Steve Hofmeyr to include Die Stem on new album to 'annoy critics'

Johannesburg - Singer Steve Hofmeyr plans to include a section of Die Stem on his latest album due for release in September, Beeld reported on Wednesday.

"It was purely by request," said Hofmeyr who faced controversy after he sang it at the Innibos festival in Mbombela earlier this year.

He plans to sing it with only a guitar as accompaniment, adding the audience - "all 40,000 of them" - who sang it with him at Innibos towards the end.

Asked whether he was doing it to annoy his critics or for his fans to sing along at home, he said "both".

It will be the third in his Toeka series, which has sold 350 000 copies already and will fit in with the series's theme of nostalgia, he said.

"I am just sorry I could not track Neelsie [CJ Langenhoven] himself down for a duet," he quipped, referring to the composer of South Africa's apartheid-era national anthem.

He is planning another release which will include the complete Die Stem and Ken jy die Land, the anthem of the independent Boer republic, also known as the national anthem of the Transvaal, and Suikerbossie.