The career of Amanda Strydom (1956) has been on the road for over twenty years, but Briewe Uit Die Suide is her first CD that is also released in the Netherlands. Musically Strydom fits in effortlessly with the better Dutch listening song, but the Afrikaans sounded perhaps too strange to the Dutch record bosses. Composer Stef Bos has been a passionate advocate of African song for years. Amanda
… Strydom repays Bos's love with equal coin. Since her first meeting with the blonde songwriter, she has recorded a song from him on every new album. 'He is my brother in die Noorde and ek sy sus in die Suide', Strydom writes in the CD booklet. Strydom's poetic texts describe the everyday life of the Afrikaners. In Die Lied Van Ou Suid-Afrika, the singer talks about growing up under the Apartheid regime. In her younger years, Strydom regularly clashed with the regime. Her critical attitude earned her the nickname 'Amandla' at the time. It is not surprising that Strydom sings 'Beskut my teen a world where I live uncomfortably' in the closing My Kamer, a bombastic duet with, yes, Stef Bos. (PdK)more
