At home with Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Ebony, Sept, 1996 by Lindiwe Ngakane

When Joseph Shabalala takes you on a tour of his sprawling mansion in Kloof, outside Durban, one of the first rooms he guides you to is his office. As he steps through the door, his face beams with pride at the sight of all the gold and platinum discs shimmering on the walls, at the pictures of Shabalala shaking hands with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, chatting with Michael Jackson and receiving the treasured Grammy Award Ladysmith Black Mambazo won in 1988. He's come a long way since his childhood in rural KwaZulu-Natal.

Today, Shabalala still calls South Africa (where his family continues to live) home, but he spends much of his time touring outside the country, particularly the United States. While Ladysmith Black Mambazo has maintained its traditional style, Shabalala says it is that very unique, traditional style that appeals to overseas audiences, hankering for a pure sound that lacks either instruments or synthetic enhancement. No longer just a small-time group, Shabalala adds, it also needs the professional management that is available in America, where it has its main office in New York.

Since the early days of performing in township and village halls, Shabalala and his group of nine have moved on to bigger things and performed before the largest audience any entertainer could hope for, the 4.5 billion people watching the opening of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Apart from the Atlanta performance, the group's 1996 diary has been completely booked up. As part of a U.S. tour earlier this year, they performed their first musical play, Nomathemba, in Washington, D.C. Based on the evergreen song of the same name, the play is a love story written by Shabalala, Ntozake Shange and Eric Simonson and was received with rave reviews. The group will also perform for fans in Japan.

Shabalala and his group approach their work with a single-minded professionalism that has kept them from becoming complacent in the face of their popularity. Having released their latest album, Thuthukani Ngoxolo, in South Africa, the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia earlier this year, they have already started on their next album. Reflecting their diversity spiritually and music industry, their next release will be a gospel album produced by Alan Abrahams who has worked with gospel musical luminaries such as Vicky Winans, Joan Baez and the New Jersey Mass Chois.

But the group's success has not gone to Shabalala's head. More than just a musician and songwriter, Shabalala is a man of the community. Within days of returning to South Africa on a four-week break between engagements across the U.S., one of his first stops is at a rundown primary school, deep in the Valley of a Thousand Hills, to conduct a workshop with the Ndlokolo Primary School isicathamiya and choir groups. Although Shabalala does not receive pay for this work, be never turns down such requests if he has the time to attend. "These are my people," he says smiling. "This is my country; I owe it to them."

Despite his international status, Shabalala listens intently to the children as they perform excitedly in front of him, carefully giving encouragement and criticism, which he makes in a presentation afterward. Seated on a plastic chair in a dusty classroom that screams of poverty, he seems perfectly at ease with his surroundings. Later, he spends a few minutes with the isicathamiya group, showing them how to polish up their act, encouraging them to continue with the art, but also speaking to them as a father would to his sons (entreating them not to get carried away by their status as the local superstars, to remain sober and disciplined, to respect women and to continue with their studies.) "We don't want [artists] who are uneducated," he tells them. "It may have been fine in the olden days when there were fewer opportunities for education, but not today. Even if you want to be a musician, you must first finish your studies. "Shabalala comments later that the raw energy of the groups performance reminds him of Ladysmith Black Mambazo during its infancy when it brimmed.

From the early days of the group, Shabalala was the undisputed leader, giving both professional and spiritual guidance. But despite a burning desire for success, he knew that the group needed a little something extra. Inspiration, Shabalala says, came in a series of vivid dreams that led to the development of the smooth, gentle harmony that set Black Mambazo apart from other isicathamiya groups. That harmony won them competition after competition in the 1960s, hours air time on Radio Zulu in the 1970's and, eventually, their first record contract in 1973. "We were found by a talent scout by the name of Robert Bopapi," Shabalala remembers. "He warned us that although we were popular, people would not buy our albums, but his wife recognized our talent. When we went for the recording, we started singing other peoples music that sounded like all the other music, but we ended up recording four songs which I had written myself, including `Nomathemba.'"