The Mankunku Quartet's 1968 album Yakhal Inkomo clocks in at just over 30 minutes of jazz perfection. This compact, and to-the-point, album would sit comfortably in amongst some of the best works in the catalogues of any of the quintessential jazz labels such as Blue Note, Prestige and Impulse. Yakhal Inkomo, however, was originally released on the South African record label World Record Co., which resulted in it becoming an elusive and sought-after piece for jazz collectors. It has been long regarded as one of the finest South African jazz albums and DJ / broadcaster Gilles Peterson cemented this when he included it in his "best of genre" focused radio show, 'The 20 - South African Jazz'.

Tenor saxophonist Winston "Mankunku" Ngozi recorded the session on July 23, 1968 at the Manley van Niekerk Studios, in Johannesburg. It was recorded by Dave Challen and produced by Ray Nkwe. The session is built up of two original works by Mankunku on the A-side, "Yakhal Inkomo" and "Dedication (To Daddy Trane and Brother Shorter)," and on the B-side, the Horace Silver composition "Doodlin'," and a John Coltrane number "Bessie's Blues." What is striking is how the Mankunku-penned compositions not only hold their own next to Silver and Coltrane but they are, arguably, the better tracks on the record - a testament to the beautiful writing and playing of Mankunku.

Yakhal Inkomo features the great musicians; Agrippa Magwaza on bass, drummer Early Mabuza, and pianist Lionel Pillay. Pillay was of Indian descent, making this a mixed-race group, thus the very recording of the album was an act of resistance as it broke the apartheid restrictions of the time. The title of Yakhal Inkomo means "the bellow of the bull", the Black audience would have understood this as coded community symbolism and an act of protest but it escaped the attention of the white government.