Fighting crime with art

The local gospel duo, comprising of Franklin Shitaleni and Leopold Vatilifa, spoke to tjil recently on the power music carries as a platform. “We cannot fight against gender-based violence, if we encourage people to drink and club until the early morning hours. We don't sing against people, we sing against evil agendas. We bring about social justice by standing against factors that bring hurt to our society. We want to take gospel music to a level it has never been in Namibia. We are not here to win awards and sit. We are on a Kingdom job,” said Shitaleni. The duo recently released their first album titled Victory. They collaborated with multiple NAMA-winning gospel musician D-Naff on his track Ino Shuna Monima. Vatilifa explained the concept behind the song. “Ino Shuna Monima is in Oshiwambo, meaning “don't turn back or don't backslide. This is a song to encourage believers to watch what we feed on which can cause us to turn away from the faith. It's been great working with D-Naff and Brown Klaxic (producer) on the song. The video is available on YouTube,” said Shitaleni.The duo have also collaborated with renowned American gospel rapper, Da T.R.U.T.H on a song titled, Hit me with the Word.“The song simply says that we hit you with the word of God, because faith comes by hearing. Lost Christian rappers want to minimise the name Jesus Christ and the raw truth about the word of God, because it would apparently limit them from entering certain places or movements. What we say is that, we are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, because it is the power of God at work,” said the other half of the duo, Leopold Vatilfa.He told his fans to look out for their follow-up album with recording time almost done. “We will announce the title of our next project soon and on 3 February we are booked for SA, and next year in June, we'll be in the USA for a two-week tour. We entered the NAMAs, and we are hoping to be victorious with the Victory project,” he said.Apart from being hosted by preachers like Apostle N.E Ngoveni, Franklin and Dee A have worked alongside great artists like Khaya Mtetwa, Neyi Zimu, Benjamin Dube and Denzil Erasmus. They also toured five cities in the United States in April 2017, hosted by Brian Robinson.Adolf Kaure

Fighting crime with art

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-15

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Fighting crime with art

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-15

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