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- On October 11, 2019, Master KG released a new song with vocalist Nomcebo titled Jerusalema.
- Since its release over a year ago, the song has become a global phenomenon through the #JerusalemaChallenge.
- Speaking with Kgoagelo ‘Master KG’ Moagi, Gugulethu Mhlungu traces the life of the hit.
More than 150 million views on YouTube. More than 4 million Shazam. 41.4 million streams and an average of more than 7.5 monthly listeners on Spotify. 326.6 million impressions on TikTok. These are the numbers obtained by Jerusalema from Kgoagelo Moagi, born in Limpopo.
This is a timeline of your success.
July-August 2019:
I did the rhythm around July last year, after it kept ringing in my head, and finally finished it at the end of August. I also kept thinking about Nomcebo’s voice, so I called her up and said, ‘I have this beautiful beat and I think you would be the perfect person in it.
Master KG
September
The song is unfinished. However, Master KG is so excited about the song that he puts together a video clip to share on his social media accounts. In a matter of days, the clip had more than 11,000 views on Instagram and 200,000 on Facebook.
October
The song is complete. On October 11, 2019, the official audio was released for free on YouTube.
In the week the song was released, it had 1 million views on YouTube. We don’t even push or promote the song because that’s how I released my music.
Master KG
On October 25, 2019, Master KG shared a video from Atlanta, Georgia, showing people doing the electric slide into Jerusalem.
November
“Every time I entered the broadcast platforms, I saw my name and Jerusalem as a trend. People were searching for the song even though it wasn’t available yet. It finally hit streaming platforms around November 29, 2019. “At this point, the YouTube video of the official audio had over 2 million views.
December
The Jerusalema walk is born, an early version of the dance challenge. Two weeks after its release on December 13, 2019, the Jerusalem video has more than 3.1 million views, while the original audio video had 4 million views.
December 17, 2019; Song of the Summer announces its finalists. Although it has only been receiving radio broadcast since October 2019, Jersusalema is on the run.
Many times songs take time to grow, but the growth of this song was simply incredible and reached milestones that normally take months to reach. I don’t even know how he did it.
Master KG
January 2020
Jerusalema does not win SABC’s Song of the Summer. Instead, it ranks second, behind Ntencane’s Wawuthembeni. However, Jerusalema retained first place on radio from late November 2019 to January 2020 and first place on iTunes SA until the second week of January 2020.
February
Four months after the song’s release, Jerusalema earned platinum status in South Africa while remaining in the top 50 for on-air and broadcast playback. In mid-February, Master KG had reservations to perform in Spain and Paris.
When I played it, people were vibrating with the song and I realized that a lot of the crowd were people from African countries like Mozambique and Cape Verde who were singing the song.
Master KG
On February 22, Master KG shared the first international video in which he remembers being tagged, which would become the #JerusalemaDanceChallenge of a group from Angola. For the next 90 days, the challenge would spread across the world.
May
“I decided I didn’t want to let the song fade.” She then reached out to Nigerian superstar Burna Boy, who in 2019 released the Grammy-nominated album African Giant. “I have always wanted to work with Burna because I am a huge fan of his work. Fortunately, he knew about my work and liked Skeleton Move, which had been popular in Nigeria, so when I approached, he was interested. “
June
The Jerusalem remix with Burna Boy will be released on June 19, 2020. The African giant was so excited that master KG says that Burna Boy sent his voice within 24 hours of receiving everything from him. Burna’s first take was the perfect take and it was finally the version that was released.
July
Master KG’s Twitter follower account surpassed the 1 million mark in a matter of weeks, encouraging him to be more active on the platform. “I wasn’t really on Twitter, I was more of a Facebook and Instagram person, but now I’m sharing videos every day.”
On July 27, 2020, Minister Nathi Mthethwa of the Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation appointed Master KG and Nomcebo to a prestigious position as South African arts and culture ambassadors to the world. “I feel like this is one of the biggest opportunities I’ve been given and the reason is the song. It is an opportunity to show what your country can do and I can’t wait to go out and represent ”.
The minister invited the media to a virtual meeting with Master KG where he issued Certificates of Ambassador of Cultural Diplomacy to Master KG and Nomcembo. (Twitter / Department of Sports, Art, Culture and Recreation)
However, when the South African Music Awards announced the nominees for Record of the Year, Jerusalema was conspicuously absent. This earned the ire of fans and other artists alike. Before the ceremony in early August, Black Coffee even suggested that the awards include the song.
While Master KG was kind enough to congratulate the nominees, he admits he was disappointed and said, “With Skeleton Move I thought I would get a nod at SAMA because it was my first time and I had gotten the Song of the Summer that year. but I have nothing. Better newcomer, better whatever, better collaboration: nothing at all and that’s where it hurts the most. “
August
As of mid-August, Jerusalema was # 1 on iTunes in 10 countries, including South Africa. The other nine were Belgium, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Granada, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, and France, where the remix has been certified gold. The song was also in the top 10 in countries like Germany, Uganda, Spain, Oman and the Netherlands.
On the African continent, Master KG is the third most listened to artist on Spotify, behind Burna Boy and Mr Eazi.
September
During his speech on September 16, 2020, when he informed the country about the passage to level 1 of the lockdown, President Cyril Ramaphosa urged citizens to participate in the Jerusalem Challenge saying:
There can be no better celebration of our South African identity than joining the global phenomenon that is the Jerusalem Dance Challenge. So I urge everyone to take up this challenge on Heritage Day and show the world what we are capable of.
The future
While he cannot release details, Master KG says the global phenomenon of Jerusalem has opened numerous doors for him. “I don’t want to pressure myself by saying that I want to break Jerusalem’s records because it made crazy records, but I just want to keep making music.”
This is an edited version of an article that was first published by New Frame
