CALL centre agent Esperanca de Tavares spends her days saying hello to hundreds of people – and now she is singing it.
Her isiZulu version of songstress Adele’s No 1 hit Hello is making waves online, having reached just under 8 000 views on video sharing site YouTube.
“I am actually excited. I did not think it would get to that,” De Tavares, 31, said of the video.
She has no musical training besides “singing at home with [her] mother”, but her performance at a church talent show caught the eye of videographer Richard van Schalkwyk.
After the showcase, he went calling with a proposal to team up on a vernacular remix of the song.
“I wanted to showcase her voice but in a different way,” the Richard Henry Productions owner said.
This was the first time De Tavares had considered a performance of this kind and she admitted her nerves were shaky.
However, after a month of encouragement, she answered the call, translating the song herself, a task she said took two days.
Of the translation work, she said: “I did not find it difficult.”
Learning the isiZulu lyrics was different, though: “Even now I sometimes miss a line.”
Earlier this month, the pair met at a restaurant in Randburg, where Van Schalkwyk shot the video in 2½ hours, wrapping up production after just four takes.
“I used a mixture of the takes and the best parts of the sound,” Van Schalkwyk said.
The video and audio were both recorded on his video camera.
There is no shortage of Hello covers around the world, but the home-brewed sound seems to have struck a chord, with positive comments dominating comments on the video.
Both Van Schalkwyk and De Tavares hope to do more translated hits.
She has her heart set on John Legend’s All of Me as her next offering, saying she was “inspired to do more”.
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