Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of African Languages in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2003. / The life and work of Doctor Sibiya, Peter Qwabe and Isaac Tlou deals with their life stories and four compositions of each. The three human subjects are used in a symbolic form to depict the struggle of people from disadvantaged communities who despite of all odds, emerged and succeeded to give back to their communities through their compositions and expertise in choral music by running choral music workshops and adjudicating in choral music competitions. The first chapter is the introductory perspective of this research, which includes the explanation of music as common factor among the three oral sources, factors to be born in mind when conducting a research with oral sources, motivation, aims and the role of music in African societies of the study and research methodology. The second chapter deals with the effects of the South African policies before 1994 to Sibiya, Qwabe and Tlou as well as other black South Africans in order to understand and appreciate the full extent of circumstances from which these contributors emerged. A brief historic review of South Africa, and the extent of the educational deprivation of the black people will be looked into. The third chapter deals with the life and work of Doctor Sibiya in which four of his compositions are transcribed in both tonic solfa and staff notation