This file picture taken 04 September 1999 shows South African singer
Brenda Fassie (C) performing after winning the "best female artist
category" at the Kora All Africa music awards in Sun City. When she
slipped into a coma just before her death in 2004, among her high
profile visitors were Nelson and Winnie Mandela and Thabo Mbeki.
Photo/AFP
In 1988, while Nelson Mandela was
serving a life sentence in South Africa, Congolese music great Tabu Ley
along with his female protégés Mbilia Bel and Faya Tess, recorded a song
called Sisi Mandela demanding for the release of the imprisoned leader.
It
is a tragic coincidence of history that the death of Nelson Mandela
occurred in the same week as the passing of Tabu Ley, one of the
musicians who used the power of song to campaign for his release and the
liberation of South Africa.
The impact of music on the
struggle against apartheid, both in South Africa and elsewhere in the
world, is well documented and it is no surprise that the death of Nelson
Mandela has focused attention, on among other things, his own love for
art and specifically, music.
Congolese Songbird Mbilia Bel, perform at the Godown Art Centre in Nairobi's Industrial area in 2009. Photo/PETERSON GITHAIGA
According
to a recent documentary that recounts the role music played in the life
of South Africa’s first black President, his favourite group was the
internationally renowned vocal ensemble Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
South African's Ladysmith Black
Mambazo performs at Classical Fusion at Impala Grounds, in Nairobi,
2011. According to a recent documentary that recounts the role music
played in the life of South Africa’s first black President, his
favourite group was the internationally renowned vocal ensemble
Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Photo/DENNIS OKEYO
Filmed in 2011, Music for Mandela,
by Canadian filmmaker Jason Borque, uses interviews and performances by
LBM and Soweto Gospel Choir, to chronicle how Mandela used music
personally and politically to inspire and educate.
Borque
was just 16 in 1988 during the Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert in
London and was introduced to the story of Nelson Mandela, then a
prisoner, by watching the performances of pop artists like Peter
Gabriel, Simple Minds and George Michael.
When South
African pop star Brenda Fassie slipped into a coma just before her death
in 2004, among her high profile visitors were Nelson and Winnie Mandela
and Thabo Mbeki.
Fassie, who was a niece of Nelson Mandela, had recorded Black President in honour of Madiba on her 1990 album of the same title.
That
fiery tribute to Mandela that was co written with long time
collaborator Sello “Chicco” Twala and released while the President-to-be
was still behind bars was banned in South Africa.
WHITE ZULU
The
apartheid system not only outlawed Mandela’s image while he was in
prison but any song that made a direct reference to him or to the
resistance against segregation would not be played on radio.
However, the musicians remained undeterred and devised smart ways of delivering their messages through the music.
“We couldn’t sing about anything other than apartheid due to the system’s negative impact on the black population.
Music
was a bridge for our messages to the world,” says Chicco. In his 1987
hit We Miss You Manelo, Chicco evaded the attention of censors by using
the story of a teenage girl who gets pregnant and runs away from home.
The crowds at his concerts however would insist on singing “We miss Mandela, where are you.”
Similarly,
in House of Exile released in 1992, South African reggae star Lucky
Dube, sings: “Freedom fighter standing on a mountain in a foreign
country.”
Reggae musician Lucky Dube. Photo/FILE
Dube
was referring to Table Mountain as foreign country because that is
where Mandela and other comrades were locked up on Robben Island’s
maximum-security prison.
One of the most powerful songs
in support of Mandela during his years in prison was incidentally
recorded by a white artist, Johnny Clegg and his band Savuka.
Affectionately called the White Zulu, the British-born anthropologist- turned -musician, sang Asimbonanga, which
means, “we have not seen him” in Zulu. It was banned in South Africa
when first released in 1986 because of the obvious reference to Mandela
although it went on to be one of the defining songs of the
anti-apartheid movement.
Legendary trumpeter Hugh
Masekela had a long association with both Mandela and his former wife,
Winnie Mandela. Masekela's mother was the Head Social Worker when Winnie
was doing her fieldwork as a young woman in Johannesburg's Alexandra
Townships.
In 1984 when Winnie was banished to a remote
town, Masekela's father went to visit her despite objections of the
apartheid government.
On Masekela's 45th birthday in 1985, he received a letter from Nelson Mandela that was smuggled out of prison.
The letter wished him well with his recording projects and a musical school he had started in Botswana.
“I
was intensely moved by the fact that a man who has been imprisoned for
over twenty years could have so much passion and regard for the wok that
was being done by some musicians in a small town in Botswana. It
brought tears to my eyes,” writes Masekela.
PUBLIC EYE
The song Bring Him Back Home
came to him there and then and it was recorded with his band at the
time, Kalahari in London as part of the album called “Tomorrow.”
When
Mandela was released in 1990, the song became a reality and was played
as background music on many of his visits to the large cities of U.S
during television broadcasts.
Mandela also fell in love
with The Soweto String Quartet after they performed at his Presidential
Inauguration and soon after started recommending them for other
performances.
The ensemble that combines classical with
African rhythms accompanied President Mandela on a trip in 1995 to woo
investors in Germany, Scotland and the U.K.
The makers
of the film Invictus also used a song by SSQ called Victory for the
soundtrack of the film, which tells the story of Mandela’s role during
the 1995 Rugby World Cup.
Musical tributes to Mandela
have continued in recent years even with him battling ill health and out
of the public eye. Singer-songwriter Vusi Mahlasela who wrote, “When
you come back” a song for the political exiles who escaped South Africa
and performed at the 1994 inauguration recorded a beautiful piece called
Ntate Mandela on his 2011 album Say Africa.
Yvonne
Chaka Chaka, who once confessed to being so fearful of the apartheid
police that she ate up a note sent to her from prison by Mandela through
his former wife Winnie, named her latest album Amazing Man.
The
CD inspired by the leader whom she says “gave us back our dignity.”
marks the 27th year of Chaka Chaka’s music career, the same number of
years that Mandela spent in prison.
One of the
country’s hottest new artists, Zahara, who performed for the former
President at his ancestral home of Qunu, released a song titled Nelson
Mandela on her new album.
The singer and guitarist says
she wrote the song in appreciation for the blessings Mandela had passed
on to her during their meeting and calls him “a hero of heroes.”
The
Mandela household itself has an artist in the former President’s
grandson Bambatha Mandela, a hip-hop artist who performs a song in his
grandfather’s honour in the documentary Music for Mandela.
This story was first published in the Africa Review. CLICK HERE to go to the site.
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