Mbaqanga was a style of music birthed in the segregated South African township of Soweto in 1964. The super-unit of Simon 'Mahlathini' Nkabinde, Mahotella Queens and the Makgona Tsohle Band pumped out a volley of bouncy mbaqanga classics before the genre fell out of township taste in the late 1970s. The genre received a global re-up during the 1980s however, when several popular albums by American and British artists came out that were heavily inspired by the swing of township jive. Melodi Yalla was released at the height of this mbaqanga revival.
