Jazz musician Bheki Mseleku brought Tu Nokwe, one of the most gifted South African performers of the '90s, to music. Initially teaching music to township kids in her family's Amajika Youth and Children's Art Project, she eventually traveled to London and New York, where she took lessons at the famous Manhattan School of Music. Realizing that her true potential was at home, she returned to South Africa, carried on working in the youth project, and started gathering material for an album of her own material. After three years of hard work, the excellent Inyaka Nyaka was released in 1996, and redefined Tu Nokwe as a powerful musician with original ideas. The follow-up, African Child (1999), continued the success. Tu Nokwe describes her music as a spiritual new age African sound with influences of jazz and funk. All in all, it is masterful, non-superficial pop with an Southern African touch. ~ Frank Eisenhuth