[1] From its humble beginnings as a one-minute war time report service, to its current status as the second biggest radio station in the world, Ukhozi FM's history is a long and colourful one.

This includes the first recording of Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 1960 at its Durban studios, promoting the Soul Brothers, Abafana BaseQhudeni, Mahlathini and MaHotela Queens to name a few.

In an attempt to make this propaganda as far reaching as possible led to the Native Affairs Department commissioning Charles Mpanza to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to transmit these Wartimes reports in isiZulu over the English medium wave service.

The strangling of oppositional political voices, coupled with the unfurling of the euphemisms used for the Apartheid policy, which revealed itself as a means to create a hierarchical separately developed state, marked the 1960s.

It seemed only natural that this largely blank canvas would absorb the creative spirits still present in South Africa; coaxing material in spoken, written and sung form.

The novels of C.L.S Nyembezi (Inkinsela yaseMgungundlovu) and Muntu Xulu (Ukubuya kukaNsakansaka eDayimane) were committed to popular memory in December 1964 and 1966 respectively, when recorded and transmitted to the listeners, while Alexius Buthelezi inducted the works of John Bunyan and John Strauss into the repertoire of isiZulu literary enthusiasts; the former being a translated version of Pilgrim's Progress (Uhambo lomhambi) aired in the early 1960s and the latter being an interpretation of an opera named Ibuzwa Kwabaphambili aired in January 1965.

In the wake of the strict silencing of political voice, the culture of latently planted revolutionary thought permeated some of the radio dramas; most notably those of Alexius Buthelezi.

This self-contained play followed the journey of a young beautiful woman who wins the affections of the most eligible bachelor in the Chiefdom, becomes the victim of other women's jealousy and finds herself wandering through a dark forest with only a necklace, which was given to her by her mother, who had been advised to do so by her ancestors, that in the end protects her.

This trend continued at Radio Bantu, whose broadcasting time increased to 24 hours in 1978, making it a canvas upon which battle lines were drawn; a push and pull between government ideology and multiply defined resistance.

Within this politically impotent environment were members of staff like Thokozani Nene, Thetha Masombuka and Koos Hadebe who explored the foggy separation between these two institutions, attempting to maintain some objectivity.

Nene's effort to educate his audience in history and culture (lived and linguistic) and Hadebe's multi-ethnic-serving broadcasts with Masombuka aligned their work with two greater resistance movements in motion at the time.

The separation of language services cleanly severed ethnicities from each other, but it also created a forum that documented the complexly layered Zulu identity developing within an ever shifting reality.

Recordings in 1970 of traditional sounds like that of Ladysmith Black Mamabazo's, an isicathamiya collective, first LP (Amabutho) at the SABC studios in Durban being contrasted with the use of multiple existing isiZulu dialects in the politically ignorant uBhekifa were the early signs of a dynamic culture; frozen in some aspects but fluid in others.

Furthermore, his popularisation of call-in shows provided an open line of communication for Zulu persons across physically divided spaces; highlighting commonalities and exposing nuanced differences.

The series raised questions about gender roles, taboo issues of divorce and out-the-box women and the situations and possible dangers specific to a female city populant.

Kwaphambana izinkomishi, written by Maqhawe Mkhize in the 1970s, stirred the underbelly of the custom of polygamy and its real inspirations of evil and jealousy between wives, and allowed for a further exploration of a still largely untapped source of women's oral poetry.

Following the collapse of one of the last standing countries in Africa to be ruled by a White minority (Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe), in 1980, the propensity of the majority to remain silent in the face of a heavy-handed repressive state began to crumble.

Through the cracks rose up a ballsy multi-vocal internal resistance; initially fragmented into tiny groups combating specific gripes with the state until the introduction of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in 1983.

The strength of a front that allowed self-synecdoche, the avenging spirit of movements left behind especially in the 1960s and 1970s following a savage state brutality and protracted shunning from across borders and overseas proved to be too much of a pressure cooker situation for the Apartheid government, leading P.W.

Beyers Naude's notorious English sermons to his Black parish, in which he criticised the heavy police presence in the daily lives of township dwellers following the State of Emergency in 1985, broke the rules of the apolitical, strictly isiZulu radio service.

The existence of a radio station that broadcast to a non-ethnically divided audience – inadvertently promoting black unity – in a separation-obsessed state was only possible largely due to the new profit-making opportunities it provided.

de Klerk cemented his position as one of the key players who brought Apartheid to an end when, on 2 February 1990, he announced the removal of the ban placed on all anti-Apartheid groups from as early as 30 years before then.

This move began a snow ball process of negotiations intended to peacefully hand over power, the construction of what would become one of the most liberal Constitutions seen globally and the repealing, revision and adoption of laws that coincided with the pillars of the new dispensation – those being dignity, equality and freedom.

In addition to this, Radio Zulu's inclusion of South Africa's first game when readmitted to FIFA, against Cameroon, signalled the induction of the country back into the international playing field in a wider sense.

At the start of 1994, the appointment of aptly qualified Zamambo Mkhize to the position of station manager marked the elevation of a member of a previously ignored group; black women.

Some argued that the maintenance of ethnically defined stations defeated the task of liberating South Africa from the clutches of segregation and deduced that financial considerations [the success of Radio Zulu as a business model] were being placed above the greater task of national accord, while others argued that Radio Zulu should be interpreted in the new order as a platform for the celebration of one of the many chalk and cheese cultures occupying South Africa; the promotion of a previous minority.