Finally, South Africa's first black 'Idol' winner
Singing contest had white winners for seven seasons before slick star made TV history
When Khaya Mthethwa breathed out the last notes of Nicki Minaj's Super Bass, a song he had heard for the first time that same day, the judges of Idols SA - the South African version of American 8Idol - were blown away.
"Dude, you've just got it," said Gareth Cliff, one of the celebrity judges, shaking his head.
"This is your competition to lose," said Unathi Msengana, a fellow panellist.
Beyond the usual jitters of a contestant on a reality television program, singing his heart out and hoping for a big break, there was another pressure weighing on Mthethwa: would he finally become the first black contestant to win Idols in his country?
It might seem strange, in a nation where 80 per cent of the population is black, that a singing contest decided by a popular vote had failed for years to produce a single black winner.
And in South Africa, which for decades separated the races under a brutal apartheid system that put blacks at the bottom and whites on top, nothing - not even a singing competition - escapes examination under a powerful racial lens.
So last week, when Mthethwa was crowned winner of the eighth season of Idols, a fit of soul-searching ensued over how far the rainbow nation has come in burying its racial divisions.