By Buziwe Nocuze
- Zibonele FM organised a successful maskandi festival featuring big stars like Khuzani and Phuzekhemisi at Khayelitsha Stadium.
- The peaceful event gave residents a break from crime worries while supporting local artists and businesses in the community.
Khayelitsha residents forgot about crime and stress for a day as they danced to maskandi music at their local stadium on Saturday.
The festival organised by Zibonele FM brought big stars like Khuzani, Stabhilithi, Limit Nala, Mduduzi Mncube, uMafikizolo and Phuzekhemisi to Cape Town.
Yoliswa Nakani, 45, was thrilled to see Mduduzi perform live.
“We are grateful to Zibonele for what they did. Some of us don’t have money to see these artists in other places. We also managed to forget about the bad things like crime and murders in our community,” she said.
For Vuyolwethu Ndodela, 55, the event showed a different side of Khayelitsha.
“Khayelitsha is known for all the bad things. To have such events gives us hope and shows other people that good things are happening here,” he said.
Singer Limit Nala was surprised by his Cape Town welcome.
“I didn’t know that I had people who love me. I was shocked when I heard them singing along with me. I didn’t know that they played maskandi in Cape Town,” he said.
Zibonele FM’s Zweli Nokhatywa said the peaceful event achieved its goals.
“We didn’t have any incidents of people fighting. The aim was for them to be happy and give them time off from working hard,” he said.
The festival also helped local artists and businesses.
“We include our local artists so they can be motivated. We also give local business people a chance to sell their goods in the stadium,” said Nokhatywa.
Pictured above: The Khayelitsha community sings along with their favourite artists at the Khayelitsha Maskandi festival held at the Khayelitsha Stadium in Cape Town.
Source: Buziwe Nocuze
