Row continues over Ras Dumisani "singing" South Africa's national anthem

In Toulouse last Friday the French national rugby team took on the might of the reigning world champions South Africa - and won 20-13.

A fantastic victory for Les Bleus over the Springboks, but not the only reason the game made the headlines.

Instead the focus has been on the rather wayward singing (and that's putting it politely) of the visiting team's national anthem before the game started as self-styled "South Africa's biggest reggae man" Ras Dumisani gave what everyone seems to agree was an unforgettable performance of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika".

"Mauled, mutilated and murdered" is pretty much the description that summed up what most on the pitch, in the stadium and commentary boxes or at home in front of the small screen thought of Dumisani's rendition.

After the match the Springboks' trainer, Peter de Villiers accused French organisers of having shown a lack of respect by having someone sing the South African national anthem who clearly wasn't up to the job.

"I just want to say that the South African national anthem was performed by someone who didn't know how to sing properly," he said

But as far as the French were concerned the fault lay not with them, but with South Africa for having "chosen" Dumisani in the first place.

"Every time we host an international match we ask the embassy here in France of the visiting country to suggest someone to sing their anthem," said Joseph Maso, the manager of Les Bleus.

"It was therefore the South African embassy which put forward his name and we respected that choice," he added.

The tale might have ended there except that over the weekend it continued making headlines in South Africa with commentators going as far as to blame Dumisani for the Springboks' defeat.

On Monday the country's rugby federation expressed its "shock and horror at the interpretation of the national anthem" in a letter addressed to its French equivalent, and some South African politicians even stepped into the debate calling Dumisani's interpretation a "vocal misfire".

A Facebook page to "Ban Ras Dumisani From Ever Singing Again" already has over 3,000 "fans".

In fact the whole incident has taken on almost diplomatic proportions after the South African embassy in Paris issued a statement on Monday saying that its role had been limited to supplying information on South Africans living in France who might be able to sing the anthem.

And while it had provided the organisers with Dumisani's name it hadn't necessarily "constituted a recommendation because nobody had ever attended any of the singer's concerts and he was not, moreover, a renowned artist."

As for the main protagonist in the tale, well his version of events seems to have changed as the story has escalated.

At first he insisted that he couldn't see (or hear) much wrong with his performance.

"Nobody told me they were upset with the singing," he insisted.

"The Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika has been my tune since a baby," he said. "How can I not know the words?"

But as the furore in South Africa continued, he changed his tune (sorry) somewhat and blamed the organisers for having provided him with outdated material in the form of an old cordless microphone and monitor.

All right so you've read all about it. Now it's time to hear what players, spectators and television viewers were subjected to as Dumisani belted out his rendition of "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika".

This and other videos of the same performance currently circulating on the Net, should perhaps carry some sort of health warning, and surely even the most tone deaf among us couldn't fail to recognise just how much of a hash Dumisani made of it.

Or as the South African commentator says (more kindly) at the end, "This is a highly experience South African team, but none of them will have experienced their national anthem being sung quite like that."

Happy listening?



For those of you who managed to make it through the clip and can't hear anything wrong with it, maybe you're unfamiliar with how the South African national anthem usually sounds, here's a - how to put it - more traditional version.

Or in other words - how it should sound when sung properly.

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika
par TxupaTxups