Khoisan praise singer on how it felt to usher the President in at SONA 2019
If you watched this year's SONA, you would have heard a Khoisan call from Bradley Van Sitters, which brought the President into the National Assembly. However, his call has been widely criticised. Sam Cele chatted to him to clear up the matter.
Listen to Sam's interview with Bradley, or read below:
Bradley Van Sitters is a praise artist and an Assistant Linguistic Lecturer at UCT. He recently made headlines when he became the first Khoi praise singer invited to usher the President into the National Assembly.
Watch below:
According to IOL, a Namibian journalist has accused him of 'rambling gibberish and stitching random words together'.
Van Sitters responded to claims of linguistic imbalances in his praise recited in parliament. He also explained the reason he may have sounded unprepared is because it was a short notice call.
According to Bradley, his name 'Bradley Van Sitters' is a slavery name. During the interview, I attempted to pronounce his real name, but he saved me by repeating it really slowly due to its length.
I listened to the #SONA2019 clip several times and I heard him repeating the same word in different pronunciations, but I was later satisfied with his explanation.
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For a Zulu man, I took most of the terminology for granted because I thought I could get the clicks right on first attempt. I challenge anyone who thinks pronouncing my surname 'Cele' is easy to attempt some of the names Bradley brings up during the interview.
In the interview, he spoke about the Khoisan culture and his day in Parliament.
Listen to the podcast to find out more.