Jerusalema

Master KG recorded the beat on 11 August 2019, posted a snippet on social media and liked the response enough to call in the singer he describes as his sister, Nomcebo Zikode, to finish the song. Her Zulu vocal, gospel-tinged and full of longing for Jerusalem as a spiritual home, sits over an upbeat house groove. Released that November, it passed a million YouTube views in its first week and became a favourite in South African clubs. Some dismissed it as mere tavern music. By his account, Master KG told them to wait and see what tavern music could do to the world. The answer came during the pandemic summer of 2020. A candid video of a group of Angolan friends dancing a routine to the song set off the #JerusalemaChallenge, and soon people were filming the steps across Europe, the Americas and beyond, including in Jerusalem itself. Workers danced on the tarmac of Berlin's Tegel Airport, and Swiss federal police challenged Ireland's Garda to a dance-off, which they accepted. A remix with Burna Boy reached number one in Belgium, the Netherlands, Romania and Switzerland, and the video went on to half a billion views. Success brought friction too. Warner began asking for compensation from some challenge videos, and in 2021 Nomcebo said she had not been paid, which her label attributed to an unresolved dispute over the split. Still, for a lockdown-weary world, a South African house song in Zulu became the thing people danced to together while apart.