Youth Ablaze to bounce back

MBABANE – Popular gospel group, Youth Ablaze, is set to release their next album - Volume Four - without founding leaders, Bandile and Sandile Mazibuko and Ntsika Fakudze.

According to Mlondi Zondo, who took on managing the group when Fakudze left, the group went ahead into the studio in August to record their next album, which is expected to be out by the Easter. However, the album will be missing some of the prominent members from the previous volumes.

Fakudze, who founded the youth mass choir from Lobamba Lomdzala Assemblies of God church and produced three of their albums, will be missing from the scene. According to Zondo, Fakudze left the group when he left the church as part of the two year rotation schedule of the pastors in the church countrywide. "Pastors don’t stay in one church for more than two years, so when his father moved, Ntsika chose to move as well," Zondo said.

Bandile and Sandile, who later released an album of their own under the name ‘Twins with a Vission’, are known for their solo leads in the previous Youth Ablaze albums. "The twins now live out of the country due to other commitments," Zondo said of them.

The Youth Ablaze leader said going into the studio without these prominent members was a bit of a problem at first but they were able to work around it because "besides the Mazibuko Twins and Ntsika, we’re all still there so the group still stands. We all go to the same church anyway so the minor problems like practising were overcome easily as everyone was readily available."

Even so, the group’s upcoming album is not expected to be much different from the previous one, in terms of style and quality: "Apart from his absence in the vocals, people will not hear much of a difference from the previous albums as we believe we’ve stuck to the same sound that got people worshipping and dancing at the same time.

"Even though Ntsika was our producer before and we’re now produced by Sibusiso Fakudze and Muzi Masina, we couldn’t deviate from what Ntsika taught us."

Zondo will, however, let the public be the judge of their abilities when the album hits stores. Youth Ablaze’s previous albums were; Volume 1: Ngena Nawe, Volume 2: Jerusalema, and Volume 3: Malibongwe respectively.

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