While I was in my undergrad at Mississippi College, there was a student from South Africa named Thulani, who was earning his music degree as well. We became pretty good friends by the last couple of years because of our similar musical tastes and philosophies. 

After hearing some of my music performed, Thulani told me that he was interested in having me set some South African poetry to song. Sometime later, close to our senior recitals, he gave me three poems about the Apartheid and explained a little about how the Zulu language worked.  As I contemplated the details of the piece, I thought about the marimba's heritage and how interesting it would be to have the voice accompanied by the instrument. We premiered the set of songs on my senior recital and unfortunately, the recorder filled up before the songs. Hopefully one day I can get recordings of them.