An album you should own: ‘Urbanzulu’

Over the past decade, there are three music CDs I’ve given multiple times as gifts. Which means I think they’re pretty special. So I may as well blog about them.

Actually, I blogged about South African vocalist Busi Mhlongo two years ago. I am glad to speak again on her 1998 CD “Urbanzulu” (which is downloadable from iTunes).

This one was a world-music hit, and it spawned a live CD and a remix project. Listening to these tracks, you can understand why Ms. Mhlongo is more than a popular recording artist and international concert attraction. She is a culture hero to the Zulu people.

Busi Mhlongo has been fighting breast cancer for the past couple of years. But the Sowetan newspaper reports that she has a new album coming out soon, produced by Shaluza Max (Max Mtambo)... another one of my favorite South African musicians.

Here are some streaming tracks off “Urbanzulu”:

1. “Yehlisan’Umoya Ma-Afrika”

2. “Ngadlalwa Yindoda”

3. “Zithin’Izizwe”

Happy birthday, Nelson Mandela.

Today was the 91st birthday of Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president.

In his honor, I am streaming on my Vox blog a 4-minute excerpt of “Mandela: An Audio History,” which was produced by National Public Radio in 2004.

Click here to listen.

The voices heard in this clip, interspersed with newsreel audio, are (in order): Coloured activist Eddie Daniels, South African Communist Party member Denis Goldberg, former Member of Parliament Helen Suzman, former political prisoner Sonny Venkatrathnam, African National Congress member Joe Matthews, Mr. Mandela, and activist lawyer Dullah Omar.

Meet an African: Lebo Mashile

This year I plan to shine a light on some notable Africans. If you consume mainstream media, you realize that the creative and intellectual life of African nations is almost entirely hidden from us. And that sucks.

So let’s talk about spoken word. While the entire planet has embraced the aesthetics and dialectics of hip-hop, American-style performance poetry hasn’t spread quite so conspicuously.

Except in South Africa, where a spoken-word scene is flourishing.

Lebo Mashile, a month shy of 30 years old, is a television personality and an actress. (She portrayed Odette Nyiramilimo in the movie “Hotel Rwanda.”) She is also one of South Africa’s leading performance poets.

On my Vox blog, I’m streaming a couple of tracks from Ms. Mashile’s 2005 CD “Lebo Mashile Live!” (I purchased it from OneWorld.co.za, my sole source for South African music.)

Click here to hear “I Like It Deep Sometimes.” Apart from Lebo’s poetry, you have got to hear the groove her live band puts down.

Click here to hear “Tell Your Story.”

I’m also streaming a brief excerpt from an interview Mashile did last year on South Africa’s 702 Talk Radio. To listen, click here.

John McCain says the N-word... on tape!

Got your attention, didn’t I? Man, I am shameless.

I’m not a liar, though. John McCain indeed uttered the word “nigger” in the audio version of his 2005 book “Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember.”

He spoke it in the context of South Africa’s history of racism.

Click here to listen (and to assess how trippingly the word rolls of his tongue. Hee-hee...).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with McCain saying the word in this context. What’s ironic is that McCain spoke so admiringly of Nelson Mandela – a man who, until this very year, was on the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list.

Perhaps Sarah Palin should ask her running mate whether he “pals around with terrorists.” (Just sayin’... Mandela did bomb shit.)

Sounds of the South African squeezebox

Y’all know I’m into South African music, right? Let me share something interesting with you.

There’s a fantastic singer named Themba “Shaluza Max” Mntambo. What caught me about his music – apart from Max’s muscular tenor and some thumping grooves – was the sound of a concertina.

In my mind, the accordion-like concertina is a dainty little European instrument. What’s it doing in a Zulu chant-song?

To hear what I mean, click here and listen to Shaluza Max’s “Amancamnce.”

Embedded below is a Shaluza Max video with an even funkier concertina hook. The song is called “Mangase.” (“Amancamnce” and “Mangase” are downloadable from iTunes.)

Here’s the deal: Englishmen developed the concertina during the mid-1800s. They are said to have introduced it to South Africa in the 1920s.

The instrument was then picked up by Afrikaners, who made it a cornerstone of their folk music.

But it was also picked up by Zulus, who likewise absorbed it into their traditional music.

Doesn’t that say something beautiful about the meaning of music... and how culture is transmitted? Like with the banjo in America. Or the tuba in Mexico.

Supposedly, there are now concertina festivals in South Africa where Boer and Zulu musicians come together and rock their “Anglo” concertinas!

