wild and started comparing this situation to Andile Mpisane’s when he performed to confused audiences in Pretoria recently.
A Famous Twitter account called @ChrisExcel said
“His only mistake was to grow up shem.. we loved him more when he was a bikinini https://t.co/HiZSuzxAVO”
It’s not difficult to understand why some feel like he should have just performed his old songs like Bhibo to get some kind of response.
Dlamini has recently gone back to make new music with his old record label, BullDawgz entertainment, where Mzambiya is also taking residence.
The two used to be compared to each other in the 90s because of the similarities in their music and the fact that they were both child star Kwaito musicians at the time.
It deserves to be mentioned that there were some in the comment section who thought the song sounded good.
Watch Msawawa’s embarrassing video in Botswana below:
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