Johannesburg - Thirty-million record-selling isicathamiya group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, will celebrate South Africa’s late and world-renowned former head of state Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) in a peace-themed concert nine years after his passing.
The event will take place on the eve of what would have been Mandela’s 104th birthday anniversary.
The inspiration behind the show's theme emanates from Mandela’s peaceful nature and the love he had for the group founded by Joseph Shabalala (1941-2020) in 1960.
Shabalala composed songs about love and peace, including Long Walk To Freedom (2006). Shabalala dedicated the song to Mandela for being the first democratically-elected president in 1994, and served as president until 1999. Mandela died on December 5, 2013, due to prolonged respiratory illness.
In 1993, the KwaZulu-Natal-based group performed for Nelson Mandela for the first time at his birthday celebration in Johannesburg, and in Oslo, Norway, where Mandela received his Nobel Peace Prize Award.
Sibongiseni Shabalala, the son of the legendary Joseph Shabalala, said the songs that the group will perform at the concert will reflect the day's theme.
“We will sing songs about peace that Mandela loved to motivate our people to be united. He (Mandela) loved Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and this is our way of honouring him this year,” said Sibongiseni.
He said the chosen concert venue, Joburg Theatre, was selected because Johannesburg was one of the cities the group frequented in their early days.
“Joburg is the City of Gold. It is one of the places that the group toured when it first started. We love staging our concerts there (Johannesburg). That is why we thought of putting the concert in the city centre where everyone can come,” he said.
The five-time Grammy-award-winning (1988, 2004, 2009, 2013 and 2018) group has recorded over 30 albums since 1960, has performed for 62 years, touring the world and selling millions of records; the group may as well be dubbed Mzansi’s number one isicathamiya group, because no other group in its genre has touched such heights of global success.
“As a group, we always get together to rehearse and brainstorm about our music in Clermont (KwaZulu-Natal). Another significant factor in maintaining our relevance is our collaborations with young artists. The collaborations help our sound to cross over to young music lovers,” Sibongiseni said
The group’s latest collaboration is with the 11-time award-winning Nigerian singer Burna Boy on his sixth studio album, “Love, Damini”, released this past Friday, July 8, 2022. Some of the local artists the group has collaborated with include a cappella group, The Soil, songstress Zahara and multi-genre group Mi Casa.
To ensure that the group and Joseph Shabalala’s legacy are preserved for decades into the future, the group established its academy, the Ladysmith Black Mambazo Mobile Academy programme, in 2018. Through the academy, the group selected two groups: Gods Fellas from Rustenburg and Meduduwetsane from Kimberley, who will travel with them for their United Kingdom tour, in October, this year.
The group is also planning to open a museum in honour of Joseph Shabalala at his first house in Clermont, KwaZulu-Natal, where he lived in the 1960s.
“It has always been my father's wish to preserve and promote the isicathamiya music genre. He wanted to build a school that would be home to indigenous South African music, where anyone could come and learn traditional music. To achieve that, we established the mobile academy,” he said.
Black Entertainment Television (BET), an American television company established in the 1980s which launched its African division in 2015, is the broadcasting sponsor of the concert. The broadcaster will broadcast the Mandela celebration show at a later stage.
Speaking about his father, Joseph, Shabalala, Sibongiseni said his old man knew that one day he would pass, so he always prepared them for the inevitable. Before his passing, he continued to support the group even after he retired in 2014. He would tag along to shows and ensure that things were in order on and off stage, and that the group was thoroughly prepared for their performances.
And perhaps, despite the hurt of his father’s passing two years ago, the tale has a humorous twist to it, which sweetens the memory, as Sibongiseni explains, with a serene chuckle, about his younger years while his father led the group: “You know how kids are. If I did anything wrong, they would sing a (Ladysmith Black) Mambazo song, and everyone would start laughing at me. We miss him (Joseph Shabalala) dearly. He was such a storyteller. He had the skill to tell the same story a thousand times, but made it enjoyable each time he told it.”
The group’s manager, Xolani Majozi, and the executive director of the Ladysmith Black Mambazo Pty Ltd, said 20% of the proceeds would be donated to the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) to support its development programmes.
The NMF was founded in 1999. The Joburg-based foundation focuses on sustainable solutions to humanity’s problems, such as the promotion of Mandela’s vision of freedom and equality for all.
Tickets at R250 apiece for the event are available on the Joburg Theatre website and all Pick n Pay outlets.