The uncanny balance of rural sounds and inner-city rhythmic accents, make Laliboi’s debut album Siyangaphi, feel like an evening spent around a fire listening to an old uncle reciting folktales through a gramophone. Urban beats nibble your ear with a dash with African folk samples and lyrics–a tinge of Electro as well as a Kwaito dressing to blend the flavours. A recipe that award-winning filmmaker and iconic music producer Spoek Mathambo, the engineer of the album has often served at his table
“Siyangaphi was my great grandfather’s name, he was a trumpeter for a British regiment stationed in Butterworth Eastern Cape during World War 2. So this album is about speaking life to his legacy, because when we speak of, or revisit works of people who have passed on we keep them alive. Siyangaphi is about relating his narrative to mine in present times and juxtaposing the two worlds, which aren’t entirely different. The struggles of black people back in his day are still very much present today, and I want us to have these dialogues not matter how uncomfortable they are.” Shared Laliboi.
The title of the album is also a question, siyangaphi is an isiXhosa word that means ‘where are we going.’ The question threads the album, as Laliboi narrates the tale of a rural boy moving into a big city where he encounters an array of cultures and lifestyles often foreign in rural homelands.
“Despite living in urban Johannesburg for a while now, I have never lost my thick rural isiXhosa accent, and even in spaces where English is the common tongue I always speak isiXhosa. So my friends would diss me and call me a lali (rural) boy hence the name Laliboi.” He went on to say.
Laliboi has been in the music scene for almost two decades as trumpeter, guitarist and vocalist for bands like Impande Core and Radio 123. Now he has finally gone solo, reinventing himself as a lyricist telling his and his people’s stories the same way a traditional Imbongi (Griot) in isiXhosa culture would do. “I am not a umXhosa rapper, instead I am just a storyteller who uses ‘rhyme saying’ as a vehicle to tell my people’s narrative, and isiXhosa happens to be the language I use to convey these tales of the Bantu.’’ Clarified Laliboi, who is known mainly as a trumpeter — a lesser-known fact is that Laliboi according to him, is a better guitarist than he is a trumpeter and now proves to be an even far more eloquent lyricist.
On the first afternoon I met up with Laliboi, I waited for him on the street corner outside his home eZompi in Vosloorus. He finally came around the bend clutching his trumpet-case in a rush to make our appointment. Dressed in his poor boy cap, and signature earspools, he greeted me with a huge smile and sigh of relief that I didn’t get too lost on my way to him. This warm and genuine personality is one that he carries everywhere he goes, it is a personality that also comes across on his album
On that day we met, he was preparing to shoot a short film/music video with Button Konupi photographer and Director of the Emonti Music video. The video was for his single Deuteronomy 28, a song about the role that quasi Christianity plays in black people’s lives, the song speaks of losing land and a sense of self to western ways. Yet, it has undertones of how not all religion that is practised today in Africa is western, and how Bantu Ethnic groups like the Lemba and some TshiVenda clans are decedents of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
Over the years genetic evidence has been brought to the fore to substantiate the Lemba’s claim. According to scientist most Lemba have a Y chromosome that contains Cohen Modal Haplotype, found among the Jewish priestly line, known as Kohanim. This CMH marker is rare in most Africans and is mainly found in the middles east where the Lemba are said to have travelled from before settling in Southern Africa. “In our “wokeness” we must be aware of not discarding our roots and traditions in the confusion of labelling everything religious as western. As a umXhosa who praises Shembe a religion that is traditionally synonymous with amaZulu, I have come to understand that spirituality surpasses tribes, race, gender as well as geography, and it is important for one to fully understand that the spiritual realm is indifferent to all these things. Thus we must strive to seek and preserve our truest history in-order to attain full contact with our real selves.” Laliboi further adds.
A typical lali (rural) boy in Johannesburg eventually becomes very multifaceted as they become exposed to cultures and lifestyles the city has on offer. Siyangaphi reflects this assortment of spaces a lali boy finds himself in. Songs like Somandla, a track with a sample from an isiXhosa prayer and an eclectic Kwaito/Bubblegum (80s South African disco and funk) and Electro beat is about the temptations lali boys face in the city and the song as a plea to a higher deity to avert them from these impulses that might stray them from manifesting their purpose. “We must not forget that most of our parents and some of greatest leaders are lali boys, Nelson Mandela was a lali boy, Steve Biko as well, and when they came to the city the remained fixed on their mission, even mam Winnie Mandela was a rural child” uLaliboi reminds us.
The song Nomzamo is dedicated to mam Winnie Nomzamo Mandela and constitutes the foundation of the creation of Siyangaphi. Spoek Mathambo gave the beat to Lali Boi after hearing his verse on Damon Albarn’s Africa Express project for a song entitled No Games which featured him and his Radio 123 bandmate Smash Mellow. Spoek and Lali Boi had met years prior when Spoek had just returned to South Africa after living in Europe. “At that time Spoek wanted to make music with us, we were still a part of Impande Core, but nothing transpired. When we reunited on the Africa Express album we started playing with the idea of working together and after he heard my verse on No Games he gave me the beat for Nomzamo, a song that was meant only for his upcoming album, but he was generous to also let me have it on my album as well.
From that moment we started gradually working on singles together and eventually we had an 11 track album. We didn’t want to do anything regular or popular instead, we wanted to introduce people to our truth. Hence we only sampled African music and monologues from various professors and speaker, we also have a sample from artists like Zoe Modiga on the track Angazi Kanjani, as well a priest preaching at a family funeral Spoek was attending. We set out to create an album that is relatable and yet authentic as possible…” That is exactly what Siyangaphi is — a familiar stranger that you instinctively gravitate to.
