As Sihle Ntuli describes the essence of his collection, the poems encompass numerous

aspects of black alienation resulting from collisions with the white world, which despite the ‘zabalaza’ seemingly having been won in 1994, still remains the ruling environment. In poems inspired by Winnie Mandela, Miriam Makeba, Nokuthula Simelane, Hugh Masakela, Seitlhamo Motsapi, Caiphus Semenya and Letta Mbuli (to name some of his black heroes) Ntuli dissects the gulf between the black psyche (both pre-and post-colonial) and Europe’s imposed culture. On a more personal note, he also sets out the challenge to prove that he is indeed a Zulu man ‘’whilst never having held a knife to the neck of a lamb”, and to navigate the contradictions of his upbringing: ‘how deep the scars, years of tongue lashings from black mama discipline’’.