He asked “uk’bona iBeer phezulu (to see beer in the air)” before putting Savannah bottles on the head was even a thing.
Whenever “it’s happening tonight”, we knew that “k’khona o zolahla" (someone was going to get loose).
Once that In the Meantime hit, it's over.
Although we still don’t know who Sister Bethina is, she has transcended through time.
17 years later, the song still brings the groove nation together on any night, under any circumstance, at any venue across the country and in the diaspora.
Just as it makes everyone lose their morals, the man behind it - Mgarimbe, born Nkosinathi Mfeka, also goes into a trance when he performs it, no matter how long it’s been since its release.
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He tells Drum that to date, whenever he jumps on stage to perform the song, he goes into wild mode.
However, not many know how this hit of a song that has turned into an anthem was made.
“I was still working with Mapaputsi at the time, he was a huge star, and he was working on his second album. I had a friend - Jabu and he was a DJ. He was a resident DJ at some club in downtown [Johannesburg] called Action Bar. So, this other time he invited me to the club and then I went, and he played this song.”
Reminiscing through his chuckles, he adds that it was around 2am when a nightclub opposite Action Bar was closing and everyone was flocking to Action Bar which closed at 6am.
To bring them in, he asked his friend to play the beat of the song again because he had loved it that much. The next thing he remembers doing is getting on stage to hype people to come in over the beat because “Hawaii evaliwe (is closed)”.
Hence why this line is in the original version of Sister Bethina.
What he didn’t know though is that his DJ friend, Jabu was recording this performance on Fruity Loops from his old computer.
The following day, Jabu called him over and made him listen to the song but to his surprise, Mgarimbe wasn’t interested in releasing the jam.
“I come from an [Apostolic] church background. Growing up, I was in Sunday school and youth choir, so I didn’t want the congregation back at home to hear how drunk I was on that night because I never drank before,” he remembers telling him.
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Funny enough, he never wants to drink Jack Daniels anymore because of how intoxicated he was on that night.
Two or three months after he had asked Jabu to delete the track, Mgarimbe was woken up by taxis blasting it out in the Hillbrow streets one morning.
Out of disbelief, he ran over to his balcony to confirm if it really was him singing over the beat and call his friend, but it was already too late to do anything about it because “it was just all over people's cars. It was just everywhere.”
Sadly, Sister Bethina remains the most pirated song as it continues to make rounds without Mgarimbe earning a cent from it, besides the performances that he’s booked for.
For the longest of time though, no one knew who was behind the famous “Hibiriii” until a YFM presenter at the time called up a search party for him on air and he was listening. By the end of the show, Mgarimbe was outside the station’s studios which were in Rosebank at the time, and he was interviewed.
That is how, Ghetto Ruff Records owner, Lance Stehr discovered the Durban-born musician and offered him an album deal.
Even with a whole album out, Sister Bethina was making all the rounds and earning him the most recognition and even a music video in the same club it was originally recorded in.
As he speaks to Drum, a double platinum plaque hangs on the wall behind him and even stands up proudly to give a closer look at the accolade.
He also admits that no one could ever come close to being as big as Sister Bethina for more than a decade and a half, including himself.
Despite this, the hitmaker had to go back home in 2014 where he bought a car and turned it into a cab so he can at least make a living because he wasn’t getting booked for performances anymore.
It wasn’t until around 2017 when he believes the gen z’s made the song trend again that he started to pick up.
Now that “I've got my own place; I'm back on your feet. I'm rebranding you are the first person I’m telling this to [but] Dumakude worldwide is [now] my name.”
As Dumakude, Mgarimbe will be getting behind the decks to deejay Afro House music.
“House is not an overrated genre, it's only your Black Coffees and there's a market for it. I mean, already I'm traveling the world already because like year in year out, I'm in the UK, I'm in Dublin you know, so that's why worldwide and then obviously [I hope to get bookings and play] outside the continent,” he says.
Of all the things that transpired in his journey from 2002 when he first came to Joburg to hustle his way to his breakthrough and returning back home when the lavish lifestyle came at a huge price that saw him dry and out, he says he misses connecting with people on stage and making money.
As a result, he is making a comeback and will be doing his debut DJ performance on 23 September in his hometown, Durban and cannot wait to give other cities a taste of it all.
