Johannesburg South Africa Hotel Singers

I spent one night in Johannesburg South Africa at the Southern Sun Hotel near Tambo International airport. As I was checking out that morning, a group of Hotel workers came out of an employee area, assembled in the Hotel Lobby, and began singing and dancing! They sang two complete songs before I remembered that I had my camera in my pocket and got it out to take this video.

I have no idea what the song is about, but I was told they were singing in the Samba language. This is not a language that is well known to Americans. Quite a memorable performance.

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• Dec 12
• 2008 053

[Afrilux1]

Being Johannesburg they were probably singing in the seSotho language, probably 'Northern' Sotho. I only know a couple of words in Sotho and the recording is not that clear. I live in another part of the country where people speak Xhosa, which is part of the Nguni group of languages - quite different from the Sotho languages. Otherwise I could have asked a friend to have a listen. I'm Afrikaans speaking, so not of much use in this endeavour :-)