Ladysmith Black Mambazo sang their benevolent choral euphony in recognition of peace icon Nelson Mandela on Sunday, with a 45-minute forced break caused by load-shedding.
The show at Joburg Theatre in Braamfontein a day before UN-declared International Mandela Day, his birthday, celebrated the life of the man who guided SA from the shackles of apartheid to interracial democracy while attentively avoiding a civil war.
“Madiba has been an inspiration for us,” said Sibongiseni Shabalala, band member and son of the band’s late founder Joseph Shabalala, using Mandela’s clan name.
“He was in prison for people to get freedom. Even when they said ‘we will release you if you give up, he said ‘no, my freedom is the freedom of my people,” Shabalala told Reuters before the concert.
Established in the 1960s, the band juiced-up traditional Zulu music with a big band feel and marketed overseas, most notably through a partnership with Paul Simon on the 1986 album Graceland.
The band also sliced songs with Dolly Parton, George Clinton, Michael Jackson, and other big names.
“My father taught us a good song is one everyone can listen to.
A song that will unite people,” Shabalala said, thinking back to the founding member who passed away from illness in early 2020.
The group’s name comes from Ladysmith, the town its members come from, the black oxen which were prized among pastoral Zulus, and “Mambazo”, the Zulu word for “axe”.
When they performed on the former president’s birthday in 1993, Mandela said to them their music had kept him going while in prison.
At the auditorium packed with mostly substantial black South Africans on Sunday, the band got through three songs before a power outage took out the sound and stage lights.
About 45-minutes later, a generator rolled on and the band resumed proceedings to loud applause.
