Saint Stithians Girls inaugural #5WarCryChamps winners

Image supplied. The Saint Stithians Girls were recently crowned inaugural #5WarCryChamps winners

SA’s first showcase of the best war cries in the country, the 5 Drive War Cry Championship was launched by the youth radio station, 5FM last month, in March.

So far the winning video has received over 7.5 million views on social media.

Second to St Stithians Girls’ College was St Mary's DSG and third went to Maritzburg College.

“During our visits to and interactions with various schools, the one thing that all of them had in common is bringing the “gees” by showing us the power of their war cry, and it was goosebump stuff!” says 5FM’s acting business manager, Michael Bossenger.

“Since then, we’ve been overwhelmed by schools reaching out to us and tagging us to give them the chance to showcase the best war cries in SA, if not the world.

What the youth is passionate about

5FM is a station for the things that the youth are most passionate about, so we listened and decided to give them a proper chance to shine.”

Nick Hamman, host of 5 Drive on 5FM also explains that the 5Drive had been positively promoting High School War Cries for over two years already on the show, with their weekly Monday challenges, seeing clips from two different schools going head-to-head with listener’s votes.

“The 5Drive War Cry Championship, however, was an opportunity to take things to the next level by creating a nationwide competition.”

As a station, 5FM has always been the national youth platform, so it made sense to celebrate the proud tradition of War Cries,” he says.

The War Cries got millions of views from all over the globe, with celebrities like Asap Ferg, Bert Kreischer and Queen Latifah all showing love to their favourite performances.

“This definitely won’t be the last of The War Cry Championships and already we’re excited about engaging with sponsors to take things to the next level,” says Hammon.