Gcina Lufefekazi Jojo

BIOGRAPHY

Gcina Jojo is a gospel singer and creative scholar with experience and training as a vocalist and singer-songwriter. She is registered for a MPhil in Interdisciplinary Arts Studies at Africa Open Institute. She works as a Research lecturer & librarian at AFDA in Cape Town. Gcina graduated with a BA Honours in Live Performance from AFDA with research titled The Establishment of Educational Purposes by The Western Cape Art Focus Project: The Case of Wynberg Senior Secondary School. Her Masters in Fine Arts research is under the supervision of Prof Willemien Froneman and is titled Music as an Effective Tool in Influencing Individual Personal Internal Changes in People… A Case Study of Hillsong Music in the Cape of South Africa. She published an article titled The Classical Pentecostal Congregational Worship Leaders’ Perceptions and Interpretations of Hillsong’s UNITED hit song: Oceans (Where Feet May Fail).

RESEARCH

Gcina’s research for her Master’s in Interdisciplinary Arts is The Historical Musical Negotiations of Xhosa Christianity. This study explores the tension negotiated between Christianity and notions of pre-colonial Xhosa identity in selected musical encounters from the historical and contemporary eras of Xhosa Christianity. The study uses a mixed methodological approach, striving for a comprehensive literature review; the construction of Ntsikana the prophet; critical assessment of the work of Dave Dargie; and an exploration of constructed perspectives of pre-colonial Xhosa Christianity through a critical analysis of archival research of 19th Century Xhosa Newspaper publications (Isibuto Samavo). The study also features research on scholars who discuss the surrounding cultural, religious and musical changes amongst the Xhosa during these centuries.