Harmony on all fronts with Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell

There is a pure and profound power to voices singing in harmony and Galway will get to hear masters of that particular craft on Wednesday, July 26, when Ladysmith Black Mambazo come to the Galway International Arts Festival. The South African male choir was formed in the early 1960s by Joseph Shabalala, a farm-boy turned factory worker and it came to international prominence when it worked with Paul Simon on his hugely successful 1986 Graceland album.

Albert Mazibuko recalls the day his young cousin came to him with the idea of setting up a group.

“I remember the Sunday he came, it was mid-morning,” says Albert. “He explained the kind of singing he was looking for and taught us two new songs, King of Kings, and one that can be translated as Hello My Baby, both in our own language, which is Zulu.”

Albert and Joseph’s fathers and their parents’ friends initially disapproved of what these young upstarts were doing, using traditional singing styles for new material, but Albert heard something in Joseph’s creations that struck a chord.

“The way Joseph sang them was like singing I’d never heard in my life,” he says. “It sounded so wonderful! We said ‘OK, let’s give it a try’ – and we’ve never looked back.”

Ladysmith is the name of Joseph’s hometown, about halfway between Durban and Johannesburg; Black is a reference to oxen, renowned for their strength; and Mambazo is he Zulu word for an axe, a symbol of the group’s ability to ‘chop down’ any singing rival. That’s because in their early days, they entered competitions, until they were deemed too good,and no longer allowed to.

“We wanted to sing the kind of songs that would empower people in South Africa and encourage them to work together, and try to free themselves. That was the main aim in establishing Ladysmith Black Mambazo,” explains Albert.

That was a noble reason for starting a band, but it must have been a tough one to adhere to during the darkest days of South Africa’s apartheid regime and Nelson Mandela’s incarceration.

“I know what you mean,” Albert agrees. “In that time, it was impossible [to predict] that Mandela would be free, and that in South Africa we would be equal.  To tell you the truth, there was a time that we thought ‘those people that are trying to fight, they’re making things worse’,” he says, referring to the ANC. “But with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, we said ‘let’s continue to write songs that are making people aware that they can fight for their freedom, but not kill one another’.  To give people hope, and the strength to continue.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.