Pitchside at M&T Bank Stadium, with the trophy already lifted, the Springboks captain was asked which song he would sing to celebrate a 3-1 series win over the All Blacks. He did not name one. The 22 seconds are at the bottom of this page. What comes before them is why the week was always going to end that way.
Siya Kolisi was asked what he was going to sing. So he sang it.
South Africa had just beaten New Zealand 43-28 in the fourth and final Test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry, in front of 67,000-plus at M&T Bank Stadium, the biggest crowd a rugby union match has drawn in the United States. The series was won 3-1. The interviewer, working through the post-match questions, asked the captain which song he would use to celebrate. Kolisi skipped the answer and went straight to the chorus.
It was a gwijo. South African supporters on X identified it within minutes as Kubo, and a 22-second cut of it, posted by the account Jones Mzizi about a quarter of an hour after the final whistle, is the version doing the rounds. Ruck had it up by Sunday morning.
One detail has gone missing in the sharing. The trophy Kolisi had just raised was built so that it could be cut in two. RNZ reported that the design allowed it to be halved had the series finished 2-2, and Dan Carter and Schalk Burger carried it out in one piece because Baltimore had settled the argument.
So the song was not a party piece. It was the sound of a trophy that did not need a saw.
The Siya Kolisi gwijo did not start on Saturday
It started at the airport. Briefly reported the squad landing at Baltimore Washington International early in the week to a crowd of South Africans singing gwijo at them in arrivals, and the captain joining in rather than walking past.
Then there is the ritual he keeps for himself. Before his 100th Test, against France in Paris on Saturday 8 November last year, he was filmed singing a gwijo alone in the tunnel, nobody within earshot. South Africa won 32-17. Supporters who know his habits said at the time that he always sings alone before a match, and that it is how he settles.
Line the three up. Fans singing to the captain on arrival. The captain singing to himself before kick-off. The captain singing to the fans, on the broadcast, with the trophy won. The Baltimore clip is the last of the three, and the only one anyone outside South Africa saw.
What a gwijo is actually for
A gwijo is call-and-response singing from Xhosa tradition. One voice leads, the group answers, and the roots are in men gathering strength before a fight. World Rugby’s own site explained it during last year’s women’s World Cup, after South Africa’s women had sung their way through the group stage and into a first quarter-final.
Nombuyekezo Mdliki, who leads the singing in that squad and keeps about 20 songs in her head, put the function plainly:
“It helps to deal with nerves, not to focus on the game that’s coming.”
Laurian Johannes-Haupt, an assistant coach with the women’s side, went one further: “Happy people are confident people and confidence on the field is massive.”
Which is why the interviewer’s question was the most telling part of the clip. Nobody asks a captain which song he is going to sing unless everyone in the stadium already knows there will be one. The ritual is so embedded in this squad that the broadcaster planned for it. Kolisi just removed the step where he described it.
Trevor Nyakane, a prop at two World Cups, said last month that his captain never shouts. It turns out he sings instead.
Read also: security got to the Soweto pitch invader first, and the captain walked over anyway.
The 44 minutes before the microphone
The song came at the end of a night in which Kolisi had done less on the field than in any other Test of the series. Ten tackles in the first half, then off on 44 minutes for André Esterhuizen, so he watched all 26 second-half points from the bench. It was still his 56th Test win as captain, one more on the record he took from John Smit in Soweto a week earlier.
His own account of what came after went to SA Rugby magazine on Sunday, and none of it was about himself.
“We just came together to thank each other for the series. We go at each other all the time, we get along off the field. We said a prayer afterwards and it was a really special moment.”
On Rassie Erasmus, whose 100th Test in charge this was, he said the coach “reminded us how important this team is and how powerful this team has been in the past”. And, as RNZ reported:
“We’ve got coach Rassie, he knows how to get us up. When he speaks to us, he reminds us of where we come from. It’s not about the rugby itself, it’s about where we come from, and that’s what drive us.”
Read that back against the song. A gwijo is the same idea set to a tune: where the singers come from, sung in a place where nobody else does. He did not need a question about it. He needed a microphone.
What the reaction got right, and what it skipped
The replies wrote themselves. “Siya Kolisi. Remember that name,” said one. A Welsh supporter wrote that he would run through a brick wall for the man. Fair, all of it.
But the fan reaction is the least interesting thing about the clip, and it has crowded out the better reading. Speaking to Sky Sports afterwards, Kolisi thanked the crowd in the terms he uses every week:
“I want to thank every South African here in the stadium and back at home. It was a special week to see you come out in numbers and support us. We could hear you today.”
Hold on to “we could hear you”. A stadium in Maryland, most of it in green, and a captain who had been sung to at the airport singing back. The song was the thank-you. The interview just happened to be running at the time.
Codie Taylor, captaining New Zealand on the night, called South Africa “a great side” who had “proven why they are world champions”. Nobody in a black jersey will have enjoyed hearing a gwijo at that moment, and that is the other half of why the clip travelled.
Frequently asked
What song did Siya Kolisi sing after the Springboks beat the All Blacks in Baltimore?
A gwijo, which supporters on social media identified as Kubo. He was asked in his post-match interview which song he would sing to celebrate the 3-1 series win, and answered by singing it.
What is a gwijo?
A traditional Xhosa form of call-and-response singing, one voice leading and the group answering, with roots in warriors gathering strength before battle. South Africa’s men’s and women’s teams sing them before and after matches, and Kolisi has led them for years.
What was the result of the fourth Test?
South Africa 43, New Zealand 28, at M&T Bank Stadium on Saturday 12 September, in front of 67,000-plus. South Africa won Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry 3-1, and it was Rassie Erasmus’s 100th Test as head coach.
Read next:
– All Blacks player ratings from Baltimore, marked on the same 80 minutes.
– Ardie Savea and Siya Kolisi now carry the same aura. Two captains, one bracket.
– Eben Etzebeth rated Saturday above his two World Cup medals. He said so before kick-off.
Your turn: watch the Siya Kolisi gwijo in Baltimore
The clip runs 22 seconds. The question comes first. The answer is the song.
Two ways to see it. Either a captain played to a camera with a trophy in shot, or a man did in front of 67,000 people what he does alone in a tunnel before every Test. One of those is showmanship. Which was it? Settle it below.
