The South African production and vocal trio releases the video for their country-wide hit, after months of viral dance challenges and millions of streams.
A few months ago, as often in the South African music scene, a short snippet of an infectious chorus was released only on social media: “Namhla senz’umlando” (roughly translated as “today we’re making history”). The extract was accompanied by a video of a young shirtless man, wearing iconic Jonathan D shoes and a bucket hat, doing a funny and contagious choreography on unorthodox sites like a table, a trolley a shower… In a few days, the extract went completely viral, occupying the space of online dance challenges, and “uMlando” was officially released in January 2022, with 9umba and Mdoovar on production and Toss, Sir Trill, Sino Msolo, Lady Du, Young Stunna and Slade on vocals. Two months later, the single is platinum and accumulates 270 million views on Tik Tok.
“‘uMlando’ has changed our lives and has given us hope since we’ve been the underdogs for too long”, says 9umba. Mdoovar adds: “”uMlando is proof that there is always power in numbers, we are stronger together than apart.” “It’s great to see a dance that started as a social media sensation turn into a whole music video! I definitely had fun rocking with everybody on set,” Toss concludes.
Shot in the township, the visuals feature scenes of different people from different generations, imitating Toss’ viral hip dance move alongside the amapiano superstar vocalists. It also authentically showcases many Kasi (township) culture elements: Jägermeister bottles, street hairdressers, bucket hats… From a 40 second extract to a full-length video, no doubt “uMlando” will continue to resonate in every South African nightclub!
Listen to “uMlando” in our Songs of the Week playlist on Spotify and Deezer.
