Based: Johannesburg
outh Africa plays a major role in the world of music, when it comes to vocal music. The first worldwide success was Solomon Linda´s song “Mbube” (The Lion sleeps tonight”, written in 1939) – a song in the Isicathamiya style that went around the world and has been covered countless times until today. Miriam Makeba´s Song “Pata Pata” became famous as the “click-song” and Ladysmith Black Mambazo had a big hit with “Homeless” on the Paul Simon Album Graceland. Complete – a four men vocal choir – are deeply rooted in these vocal traditions, while they rather refer to the time before Mamabzo on the one hand side and use modern elements on the other hand side.
Complete can be considered as South Africa´s new a capella sensation: Hugh Masekela discovered them a few years ago and started working with them. Stewart Levine ( producer of Joe Cockers come back album and producer of Simply Red) travelled to South Africa to record with them … It all started some 12 years ago:
Formed by two brothers Happy and Bongikosi Motha in 2001 and later completed by two other members Linda Thobela and Bubele Mgele, Complete is a vocal indulgence. That would be incomplete if they did not consists of the harmonic voices they have.
The quartet found its wings in the Assembly of God Church in Boksburg Vosloorus, where they have built a fan base with their regular harmonious performances. They were then recruited by Benjamin Dube to be part of the critically-acclaimed Praise Explosion 2004. Complete went on to perform at the T.D Jacks Mega Fest concert held at Johannesburg South Africa.
This talented group has a vision to touch and change the hearts of music lover’s world- wide. They go about in achieving this in a form of singing in gospel, RnB and in one of the most popular South African genre Isicathamiya.
Complete music is spiritual, mature and extravagant and crosses cultural, racial and class barriers.
Having won three awards in the Ekurhuleni local gospel competition -2003/4/5; which awarded them the opportunity to perform at the 2004 KORA Awards, Complete is well on its way to achieving critical and street credibility with Mzansi audiences
Complete has worked with the legendary Hugh Masekela on the ‘100 years of South African music’ theatre show. This resulted in them working again with the legend himself on the show Songs of Migration also featuring Sibongile Khumalo.
This did not go unseen as Complete went to work in Germany with the legendary pianist Themba Mkhize and collaborating with a German Band named SWR big band.
Back at home Complete got featured by a Hip-Hop group named Deep Level in a song called Thula mama. There after they worked with a largely known house group called Revolution. They did a track named I’m complete which was the hit song for that album called tribal journey by Revolution.
In 2011 Complete had a major success as singers in Hugh Masekela´s musical “Songs of Migration” at the Market Theatre. The show was sold out for weeks and put on the programme again and again. They recorded an album with songs of the musical and Stewart Levine produced it with them.
In 2012 Complete went on tour with Hugh Masekela to perform in his Musical “Songs of Migration ” also outside South Africa: the show went to the Kennedy Centre, the Hackney Empire and Het Royal Carre Theater in Amsterdam.
When they arrived in the USA for the show at the Kennedy Center they were invited by Fox TV to promote the show and sing live in the studio … quite an amount of tickets still needed to be sold. A few hours after Complete´s live performance on TV all tickets were gone …
Complete are currently working on their album with Hugh Masekela.
They will start touring the world in 2013.