(By the way, we might refer to a concertina as a squeezebox... but South Africans call it a squashbox.)

Albinos in Africa catch hell.

Ever wonder about albinos in Africa? Reportedly, one in every 4,000 Africans is born with albinism. Which would add up to nearly a quarter million black albinos on the continent.

Now brace yourself: In Tanzania, people with albinism are being murdered and mutilated... so their body parts can be used for magic.

Embedded below is a 12-minute video report about this phenomenon, broadcast last month on Al Jazeera English.

The second video is about albinos in South Africa. Thankfully, they are not targets for murder... but they do face social ostracism. You’ll meet a young woman from Soweto whose father abandoned her due to her condition.

That 8-minute piece was produced in 2006 by London-based Journeyman Pictures.

African Music Weekend at UBM

I want to try a theme this weekend. (I’m feeling frisky.) So for the next couple of days, this blog will be devoted to African music... via audio, video and text.

Let’s start with the music vid in my UBM-TV corner. The track is called “Oyi Oyi.” The artist is Arthur Mafokate, known simply as Arthur. (You’ll need external speakers to appreciate the bass.)

Born in the South African township of Soweto, Arthur went from being a pop-music background dancer to a pioneering producer of kwaito, the groove music influenced by house and hip-hop.

I got turned on to kwaito whilst visiting Johannesburg in 2000. I dig Arthur’s stuff in particular (as I blogged in February).

Arthur’s CDs are impossible to find in the U.S. But I can vouch for the South African online music store One World.

UPDATE (07/27/08): Click here to watch the “Oyi, Oyi” video.

Happy birthday, Nelson Mandela.

Playlist: South African dance music

Writing about “Zero Tolerance” made me nostaligic for the South African music I was turned on to during my visit to Joburg in 2000.

So I’m streaming a few tracks by producer Arthur Mafokate (or just “Arthur”), who is called the “King of Kwaito.”

Kwaito is the popular South African style of dance music combining house and hip-hop. It’s hot.

Click the songs titles below to hear what Arthur is about. (“Yiyo Lendawo” is included on the CD samplers “Kwaito: South African Hip Hop” and “Tales of Urban S.A.,” which are easy to find. The other tracks... not so much.)

1. “Seven Phezulu”

2. “Yiyo Lendawo”

3. “Club Temple”

4. “Jwaela Kabi”

5. “Kwasa Kwasa”

South Africa’s ‘Homicide’

In 2000, David Simon and I traveled to Johannesburg as guests of TV producers Hilary Blecher and Indra de Lanerolle. It was a wonderful two weeks. Our hosts treated us royally. And we met bunches of people from throughout the South African television industry – white, black, coloured and Asian.

They wanted to hear from Simon in particular because “Homicide: Life on the Street” is beloved in South Africa. Hilary and Indra were developing a police drama that aspired to a “Homicide”-like level of quality.

Simon and I spent a week sitting in on writers’ meetings for this show, “Zero Tolerance.” I was impressed with what they wanted to do. Even more so when I learned about the history of South African TV.

Basically, South Africa didn’t even have television until the mid 1970s. Why? Because the small white population was so scattered geographically, it didn’t make sense to construct a nationwide broadcasting infrastructure... except for radio. Radio was the place for drama and comedy in South Africa.

Once the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) got into the TV business, the government’s apartheid policies dictated what was seen. You wouldn’t see, for instance, black people and white people on screen at the same time.

Nowadays, the SABC is a tool of the governing African National Congress.

“Zero Tolerance” was produced and broadcast a few years after Simon and I visited. I have seen four episodes from Season One. I dig it to death. The writing, the acting, the production values... all top-notch. “Zero Tolerance” is a showpiece of the South African entertainment industry.

I’ve uploaded a 4-minute video clip to YouTube so you can see for yourself. In just this little bit, you can see that actor Tony Kgoroge (pictured) is the real deal. (He has since appeared in international films such as “Hotel Rwanda” and “Blood Diamond.”)

Ben Kruger is cool also... the Dennis Franz of the Afrikaners. I like how “Zero Tolerance” at least acknowledges the political tensions of black rule and white subordination.

This episode also deals frankly with a type of crime that might embarrass the black majority – so-called “muti killings,” in which humans are murdered and dismembered so their body parts can be used to make magic potions.

Check out this little window into a different society:

Playlist: Good wishes to Busi Mhlongo

Tomorrow night in Johannesburg, the wonderful South African singer Busi Mhlongo will perform at a benefit concert... a benefit, in part, for herself. Ms. Mhlongo has breast cancer, and some of the money raised will go towards her medical expenses.

