(Shafts of light slowly reveal the Cast as they sing ‘Kofifi Sophia9. MINGUS is centre stage, his hat pulled low over his eyes.)

(MINGUS returns to his seat, the song quietens to a murmur and JAKES rises to speak.)

JAKES: Sophiatown, Softown, Kofifl, Kasbah, Sophia . … Place of Freedom Square, and the Back of the Moon. Place of Can Themba's House of Truth. Place of the G-men and Father Huddleston's Mission. Place of Balansky's and the Odin Cinema. And let's never forget Kort Boy and Jazz Boy and the Manhattan Brothers, and Dolly Rathebe singing her heart out - here in Sophia …

(The song momentarily swells.)

The Americans, the Berliners, the Gestapo, the Vultures - they fought here and blood ran in the streets of Sophia.

Can Themba, Nat Nakasa, Lewis Nkosi, Bloke Modisane wrote their best, here in Sophiatown. Tambo and Mandela walked here.

Luthuli stood, and a city's people walked past, here in Sophia.

Sophiatown, named after one Tobiansky's wife. Gerty Street, Ray Street, Edith Street, Bertha Street, named after Tobiansky's daughters. Did he know what he was making, I wonder, here in Sophia?

65 Gerty Street, that's where I found myself, in a shack at the back of a Softown cottage. Live-in at Mamariti's Diamond Shebeen. One pound a month! I say an exorbitant price to pay for a room hardly big enough to hold a bed. Tap in the yard, toilet in the corner - but it was grand because it was Softown. Freehold! It was ours! Not mine exactly, but it was ours. And it was close by to the big city - that is the why-for we wanted to stay.