Brenden breaks records and has his eyes firmly on the prize giving another popular favourite Sonke a run for his money.
In the beginning, Brenden created a lot of hype across the country with his magical voice and it did not hurt anyone that he had the looks to match the great voice.
As soon as the Top 10 started competing, Sonke slowly usurped Brenden of the public favourite spot so much so that last week Brenden found himself in the bottom what what. Throughout the competition, Brenden and Sonke have been playing a game of cat and mouse and whoever caught the other won the public’s hearts.
Fast forward: it’s three weeks to the crowning of yet another black Idol, Brenden went back to basics and took us to his very first audition, reminding the entire nation why they fell in love with him. Yes, it was his piano playing skill and his ability to capture an audience that saw him get a ticket to Sun City and also saw Unathi proclaiming that ladies will throw their bras at him on stage.
Last night Brenden left nothing to chance in the second half of the show and closed it on a high note. Talk about saving the best for the last. His rendition of John Legend’s “All Of Me” may just as well have been Brenden’s own.
That performance earned Brenden a standing ovation and even Gareth seemed moved. “Somewhere in all the craziness of this Top 4 I think you had a stroke of genius when you sat down and you said ‘take away all of that stuff, leave me alone at that piano and let me do what I do’,” he said approvingly. Unathi agreed that Brenden’s stripped-down approach with that song made fans nostalgic for his very first audition performance.
His performance saw Sonke fade into obscurity as Brenden firmly has his eyes on the prize. However, Sonke fans are not to be underestimated as they are loyal. Though Sonke had a bad day yesterday, his fans will not base their votes on last night’s show but on the entire season. If Sonke continues to rest on his laurels, he will be out of the competition next week.
His second performance of Celine Dion’s Loved Me Back to Life wasn’t exactly on par with the terrific Sonke we have come to know. He set the bar very high for himself and his fans expect nothing less than excellent. At this stage of the competition, he has a solid and loyal fan base who will forgive him just this once. His rendition was totally just OK and an OK performance is not good enough at this stage of the competition. Poor guy, he is probably tired, phela it’s been a tough competition.
Zoe’s performance highlighted the kind of a versatile artist she is. Rihanna must just simply move over because Zoe is in the house. Forget the silly Gareth Cliff and the queen of mean (pun intended) Randall Abrams’ comments on Zoe’s second song.
Her ability to shed tears during her performance and capture the emotion of an audience is something very few artists can achieve. There was something so special about that delivery such that I can almost tell the two male judges to sit down. Zoe delivered a beautiful “Wrecking Ball” and I for one, in my humble opinion, am of the view she did well.
Musa performed India Arie’s “Thy Will Be Done” and he hit all the right chords - he really had the audience eating from the palm of his hand. All the judges agreed that Musa did exceptionally well but whether that was good enough to earn him enough votes is something that remains to be seen on Tuesday night.
It is, at this stage, of the review I decide to tell you that my decoder was acting up on me and during Idols of all times, at least until the second part of the show that is. Calling the DStv call centre was a total waste of my major contract minutes as I only got help from the guy who administers their Twitter account. He solved my decoder by tweeting less than 140 characters. By that time, the show was exactly halfway through.
Let’s look at the press release from M-Net about first performances and duets ...
The countdown has begun, there are only three weeks to go before the fans anoint their new Idol, and there are only four competitors left doing battle for South Africa’s most prestigious music title, so the pressure is on!
This week the Top 4 prepared for their Spectacular under the expert tutelage of South African superstar Zonke, and they were accompanied in their performances by the famous South African electro-string quartet Sterling EQ.
The only woman still left in the competition, 19-year-old Zoe Zana from Bishop Lavis in Cape Town, sang her second Michael Jackson hit of this competition for the first round.
Idols Judge Gareth Cliff admitted to a tearful Zoë that “Wrecking Ball” (second performance) is a very powerful song and that this is the stage of the competition where emotions are running high, “but I have to tell you for your own good, that was not good,” he said. “I liked her Michael Jackson, I really did,” he remarked to a protesting Unathi Msengana. “But this is a hard song to sing – it didn’t meet the mark.”
Sonke Mazibuko (21) from Soweto chose a famous cover of the great American classic, “A Song For You” by the late, great jazz and blues vocalist Donny Hathaway for his first round. Both Randall and Unathi thought that Sonke is too young to perform “A Song For You” properly.
Musa Sukwene (26) from eMalahleni chose Bob Marley’s immortal “Redemption Song” for his Gone To Soon song. Unathi thought Musa’s performance of “Redemption Song” was totally disarming.
Brenden Ledwaba (19) from Graskop in Mpumalanga also paid tribute to the late Bob Marley in round one with “Could You Be Loved”.
Randall thought that Brenden could have gone for some of the high notes in the Bob Marley song – “it got stuck in the same register,” he grumbled, but he thought Brenden's second performance was a “really special television moment”.
For the first duet of the evening Zoë and Sonke teamed up to perform the ballad “When I First Saw You”, from the musical “Dreamgirls”, as sung by Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé in the movie version. Gareth thought they both gave an excellent performance. “That was such a touching performance,” said an impressed Unathi. She praised the maturity and delicacy with which they handled the song, but Randall complained that Zoë’s pacing and pitching was “off”.
Musa and Brenden covered R. Kelly and Usher’s “Same Girl” in their duet and Gareth thought it was much better than Zoë and Sonke’s duet. “Cool as can be!” Unathi raved. “The duet really worked well for you,” Randall agreed.