Before he knew it, he moved to Pretoria (the Nashville of Afrikaans music), was recording his first album and playing 280 gigs a year to enraptured audiences that were 99 percent White (the demographics have changed a bit since Refentse came onto the scene). There, Refentse was approached by Sony, but he told them to wait.Īfter he graduated high school, he picked up the phone and hammered out a deal. A couple of months later he was playing at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees in Oudtshoorn, a massive annual celebration of all things Afrikaans. The Sunday after “De La Rey” went viral, Refentse was on the cover of national Afrikaans weekly Beeld. The events of February 2015 put those plans on ice. Soīut where does this cultural chameleon come from? Wanted to make a statement that “I am neutral, and I am singing the song. Sing that song.” Acknowledging that some people see the song as a weapon, he Video,” the singer did think it was “an important statement for a Black man to While Refentse says he had “zero intention of making a viral Refentse’s viral rendition did a lot to “diffuse some of the tension” surrounding the song and was seen by many as “a moment of hope,” says Grundling.
Bok van Blerk’s 2006 hit “De La Rey” - a plea to a long-dead Boer War general to come back and lead his people - polarized the Afrikaans community with its nationalist undertones. It really made heads turn because of the song he chose to sing. It wasn’t only remarkable because Refentse - who speaks Sesotho at home - was singing in perfect, unaccented Afrikaans, the language once associated with apartheid. “Even if they can’t always pronounce his name.”īut getting back to that viral video.
“The Afrikaans public adore him,” says author, journalist and music critic Erns Grundling. After signing with Select Musiek (a division of Sony) he won four Ghoema awards (Afrikaans Grammys) for his first album My Hart Bly in ’ n Taal (My Heart Lives in a Language) which was the biggest-selling South African album of 2017, in any language. Now at almost 22, Refentse has established himself as one of the biggest music stars in South Africa.
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