Kaya 959 The Jazz Standard

Professor Simphiwe Sesanti, Dr Athambile Masola and Nkosinathi Biko on The Jazz Standard With Brenda Sisane

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2026 marks what would have been the 80th birthday of Steve Biko, and the December 2025 release of the isiXhosa translation of I Write What I Like arrives as both remembrance and gift - a return of his words to a language that carried his earliest consciousness.

This isiXhosa edition - translated by the late Professor Peter Tshobisa Mtuze, with editorial stewardship from Professor Simphiwe Sesanti and Dr Athambile Masola - and carrying a new foreword by Nkosinathi Biko - reopens a text that never closed. It asks us: what does Black Consciousness sound like in the mother tongue? What does liberation mean when it is spoken in the rhythm of home?
15 Feb English South Africa Music History · Music Commentary

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