She’ll also be celebrating her 60th birthday.

SABC, the national broadcaster, will televise tomorrow’s concert live. For SABC, this coincides with a public awareness campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

For those of you who don’t know Busi Mhlongo, let me introduce you to her music. (If you want more, you can purchase and download tracks from iTunes, eMusic or Calabash Music.)

Click the song titles below to stream the music on my Vox audio stash.

1. “Uganga Nge Ngane”

Mhlongo is rooted in traditional Zulu music, especially the guitar-based maskanda style. But her breakthrough album, “Urbanzulu” (1998), has a thoroughly modern vibe. Produced by Britain’s Will Mowat (Soul II Soul), “Urbanzulu” was an international hit. I love this CD so much, I used to give it out as gifts.

2. “Ting-Tingi”

This is from her first solo album, “Babhemu” (1994), recorded with her old touring band, Twasa.

3. “Icala”

Hugh Masekela got a “directed by” credit for Mhlongo’s 2003 CD, “Freedom,” and he co-wrote this song. “Icala” is sung partly in English.

4. “We Baba Omncane”

Another track from “Urbanzulu.” I’m saying, this album is the bomb.

Lucky Dube (1964-2007)

South African reggae icon Lucky Dube was murdered Thursday night during a botched carjacking in Johannesburg. He is being mourned throughout Africa... and in Jamaica as well.

“We cannot afford to lose inspirational role models to crime,” Uganda’s New Vision newspaper editorialized. “Fare thee well Dube. You gave it all and the world paid you in shame.”

Legendary reggae artist Sly Dunbar told the Jamaica Observer: “The reggae that he played was excellent, very close to what we play down here.”

Dunbar also pointed out a grim irony: Dube’s musical hero, Peter Tosh, was shot and killed during an attempted robbery 20 years ago.

Lucky Dube had established himself as a Zulu pop musician before transitioning into reggae in 1984. His first reggae record, “Rasta Never Die,” was banned from radio by South Africa’s apartheid government.

Dube went on to release more than 20 albums, most recently “Respect” in 2006. (Downloadable from iTunes.)

In memory of Lucky Philip Dube, click here and listen to “House of Exile,” from his 1992 album of the same name.

Something hot from Lebo Mathosa

When I visited Johannesburg in 2000, I got turned on to South African music in a big way.

A young brother drove me and David Simon out to Sun City for a gambling excursion. And what came out of his car stereo sounded like London club music. That’s when I learned South Africans love house music.

The groove of the streets is called “kwaito,” and it doesn’t sound like American hip-hop, it pumps like house.

But there’s a lot of variety in South African dance music. There is hip-hop and R&B and disco and African reggae and teched-up versions of traditional styles like mbaqanga.

I’m into all of it.

One group I liked was Boom Shaka, which had a slick disco/R&B sound. One of the group’s lead singers, Lebo Mathosa, went solo and became a pop diva... “South Africa’s Madonna.”

She died a year ago in a car accident. She was 29.

Let me share a little Lebo with you. The video below is “Awudede/2 Dangerous.” It’s hot.

Audio-wise, I’m streaming a track from Lebo’s debut solo album, “Dream” (2000). Click here to hear “Lord.”

What’s the word in Johannesburg? (pt. 2)

Here’s more of what I heard last Thursday morning (South Africa time) when I tuned in to Joburg’s Talk Radio 702:

At the top of every hour came the news. One story reported that, since December, there’ve been 70 drownings or near-drownings in and around Johannesburg. Which made me recall that black Americans happen to drown in significantly greater proportion than whites do. It’s a mystery no one can explain. (If you have a theory, I’d like to hear it.)

In other news, a Joburg traffic cop got run over by a car being towed by a taxi. Which made me recall that, even back in 2000 when I was there, the South African taxi industry was kind of shady. What they call “taxis” are actually minibuses, and they are the preferred mode of transport for the black working class. Consequently, there’s cutthroat competition between so-called “cartels” to control the business. This is referred to as the “taxi wars.”

One Godfrey Macheke was in the news for hacking his wife to death with an axe the week before. Police arrested him after finding blood stains in the trunk of his car.

There was news about South Africa’s neighbor to the north, Zimbabwe, a place that makes S.A. seem like Shangri-La by comparison. On this day, two thousand residents of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, were without electricity after thieves vandalized transformers and stole power cables. This wasn’t political sabotage; it seems that poor Zimbabweans steal transformer oil to mix with diesel fuel, and they “melt down cable to make pots and pans.”

