From Makhaza to the world, and back again.

Where we began

Thanda Choir was founded in 2023 in Makhaza, Khayelitsha — a community where joy and hardship sit side by side, and where music has always been one of the ways young people find each other.

Twenty-one of us came together in those early days, drawn by the simple pull of singing in harmony. We rehearsed wherever we could. We sang in community halls, at church services, at gatherings where our voices were the whole programme. We did it because it was the most joyful thing we could imagine doing with our lives.

What Thanda means

Thanda is the isiXhosa word for love. It was not chosen as a marketing decision. It was chosen because love was the only word that described what we felt for one another when we sang, and what we wanted to give to anyone who listened.

We are not asking anyone to fight with us. We are asking you to love with us.

The journey outward

Within two years, our voices had travelled further than any of us imagined. From busking on Signal Hill to performances in Paris and Rio de Janeiro. From street corners in Stellenbosch to the national gallery. From a handful of local supporters to a following that grew into the millions across TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

Throughout all of it, the choir itself — the twenty-one of us — remained what it had always been: a group of young people from Khayelitsha, singing.

Where we are now

In April 2026, a Carte Blanche investigation titled "Choir Captured" brought into the open what some of us had been living with privately for a long time: serious questions about the financial management of the original organisation, and about whether the singers whose voices built this reputation were sharing in its success.

We took a decision, together, to reclaim what had always been ours — the choir, the music, our future.

We are now operating as The Real Thanda Choir, establishing a new Non-Profit Organisation governed by the founding members ourselves.

Where we are going

We are going to keep singing. We are going to keep travelling. We are going to keep bringing Khayelitsha to the world and the world back to Khayelitsha.

And in time, we hope to open the same doors for the next generation of young artists from our community that once opened for us — only this time, with transparency, fair pay, and ownership built into the foundation.

All of it rooted in the word we have always carried: Thanda. Love.