‘Burn and destroy Corona with song’
George Thepelo unexpectedly found religion in his youth and has been making religious music since then, recently releasing his sixth album.
The passion for music often starts at a young age. In 1969 George Thepelo realised that he had a natural talent for playing the harmonica and singing along with it. Now, 52 years later at 68 years old he has released his sixth religion-themed music album.
While at school, a teacher taught George to play the harmonica while the other children went on break, so he practised every day.
Today everyone knows him as Papa G. “I am also at the Rainbow FM radio station. We were three Pastors George there, but sadly one has passed. When people came to look for Pastor George they said ‘which Pastor George?’ Now they said ‘you, we will call Papa G’.
“I am an evangelist and the Community Chairperson at the clinic in Luipaardsvlei, and I am a musician. I make religious music, and I’ve just released my sixth album called Fire By Force. I’ve been travelling in Africa most of the time.”
George has not always been on the path he is today. “Actually, I didn’t want to be a pastor,” he laughed, saying, “One time my wife said they were going to be baptised and asked that I take them and wait for them there. I was having my four cans of Lion,” he chuckled. “I said okay, let me just put my beer in the fridge and get you there. I was just waiting inside my car, smoking and relaxing. A lady came from there, baptising them, and I heard her knock on my window. She asked me if I didn’t want to go and see what was happening inside. She said I didn’t have to do anything, I could just sit there and relax, and see what was happening.”
Watching the people being baptised, George felt the urge to go to the front and to be baptised. “I went home, took those cans and cigarettes and threw them in the bin.”
A few years later, George started studying to become an Evangelist Pastor and has travelled to Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and more to preach and sing.
His latest album is named after the second song on it, also named Fire By Force. “It is whereby we will send the fire to burn and destroy the evil spirits so that there must be peace; to burn and destroy the evil spirits of Corona so that we can take off these masks again, and that it will be like normal.”
George has also opened a music school to teach the children in the community how to play the harmonica free of charge. “They don’t know. They ask me, ‘Papa G, what is this?’ Most of them know about the keyboards and the saxophone and whatever. My heart was very sore and I said that I must just lift up this instrument. I want it to come back.”
