Belede: A Songbook
I was excited to learn that Thandiswa Mazwai’s third studio album would be a jazz tribute. I was interested in hearing her interpretation of the genre in anticipation of a feast of freshness considering how stuffy South African jazz often gets.
Belede (named after her mother) dropped on 11 October 2016 and King Tha launched the album on 25 November 2016 to much critical acclaim, for obvious reasons.
This songbook of South African classics includes some of the greatest music produced and performed by the country’s musical icons from Miriam Makeba to Busi Mhlongo. The King also reinterprets one of her own songs.
I’m here for this project for 3 reasons: 1) it’s an opportunity to revisit a part of South Africa’s musical canon that doesn’t enjoy much mainstream airtime these days 2) it’s excellent 3) there is absolutely no better time to hear this music than right now
The rise of fascism across various corners of the world and the onslaught against the poor, students, black, brown, Muslim, queer and trans people has resulted in an urgent need for artists to do the work that speaks to our current times.
Belede connects us to a history of anti-colonial Pan-African radical resistance against repressive regimes at a moment we need it most.
This music would be a reinvigorating message of hope for our generation.
The music revisited here is characterized by migration. Various musical genres born from our respective cultures converge to make up these greatest hits. These are a combination of Jazz, Blues, Marabi and Folk.
Take “Nontsokolo” by Dorothy Masuka. This song easily provides us talking points about women’s migration (a history that is virtually ignored as compared to men’s migration to the mines) to urban spaces under apartheid. Movement from the rural to the urban space is signified by Masuka’s onomatopoeic inflections mimicking the whistling sound of the train carrying workers from their rural homes to the townships or backroom maids quarters of the homes where they would work. Or “Jikijela” sung by Letta Mbulu which stylistically invokes protest songs which provided the soundtrack (in real time) to resistance against apartheid brutality
Much of this music is produced and performed in an era of censorship. Artists had to be creative in how they would send messages of support for the liberation movement. An example is Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s I’m Winning (My Dear Love) in which the song’s chorus (I’m winning, winning my dear love) would be performed as a rallying chant “I’m Winnie: Winnie Mandela!”(basically #SayHerName before #SayHerName) saluting the revolutionary icon. Sing it without much enunciation and you’ll hear for yourself.
Artists not too fond of sugar-coating the realities of apartheid life paid the price for it in the form of exile.
Political exile came with musical cross-pollination. Artists would incorporate elements of East and West African sounds, Bebop and American Blues freeing the music from expectations of form and structure informed by genre.
This allows Thandiswa the artistic license to stretch and bend the music to her desire. She especially achieves this with “Ndiyahamba” (whose piano accompaniment courtesy of Nduduzo Makhathini plunged me straight into my Thelonious Monk fan-girl feels) in the same way Nina Simone (of course Nina is Nina) achieved it with her rendition of Miriam Makeba’s “West Wind” (which she performed in 1969 at Mama Africa’s request) also featured on the album.
For me to appreciate Belede I had to first understand the original work this album tributes. I had to revisit and try and make sense of what home, dispossession and Pan-Africanism in the musical context. These are the notions that inform the texture and colour of the music.
What I also find interesting about this music is the covers that follow after the original songs. As with Nina singing Makeba’s “ West Wind”, Letta would follow with her rendition of the The Union of South Africa’s “Mamani”. This could be coincidental but there’s the sense that this music isn’t produced for sole ownership in terms of performance. It’s as if artists are deliberately producing texts for all of us to share and interpret according to how we experience them. And what I find even more striking is, taking “West Wind” (and “Ndiyahamba”) as an example is Makeba revisiting the song and reinterpreting it within the context of world in which Reggae has emerged and taken its place in the musical canon.
Of course I added Belede to my Tha collection. And I listened.
I’ll say “Jikijela” is probably one of the most triggering songs I have heard in a while mainly because of the voices of students heard in the background. Being a student at this particular moment is difficult to say the very least. Producing knowledge zand challenging exclusionary practices in higher education in a time of campus militarisation has taken it’s toll on our minds and our bodies regardless of students’ will to continue to call for free decolonised education. I’ve been wondering about those women students, in particular, especially because ours is a history that isn’t concerned with saying our names. I don’t know who this woman student is. And having read various interviews Thandiswa has given she doesn’t seem to know who she is. While I admire the intention behind the inclusion of student voices particularly because of the #FeesMustFall movement, I am concerned that once again we run the risk of erasure. Saying names is important. This silence is even more pronounced when the familiar voice of Miriam Makeba is heard introducing the last song, “Makubenjalo”.
As you listen to the album there are moments where the genre overpowers Thandiswa at certain cadences. At other moments it seems the ensemble of Jazz instrumentalists do the Jazz while she merely sings in her usual timbre. And at other moments the meaning of the song (since it is the meaning and the codes communicated in the original arrangements that are of importance) lose their essence. I doubt that Jazz is necessarily the problem. Perhaps there is something missing in the inflections and the new texture of the music that leaves some of the songs hollow. I’m still listening to this album. I’m still trying to put my finger on it.
I’m still deciding if this album inserts itself within the tradition from which this music emerges. While not all the songs tributed are political, the artists who wrote, performed or arranged them were deliberate in making these anthems of a Pan-African movement within the continent and the diaspora. Miriam Makeba singing the KiSwahili “Malaika” and the Shona “Kulala” (originally written and performed by Zimbabwean-born Dorothy Masuka) reflects this. That “Mamani” is sung by a group consisting of black artists (Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa and Caiphus Semenya) named The Union of South Africa reflects the intention to reclaim an identity meant to exclude blacks from the land of their birth, for blacks. Perhaps this is simply a deeply personal album and nothing more with Thandiswa paying homage to the icons who paved the way for her. Perhaps that is enough. I think that’s the only way I can fully appreciate this album.
We’re invited to witness a personal journey towards healing. I’m still trying to figure out if that is sufficient for me as a listener of this music, music that formed the soundtrack of my childhood; and music that plunges our parents into a state of nostalgia causing them to momentarily reach back for a golden age in which they curated lives colored by love and disco in an era of total onslaught against their humanity.
I think Thandiswa invites us to witness her at her most vulnerable musically. This is punctuated by her tribute (“Wakrazulwa”) to her mentor the late Busi Mhlongo. The unresolved anguish at losing a dear friend is emphasized in the listing of Mhlongo’s Clan names (ukuthutha). This particular song and the title of the album (named after the King’s mother) reveals a possible broader theme of loss and healing. The songs composed by artists while in exile also provides us with this clue. Loss in the form of dispossession. The inclusion of #FeesMustFall students. Loss and the trauma that follows as a result. Belede. The loss of a mother.
This album is a quest for healing. It’s worth appreciating.
