BOMBA - Poor Man's Dance (1988)

Zub/Tusk, UBH004
Producer: Feduja Trio (exec: Alton Mashaba)
Engineer: Fabb Grosso
Recorded at: RPM Studios


Powerful disco grooves with a Shangaan twist. Backing vox by Felicia Marion, Thoko Ndlozi, Cecil Mitch and Ernest, synth brass by Joe Matsheka (Bayete, Pongolo), all other instruments by Gofe. Standout track is the instrumental 'Poor Man's Dance', which strikes the perfect balance groove traditional grooves and modern instrumentation. Little-known Bomba wrote all five tracks and provides lead vocals and deep English lyrics on tracks like 'One-sided Love', 'Release' and 'Victim of Time':

Here I am standing on the face of the planet
I'm a stranger, everything around me looks so strange
I don't know, I think I'm stuck...
I saw many people running up and down, in a rush,
I asked, what's going on, can somebody tell me please?
But no one ever bothered about me
They looked at me, and walked away...
I went to my father and said, 
'Father, help me, I want to know,
I'm seeing people running up and down,
Tell me, what's going on?
I wanna know, I need to know...'
My father said 'Son, ever since I was born,
I've been trying to find out what's going on.
Look at me now, I'm a wasted body, I'm an old man,
I'm a living soul, stuck in this dying body,
I'm a victim of time...'
If we can stop this time,
we can turn this world into a paradise forever.
The sun will rise, but never set.
We are living out of time, without no limitations,
where we'll never die,
where we'll live forever and ever."