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| © SKepecs 2013 |
by Susan Kepecs
Vusi Mahlasela’s concert Friday night, Feb.
15, at the Wisconsin Union Theater at The Sett, Union South, was a golden ode
to Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Steve Biko and legions of other warriors who
fought to free South Africa from apartheid.
Mahlasela himself fought in that army – a humble poet of stripped-down mbaqanga and
township jive, he’s called “The Voice” not just because he can sing like
gangbusters, but because he gives voice to the movement for peace, freedom and
justice in South Africa and around the world, following in the gigantic
footsteps of Mama Africa, the late Miriam Makeba, who Mahlasela cites as one of
his greatest influences. The ghost of Mama Africa was in the house Friday night,
along with the stalwart spirits of other ancestors, both gone and living, who
fill out Mahlasela’s musical lineage. But
in a sense they’re our forerunners too, because ultimately we’re all children
of Africa. That’s an empirical fact of
human evolution.
Onstage it was just Mahlasela,
a helluva guitarist, on an amped acoustic instrument (which he sometimes danced
with as he played), accompanied by a backup guitar player whose name I didn’t
catch and who often gazed at Mahlasela in apparent amazement, wielding an electric
axe that he sometimes played like a bass, sometimes like a rhythm instrument
and occasioualy like a second lead, harmonizing with Mahlasela’s double-thumbed
melodies. Similarly, this second player
sometimes sang on the chorus, providing bass counterpoint to Mahlasela’s
incredible vocal range that flows from deep tenor to Motown-like falsetto, with
an occasional low growl. The resulting, unmistakable township sound was as round
and full as the summer sun.
Its about ubuntu, Mahlasela says of his songs. “If you don’t know what ubuntu means, Google
it!” But before anybody could whip out
an iPhone he went on, defining ubuntu as “the gift of Africa – the gift of
everyday kindness, humbleness, tolerance, forgiveness, reconciliation,
redistribution.”
This hopeful message,
like the joyfulness of Mahlasela’s songs, seems poignantly at odds with the reality
of today’s South Africa. It’s been
fourteen years since Mandela, now 94, stepped down from his hard-won
presidency. Raging inequalities persist, and violent police attacks on striking
mine workers echo apartheid-era confrontations.
But the luscious songs Malhasela sings in Zulu and Xhosa (including a
couple of “click” songs) – interspersed with stories told in English so we
could understand the meaning, if not the content, of the lyrics – should
inspire us all to righteous revolution.
“In 1984, when Dr. Tutu
won the Nobel Price,” Mahlasela says, “we were celebrating in Soweto – the
United Democratic Front [a student-worker-church alliance closely tied to
Mandela’s African National Congress]. I
was there. Somebody in the crowd was carying a poster of a face. It was Zindzi Mandela, one of Nelson’s
daughters, who read a letter by Nelson telling us to keep up the struggle. We found out that what she was carrying was a
portrait of Mandela! We didn’t know how
our leaders looked – they’d been imprisoned on Robben Island since before we
were born. It was so exciting to see
that picture! We were shouting ‘¡Viva
Nelson Mandela! ¡Viva!’
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| © SKepecs 2013 |
And with that, Mahlasela launched
into a big, joyful, grinning song for Mandela, head tossed back, fist raised in
revolutionary salute. I was dying to
stand up, raise my own fist, and dance.
I’m sure others in the audience were, too, but Mahlasela commanded so
much respect that nobody did.
Among Mahlasela’s other
ubuntu tunes Friday night were “Sing, Sing Africa,” the ITV theme song during
the 2010 World Cup in South Africa; “Say Africa,” the title cut off his latest
CD, produced by Taj Mahal (ATO Records, 2011); the lovely “Woza,” a love song,
also from Say Africa – classic
township jive, smooth as silk, sweet as honey, edged with a smidge of soaring
falsetto.
And “Thula Mama,” a song
“to all the women in South Africa, and especially to my late grandmother who protected
me as a young activist from the police.”
“I was 11 in 1976,”
Mahlasela continued, explaining the story behind this last tune. “On June 16
there was a student uprising – the youth changed the politics of South Africa. I joined the movement. The police rounded us up every year on the
anniversary of the uprising. My
grandmother protected me – when the police came she turned off all the lights
in the house and opened the kitchen door and she told them ‘Vusi’s here and you’re
not going to take him! I’ve got a pot of
boiling water and the first one who comes in here gets it!’
And then, dancing with
his guitar, he launched into the song. It ends with a happy, catchy, looping
refrain – “my song of life, my song of love” – which, along with thunderous
applause, accompanied his exit from the stage.
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