“Idols SA” season 16 has finally come down to the wire as this season’s top two contenders were revealed on Sunday night after months of competing and fans voting for their favourite.
Underdog Mr Music and favourite Zama were announced the top two contenders with over 22 million votes cast to bring them within an arm’s length reach of the title.
Over 150m votes have been cast since the beginning of the season.
Unfortunately, Brandon was the one to bite the dust, but not before he performed his first ever single “U'hambe” – along with the other two contestants – Mr Music singing his song “Ngikhethe Kahle” and Zama coming through with “Ndizobizwa”.
The two remaining contestants competed again, performing two songs each for the night – a remake of any song during the audition phase and their favourite performances of the season.
Mr Music gave a shot at “Ngamthanda Umuntu” by Linda, followed by Amu Faku's “Into Ingawe”, a song that got both Somizi Mhlongo-Motaung and Unathi Nkayi dancing on their seats.
Both performances earned him rave reviews from all three judges, with Unathi responding to a tweet that questioned why she and Somizi seemed extra happy with him securing his top two spot.
“I'll tell you why I'm happy. Because we’ve seen you work every single week.
“We've seen you do your best, even when your best sometimes wasn't at the level of other people.
“But when you do your best, that's enough.
“You've given us the best version of yourself every single week...what you did is give us wholeheartedly your best and that is why South Africa loves you and that is why South Africa has kept you here,” she said.
About his second song, Somizi said he sounded extremely good and reckoned there’ll be a meme made after him, based on his animated performances.
For her first performance, Zama sang her final theatre week audition song by Mariah Carey, “Without You”.
Randall Abrahams advised her to show more emotion, saying “people listen to music or go to music concerts in order to reach an emotional or spiritual place they may not necessarily be able to get to all on their own.
“Your singing is very good, but you need to imbue your singing with an emotional capacity.
“You need to absolutely let go because that is why people listen, why they pay money to go to concerts. Because they expect something from a performer that they cannot easily get themselves.
“And I thought that performance was very good, but I thought that if you’d just gone over an emotional tipping point, it would have been so much better,” he said.
Unathi expressed she fell in love with Zama from her first audition while Somizi wanted her to continue singing, saying “I can't get enough of your voice. Zama, you are what Whitney Houston was to me in terms of ballads...you are a balladeer," he said.
Her second performance seemed to go down much better, as she sang Jennifer Hudson’s version of “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke.
The judges were all smiles, Somizi dubbing it an amazing performance and Unathi thanking her for fighting till the end.
“Thank you for listening, thank you for not letting go and for fighting until the very last note. And thank you for making it hard for South Africa, because that’s how good you both are. Thank you Zama for not forgetting why you entered,” she said.
Next week, the finale will be jam packed with performances from Cassper Nyovest, Busiswa and Vusi Nova, among others.