On Sunday night, South Africa tuned in to the first episode of what is arguably the most exciting stage of SA Idols, the top 11 live performances. The theme for the night's performances was movie soundtracks; leaving the contestants with a wealth of excellent songs to choose from. We know it's early days but Musa Mashiane, who will be looking to emulate the success of his namesake who won last year, and Bongi Silinda stole the show and look to be early favourites.

Singing Ray Charles' classic I Got a Woman (You'll remember it from the 2004 Academy Award winning-film Ray,)  27 year old Musa swept us off our feet from across the television screen.  He took ownership of a song we thought was going to be a disaster but ended up becoming an impressive performance.

His opening note had our nerves spiking as Musa’s voice sounded a bit too "nasally" for our liking. But as the song took its course we saw Musa settling into himself and offering the best performance of the night.

Just like us Randall was also sceptical of Musa’s song choice, but his doubts were firmly removed by the end performance.
“At the start I thought it was wrong for all the right reasons, and then I thought it was right for all the wrong reasons and then finally I thought, Hallelujah! It’s right for all the right reasons!” – An impressed Randall commented.

The only criticism we have is that we would’ve enjoyed it if Musa put a bit of flavour in his performance. The guy came across as stiff, especially for such an upbeat song.

If Musa was last night’s number one, Bongi Silinda was definitely gunning for the number two spot. The 23 year old gave us a feisty rendition of Tina Turner’s classic theme song Golden Eye, taken from the 1995 Bond film of the same name. Taking her time with the song, Bongi undoubtedly did Tina Turner proud. 

What we also loved about her performance is that Bongi not only sang the song perfectly but she literally channelled her inner Tina Turner and took us on a musical journey in a manner we didn’t think she could.

Gareth Cliff also noted that she certainly wasn’t lacking in ambition. “I have to say I’m impressed. I didn’t think you could do some of the things that you did. And I think you impressed the audience”