Seventeen years since her last outing with Culani Nami, legendary South African songstress Mam’ Letta Mbulu returns with 2024’s Nomali. Reuniting the Soweto-born icon with renowned producer Themba Mkhize, this EP’s African jazz compositions feature strands of maskandi, R&B, isicathamiya and Afropop. Although Mbulu’s radiant vocals anchor these arrangements—like they have since her 1967 debut Letta Mbulu Sings—Nomali’s thematic pillar is love in its different guises. The praises of an incomparable partner are sung between the groovy pockets of opener “Akekho” and the marimba octaves of its companion, “Nobody Loves Me”. The bassy strums of “Baby Girl”, meanwhile, allude to affection in a parental sense, and the percussive “Friends Are For” is a quintessential Mbulu ballad. These expressions of adoration straddle the personal and collective, unifying on the political “Sinamanga (uMagebhula)” which serves as a reminder of a nation’s promise, and enduring duty towards itself. This social commentary has customarily enriched Mam’ Mbulu’s catalogue and, with a signature soulfulness, it’s a thread woven across odes to love in its romantic, communal and civic forms.