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“Amabhinca” do it again as they rule the airwaves on Ukhozi FM’s Song of the Year

Sihle Mkhize

Ukhozi FM’s Top 10 voting for the Song of the Year is arguably the most talked about event of the festive season, and the legal battles between the popular radio station and Owen Ndlovu who claims to own the rights to the event adds that much needed spice to the New Year’s Eve showdown.

In 2019, Ndlovu successfully filed an interdict and stopped Ukhozi from playing nor announcing the winners which only then happened in March 2020. But this time around the courts ruled against him, and granted Ukhozi FM the right to go ahead with the event much to the jubilation of millions of its listeners.

But there is also a more interesting battle that happens with the voting with Amabhinca – a blanket name for Maskandi music followers – going all out to outvote all the other popular music genres to have their song played when the clock hits 12 o’clock on December 31. The name Amabhinca was initially meant as an insult as it refered to people who are backwards in life and not embracing the modern ways of living, but instead of crying foul, they’ve just ran with it and made it popular.

With widely popular songs like Big Zulu’s Imal’eningi, which has some Maskandi influences and made more popular by the #DuduzaneZumaWalkChallenge, there was more interest to see if he could give the likes of Khuzani Mpungose and Igcokama Elisha a run for their money.

But Amabhinca proved unbeatable as Khuzani was just over 40 000 votes short of a cool million with his hit ‘Ijele’, ultimately taking the big prize – Song of the Year.

But it must have been an obvious choice given its cross-over appeal which saw it become the theme song at every party, wedding and any other ceremony this festive season. It’s lyrics, especially the part where it says “a marriage is not prison” and encourages couples to not change the rules of their relationship as soon as they get married resonated with a lot of people.

It was just and fair that it took the man known as Indlamlenze to the history books.
Coming in second place was Igcokama Elisha which means Amabhinca amounted to more than 1.5-million votes alone, as he is also a Maskandi king.
Big Zulu was big enough to accept his defeat and congratulated Khuzani and Igcokama.

“I take this opportunity to congratulate my brothers Khuzani and Mthandeni. Let’s continue with this beautiful game,” Big Zulu said.

Amabhinca’s domination on Ukhozi FM’s countdown charts started in 2017 with Mroza Fakude’s Siyobulal’uVan Damme winning the first ever Song of the Year when it was across all SABC radio stations.
Two years later Ntencane continued to make Maskandi music fashionable and trend scooping song of the year tittle with 433 000 votes, with his hit Wawuthembeni.

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