As for good news, construction of a Cape Town soccer stadium got underway, with an eye toward the 2010 World Cup. (The World Cup is the biggest thing to happen to South Africa since black rule.) And, as in the U.S., there’s always room for a story about people’s eating habits; “A top scientist reports we’re becoming a nation of fatties,” a newsreader announced.

Host David O’Sullivan came on at 9 a.m. with his daily interview show. He had three cool guests on Thursday. Donald McRae, author of “Every Second Counts: The Race to Transplant the First Human Heart,” talked about American surgeons Adrian Kantrowitz, Norman Shumway and Richard Lower, who were literally hours away from being the first in the world to perform a human heart transplant. Of course, South African Christiaan Barnard beat them to it, gaining worldwide fame for himself and some good publicity for the apartheid government.

Later, O’Sullivan interviewed Sipho Ndzuzo of the South African Football Players’ Union. There are 1,500 professional soccer players in South Africa, and SAFPU wants them to have higher salaries and a pension plan. A former footballer himself, Ndzuzo brought to my mind Curt Flood and the U.S. sports labor movement.

The most fascinating interview was with Ian McRae (by sheer coincidence, Donald McRae’s father). He was chief executive of South Africa’s electric company, Eskom, during the waning years of apartheid. The story McRae tells is an intriguing sideways look at political history through the lens of electricity.

Ian McRae had the foresight to realize that white rule would soon end. “I didn’t know whether it would be armed struggle or political negotiation,” he told O’Sullivan, but a change was going to come. He went into the black townships “to have a look for myself,” and he saw “unbelievable poverty.” McRae figured the best way to avoid armed conflict would be to alleviate black poverty through economic growth. The first step to accomplishing that, he said, was providing electricity. This was the beginning of Eskom’s “Electricity for All” campaign.

Under apartheid, McRae said, only one-third of South Africans had electricity. Many blacks were denied electricity because of the “political risk.”

It was around 1987 that McRae began venturing into the townships. P.W. Botha was in power; the army occupied Soweto; the African National Congress was “banned.” Some whites warned McRae, an engineer, to stay out of politics. But black leaders in the townships told McRae that he should speak directly to the ANC. Aided by liberal white clergymen, he managed to make contact with mid-level ANC functionaries. “Of course, you can’t meet with the top people,” McRae explained. “They wouldn’t trust me.”

One night, at a secret meeting with 30 ANC members, McRae was told: “Before we answer any questions of yours, we want to ask you a question. What is your relation to the government?” McRae told them he was acting entirely on his own. Then he asked them: “Do you want electricity, and will you pay for it?”

“What we want,” they replied, “is an electricity company that we can trust, that will give us good service, and that we can rely on.”

Eventually, McRae met with Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. McRae was frank about his concern that the ANC might want to “nationalize” the power company. (Even though Eskom was a government-owned utility, it was – and still is – independently managed.) Mandela responded: “If the [ANC] government comes under pressure from the people, then you can expect the government to take control.” But if Eskom does its job and delivers good service to everyone, “the government will leave you alone.”

Today, Eskom provides electricity to more than 70 percent of South Africans. (“We need to move up into the 90s,” McRae said.) It is one of the ten largest power companies in the world.

Ian McRae has written a book about all this – “The Test of Leadership” – but apparently it’s only available in South Africa.

What’s the word in Johannesburg? (pt. 1)

I kind of fell in love with South Africa during a visit to Johannesburg in 2000. My buddy David Simon had been invited by two South African TV producers; they were creating a cop show in the mold of “Homicide: Life on the Street,” which was pretty popular over there. Simon, of course, wrote the book “Homicide,” and was a writer and producer on the TV series. I traveled along on Simon’s coattails.

We spent two weeks there, one week as the focus of a seminar for South African TV-industry professionals, and the second week hanging out with the writing staff of “Zero Tolerance.” (Since then, I’ve seen a few episodes of “Zero Tolerance," and it’s terrific. Somebody like HBO or Showtime should pick it up and show it to us in the States. While they’re at it, they should pick up “Yizo Yizo” too, a hard-hitting drama set in a black township high school.)

In between our official duties, Simon and I got big eyefuls of the country and its culture. I’m no world traveler, so my mind really got blown. Everything in my field of vision seemed new and fascinating; the days seemed twice as long as I drank in information.

