Even in the harshest landscapes, flowers bloom. The tiny edelweiss lives atop rugged Alpine cliffs, while the night-blooming cereus cactus can put forth flowers in the desert only by opening the petals after dark. In some of the harshest human environments, flowers also grow.
For black South Africans, life in the land of apartheid is harsh. But from the barren townships where they must live, strong plants have sprouted-compelling works of fiction, exciting theatrical productions and, perhaps best known both in and out of South Africa, a buoyant music that is one of the most joyous, infectious and liberating sounds in the world.
Perhaps the most popular style to come from the black townships is mbaqanga, or ”township jive,” known to American listeners as the sound that inspired Paul Simon`s ”Graceland” album. The success of Simon`s record led to growing interest in the South African performers who originally created the music.
In the last few years, a strong, steady stream of records and tours has reached far beyond the segregated townships where the music was born. Wednesday at the Vic, in what will certainly be one of the world music events of the year here, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, one of South Africa`s most innovative and enjoyable mbaqanga groups, makes its Chicago debut.
For several decades now, Simon ”Mahlathini” Nkabinde has been one of South Africa`s most popular singers. His deep ”goat voice,” as he calls it, sounds like the rumblings that signal an earthquake. Though now his trademark, it once caused great concern.
”My mother was so worried (when my voice changed) that sometime I had eaten something very bad,” Mahlathini explains. ”We Africans, you know,
(think of) witchdoctors. Sometimes you get a bad medicine from somebody. So my mother thought it was that. When my father came back home from work he said, `No, leave the boy alone. He`s growing up.”`
In 1952, Mahlathini made his first recordings with the Dark City Sisters. Those releases established the ”simanje-manje” mbaqanga style which combined the lively, rolling rhythms of South African music with a strong-voiced lead male singer or ”groaner” backed by a group of female vocalists. In the `70s with the Mahotella Queens, Mahlathini made simanje-manje the leading township sound. Their music and performances were so exciting that people soon gave their style a new name, mgqashiyo, or the indestructible beat.
Backing Mahlathini and the Queens is the Makgona Tsohle Band (”the Band That Knows Everything”). The group first formed in 1965 and is led by sax player, songwriter, talent scout, manager and producer West Nkosi. A major force in South African music, Nkosi discovered Ladysmith Black Mambazo and a popular male mbaqanga group, Amaswazi Emvelo; brought Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens together; and played an important role in South African influenced albums by Paul Simon (”Graceland”) and Harry Belafonte
(”Paradise in Gazankulu”). He also is responsible for many of the wicked and wonderful hooks that fill Mahlathini and the Queens` music and make it so instantly hummable and unforgettable.
After performing for several years, the original Queens-Nobesuthu Shawe, Hilda Tloubatla and Mildred Mangxola-retired for nearly 10 years to marry and raise children. Recently they were reunited with Mahlathini and the Makonga Tsohle Band. For South African music, it was the equivalent of a Beatles reunion and West Nkosi was again at the center of events.
”When I was on (the `Graceland`) tour in London,” Nkosi relates, ”I met with the French promoters who knew our music before. And they asked me is it possible for me to get them back together. I said, `Yes, it`s possible.`
”Mahlathini was working with me, with one of my other groups, which is called Amaswazi Emvelo. The only people who were not with me were the girls. So I had to go and get the girls from their marriage and their husbands, to ask them if they could go back on the road. And their husbands were very much pleased to hear that news because they loved their women while they were singing some time ago. So it was very exciting. And now the whole country is very excited about the group because they know this group is an ambassador of mbaqanga.”
The roots of mbaqanga go back hundreds of years. They were shaped both by the traditions of South African music and the long, uneasy interaction between Westerners and Africans in the Cape that began when the Portuguese appeared in the late 1400s. Missionaries brought hymns and choirs, not at all an alien concept to people with a strong vocal tradition. Soldiers marched to the sounds and instruments of military bands. Settlers brought the pennywhistle, guitar and concertina. All had a major influence on South African music.
African-American music, which reached South Africa mainly through records and movies, also had a central role in the evolution of black South African styles. Toward the end of the 1800s, minstrel music and then ragtime took the country by storm. Innovative choral groups soon were mixing traditional, church, ragtime and minstrel music. This was the foundation for mbube, an extremely popular a capella style that takes its name from a 1939 song recorded by one of the most popular early mbube groups, Solomon Linda`s Original Evening Birds. The song ”Mbube,” or ”Lion,” later became popular around the world as ”Wimoweh.” A smoother, metaphorical, modern mbube is today performed by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, which had a major role in the
”Graceland” project.
Up-tempo urban styles that were strongly influenced by African-American jazz began to appear in the townships in the `20s and `30s. By the `50s, these various ethnic, Western and urban musical streams merged into the lively new urban style of mbaqanga. The music reflected black South Africans` rural past and urban present. Initially regarded as disreputable music, it gradually came to be seen as a powerful expression of black South African culture.
”Music is developing very big,” Nkosi explains, ”and is one of the biggest weapons that people are using politically to get people united. It is the music that gets the message across to people.
And a lot of people now are using music to fight against the apartheid because music seems to be one of the very strong elements in our culture.”
Acceptance and rewards for South African performers are coming at a faster pace elsewhere around the world.
Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, unknown a short time ago in the U.S., today have not one, but three new releases out and are in the midst of a successful month-long tour.
”The response,” Nkosi says, ”is tremendous, really. Sometimes (in the past) people (would) stand and listen and look at the music. But now, to my surprise, I find that everybody`s dancing from the very moment we start the music.
”Our music has been made in a different way. It appeals to everybody existing in this world because we have put a lot of different rhythms together to enable us to get everybody to feel his own rhythm. Most of the people here, they do not understand the lyrics, but they get the melody of the whole thing and the rhythm that shakes their bodies.
”We want to make the people understand our culture in our music. Because our music is part of our culture. I don`t want people to misunderstand us, (to think) that we are a tribal group. We are not. We are a Western civilization people also, but we have our own culture that we want them to understand.”
