Thomas Chauke, along with the accompanying Shinyori Sisters, have long been the best-selling purveyors of South Africa's neo-traditional Tsonga style of music. Born in 1952 in Saselamani, Limpopo, Thomas Hasani "Shinyori" Chauke learned mbaqanga music from his uncle in Alexandra and formed his first band with fellow patrons of a local shebeen. Chauke's lilting, repetitive guitar playing is the silver thread tying call-and-response male vocals and a female chorus to four-on-the-floor bass and drums. His folksy, often Christian lyrics have comforted the troubled over the course of dozens of albums in the Shimatsatsa (Beautiful Girl) collection he began releasing in 1981. During the '80s and '90s, Chauke blended maskandi (Zulu folk music) with the increasingly synth-driven sounds of township bubblegum pop, eventually developing what became known as Tsonga disco. In 2013, radio station Munghana Lonene FM ensured the musician’s place in history when they declared Chauke "The Greatest Xitsonga Musician of Our Times".