Mandoza — Nkalakatha (2000)

Mduduzi Tshabalala grew up in Zola, Soweto, and Nkalakatha — 'the big boss' — was the record that made him a national figure. Released in 2000, it fused kwaito's slow township groove with rock guitars, and that single production decision did something no SA song had managed since 1994: it played on Yfm and 5FM, at Oppikoppi and at Ushaka, in Sandton and in Bothaville, without changing a note.

It arrived just as Mzansi youth culture was going online. Yfm's Jozi audience were the first South Africans trading MP3s in internet cafés and on early cellphones, and Nkalakatha was one of the first SA tracks passed hand to hand as a file rather than a cassette. Kasi dance crews filmed themselves to it on borrowed handycams, and those tapes are among the oldest South African user-made music videos anyone still has.

When Mandoza died in 2016, South Africa played Nkalakatha for a week straight, and the archive uploads spiked to their highest level ever. It has since settled into permanent rotation: braai playlists, stadium PAs, Heritage Day, matric dances. More than 31 million views across Mzansi uploads, and none of them driven by anything except South Africans deciding, again, to play it.