One interesting thing I learned: South Africa didn’t even have television until the 1970s. The white minority population being so scattered geographically, it didn’t make sense for the apartheid government to build a TV broadcasting infrastructure. By the time it did, the government enforced peculiar rules as to what could be shown. Like, there was no such thing as a live TV interview. The powers-that-be clamped down so tightly on the flow of ideas, they dared not let anyone speak live on camera. I’m also told that South African television would never show blacks and whites on screen at the same time.

It’s a different world now. The booming black middle class in South Africa reminded me of America in the 1970s. With magazines aimed at that demographic, just like Ebony, right down to the toothpaste ads with cute black kids and shimmering smiles. The music was also amazing. When Lebo, the young brother who drove us around, took me and Simon out to Sun City for a little gambling, he had the radio on, and it sounded like London club music. Black folk in South Africa make their own brand of house music, and it smokes.

Of course, it wasn’t all roses. Crime is such a problem, drivers don’t even stop for red lights at night, for fear of being “highjacked.”

During my college days, it was all about divestment and shantytowns and “Free Nelson Mandela.” Ever since the African National Congress took over, it seems like no one in the U.S. thinks about South Africa any more. I’m rooting for the “Rainbow Nation” to prosper and not go the way of Zimbabwe. But I’ve read that one-fifth of the white population has emigrated. These people are putting the “flight” in white flight; they’re flying to New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the U.K., any place they imagine the future looks brighter for them.

So… every now and then, I like to check out Johannesburg’s Talk Radio 702, via the magic of the Internet. When I was a kid, it used to be a thrill at night to find an out-of-town baseball game on AM radio. It’s just as much of a thrill to have my fat ass in California and my ears on the other side of the globe. So I took some notes. Figured there might be some talk about Oprah Winfrey’s just-opened Leadership Academy for Girls, who knows?

It was 6 p.m. Wednesday for me but 4 a.m. Thursday in Joburg when I tuned in to Bongani Bingwa, one of the few black on-air personalities at 702. The phones weren’t exactly jumping at 4 in the morning, but Bingwa threw out some provocative topics. A Gallup poll had just reported that 45 percent of South Africans think things will improve in their country in 2007, while 55 percent believe things will get worse. Wealthy South Africans were more pessimistic, Bingwa said, and the responses also differed according to race, though “I don’t particularly want to go down that route this morning.”

“Do you think we will slowly but surely figure out the problems that bedevil us as a country?” Bingwa asked his listeners.

He also invited calls on another topic. After mentioning an Australian newspaper poll on the “most embarrassing Australian,” Bingwa asked: “Who is the most embarrassing South African?” The name that came straight to his mind was an actress who “claims to be South Africa’s answer to Paris Hilton.” Her name blew by me so fast I couldn’t catch it. But this sister apparently spent 80,000 rand (about $11,000) on a toy car for her kid.

Over the next two hours, lots of calls and text messages came in concerning the “most embarrassing South African.” Not a single call on the more sober question: Are things in S.A. getting better or worse? The former, however, provide insights on the latter.

“For my money,” said a caller named Peter, “it would be Jackie Selebi, commissioner of police.” Selebi is under investigation for corruption; he’s accused of hobnobbing with mobsters. Someone later text-messaged: “Jackie Selebi dresses like the doorman from the Ritz.” Bingwa chided his listeners to stick to the issues, not make it personal.

The most emotional caller was a white man who also chose Selebi: “Politicians in high places need to understand that there’s a level of fury in this country about crime,” he said, palpably angry. ”I’m embarrassed by our government that can’t grasp that essential fact. Crime, AIDS and Zimbabwe – those are the problems this country has failed on.”

A couple of listeners nominated Jacob Zuma, deputy head of the ANC, who is also accused of being corrupt, though Bongani Bingwa pointed out that nothing has been proven.

One white caller, back in South Africa after a couple of years in Australia, said Jacob Zuma is the talk of the town Down Under. Some Aussies believe that if Zuma were to become president, the 2010 World Cup soccer tournament might be taken away from South Africa and granted to Australia instead!

A black caller picked Thabo Mbeki, the current president, as “most embarrassing South African” for failing to deal with AIDS. Today, with a black government, he said, three times as many people die from AIDS per month as during apartheid.

On a lighter note, one tongue-in-cheek caller nominated Graham Smith, a star cricket batsman. “Every time the camera zooms in on him, he’s chewing gum with his mouth open, which does not look good for South Africa.”

[TO BE CONTINUED]