South African songs find their way home.
The music industry gets so much grief these days-and for good reason-over the way it does business. Consumers have to pay more for CDs, and it's harder for lesser-known artists to get a foot in the door. Record labels seem to operate on a few basic success factors: You've got to be young, you've got to be sexy and you've got to produce hits.
This makes Ladysmith Black Mambazo's success all the more intriguing, since its members aren't young, or sexy, or producing any hit songs. Nevertheless, Ladysmith's new album,
Long Walk to Freedom
, features such big names as Melissa Etheridge and Emmylou Harris.
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Furthermore, many of the group's songs aren't even in English, but Zulu, which, last I checked, doesn't sell nearly as many records as those in a Western language.
There is something deeper than physical beauty or instant catchiness in Ladysmith's songs. You can hear it in the eight members' voices when they sing the Afro-pop/gospel tunes first popularized when Paul Simon had them sing on his
Graceland
album. Led by Joseph Shabalala since the early '70s, Ladysmith continues to gain new listeners with the group's otherworldly voices.
One of Ladysmith's founding members, Albert Mazibuko, offers one example of the power of his music: "We were the first group in South Africa to get permission to travel freely," he says, speaking from a Best Western Hotel room in Boise, Idaho. In the old days, Mazibuko continues, Ladysmith would get stopped by the police regularly on the way to concerts.
"But we were able to…hypnotize the police by singing. We'd be in one car, they'd stop us and ask where we were going, and we'd get out and sing. They said, 'Wow, that's good,' and they'd let us go," Mazibuko says.
That was in the early '70s, when apartheid kept Ladysmith from performing to white audiences. But as the group's popularity grew among black South Africans, other nations' citizens began to take notice. Lesotho, Swaziland and other southern African countries became tour stops. Eventually, in the early '80s, the group began playing for audiences in Germany.
It wasn't until 1986 that Ladysmith's sound-if not its name-became known to American audiences through the
Graceland
appearance that prominently featured the all-male vocal group. After that, Ladysmith began higher-profile tours of the US, which Mazibuko describes as "putting tears in my eyes."
"I was surprised at the poverty that was around," he says. "You think it's the land of plenty…when you see things like, on TV, that's not what it's like when you're here. It was shocking, how some people would throw food away and others would go hungry."
That was exactly 20 years ago. Mazibuko's group is now receiving accolades that tell of their success, both as singers and humanitarians. Recently, the group performed songs from its 45-year career at Carnegie Hall, inviting noted guests on stage. Folk icon Pete Seeger was one of them.
Mazibuko describes the scene: "There's a song he does where he uses a hammer. He used to use an axe and chop wood, but figured it was too dangerous on stage. Now he uses a big log and puts a chisel in it," then brings out the hammer, Mazibuko says. At the Carnegie Hall concert, however, 87-year-old Seeger could almost-but not quite-swing the sledgehammer down. So he got some help from Ladysmith.
Mazibuko can tell you other stories as well, such as the one about going home.
"We don't announce when we're coming home," he says, laughing. But he's serious: Since Mazibuko and his bandmates have begun offering vocal lessons in their home country, the
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demand far exceeds what they can handle. Everyone, it seems, wants to learn their distinctive, gutteral-meets-falsetto a cappella singing style. Even his grandkids.
The singer knows that Ladysmith's music is evidence of an art form that may die if he doesn't teach it to others. "We only learn this from our grandmothers and grandfathers," he says, adding that within the next couple of years, he hopes to open a government-funded school where kids can come and learn singing and other arts for free.
Which is another difference between US and South African cultures. The kids there want to learn from their grandparents so badly, Mazibuko looks forward to touring to relax (whereas, for most bands, it's the other way around).
"I used to have a gate around my house," he says toward the end of our conversation. "I have vacant land around my house. I took it down though, because so many kids come over to the house. We don't invite them; they just come."
Of course, this is all slowed by Ladysmith's incredibly busy tour schedule, which includes a stop in Santa Fe this week. Ladysmith is wrapping up a US tour, and within the next couple of weeks, Mazibuko and his fellow vocalists will be returning home for a break. Just don't tell his grandkids.
