‘Shaka iLembe’ is telling Shaka Zulu’s story authentically by the African voices it belongs to

He’s a man who needs no introduction. A king. A warrior. A Zulu great. But his story has never been told the way it is about to be: authentically — by the African voices it belongs to.                                                                                  

When the much-anticipated 12-episode series Shaka iLembe hits the small screen tonight, it will transport viewers back to the late 1700s as it tells the story of Shaka kaSenzangakhona, Shaka Zulu.

But this story goes beyond that of the Zulu king and conqueror we all know. It starts from the beginning, tracing his roots before birth, following him through childhood and into adulthood.

“Shaka is not an island,” explains Nomsa Philiso, the CEO of general entertainment at MultiChoice. “He came from somewhere and there’s a lot of piecing that together to say what community did he come from? How was he conceived? We’re taking our viewers from the beginning because we think that’s the correct way to capture history.”

Philiso says the question of whether to tell Shaka’s story again did come up, given that it had been done in the 1980s. But they decided it was important to do so from a fresh perspective.

Six years in the making, it was no easy story to capture. The production team consulted historians, cultural leaders, elders — even the late Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu and reigning King Misuzulu kaZwelithini.

Woven between are the stories of the people who helped shape this piece of Zulu history, including that of Godongwana, the prince of the Mthethwa. We follow him into exile where he works with the Hlubi to overpower slave traders before returning home as Dingiswayo to take his throne and mentor the young warrior Shaka.

There’s also Zwide, prince of the Ndwandwe and son of Queen Ntombazi, who needs to save her people from a drought.

The idea was to tell a story inspired by history but fuelled by drama and heart; a story that speaks to the society, life and leadership of precolonial Africa, that creates an African visual history and a story of Africans we can be proud of.

“There are so many Westernised icons in the world and so many Westernised ideas of icons of Africa, but there is nothing that has been told from our gaze,” says Mbatha.

“For us, it was important to have the show be a narrative that's true to precolonial Africa. I don’t think we’re going to get everything right, but we toed the line in getting 99% of the things right.”

The narrative will continue with planned seasons two and three in which Shaka’s story will play out fully: first as he becomes the man we know from the history books and then with his demise in season three.

And from there, the idea is to tell more of these stories as and when the budget permits.

“We have an array of stories we’re looking at to say how do we follow this narrative? We also recognise that period pieces are expensive so you can’t do three in a year. But we want to tell more of these stories to capture history in a way that [the current generation] will be able to consume on TV and digitally,” says Philiso.