South Africa music reviews

Each track on this album is enough to give the listener goose flesh. "Mambazo", meaning "axe" in Zulu, has nothing to do with violence but pertains to the "cutting" nature of the various voices while singing. You certainly get that feeling when listening to this CD. The pulse and harmony on tracks such as "The Star and the Wiseman", "Love I've come to You", and "What a Great Love" will move you.

The tracks on the album all written by the musical genius Joseph Tshabalala and dedicated to his late brother, Headman, make up an altogether stirring album of African rythms.

If you want to hear the voice of this young nation, sit back and listen to this eloquent, moving and uplifting virtuoso performance.

I began to collect all of his albums, even those that were out before I ever heard of him (i.e., from 1966, 1967). I named my Great Dane 'Hugh' - no offense. At that first concert, when I cornered Hugh at a water cooler at the Shadyside, and asked for his autograph, he delivered the line that I later found out was the same comment on one of his album covers. It was about Lassie being more famous than he. Well, all right, but I never stayed up night after night 'til dawn watching Lassie reruns.

Anyway, this CD brings back wonderful memories from the sixties and the seventies. I only wish that "In The Market" were on this one. Now, I am pleasantly surprised to have found the original (not a compilation) "Promise of a Future" available (it's in my Wish List if anyone wants to surprise me). I'm also hoping for at least a compilation that includes "Society's Child", "Thula", and that SLAMMIN' "Lily the Fox"! Again, this one, "Stimela" is a joint.

I am really not sure whether this is the later more polished version or the origial extracted from Emancipation. Thus I am afraid after purchasing it, I may be disappointed. The only purpose of my purchase was to hopefully get the digital version from Emancipation...not the version from HOPE. Oh well.....

Possibly somebody out there can clear this up because it makes a BIG difference in how this piece of music sounds....a yacht on a lake compared to an all guns blazing full flank battle ship in the open ocean during a storm with no regard to accuracy or navigation.

If it is from the Emancipation album...look out! Turn up the volume until a hurricane is being blown from your speakers and let this one RIP! The percusion is enormous, his trumpet playing is raw, naked, and in your face, and the timing of the delivery of the words being unique and explosive. Masakela normally features this great song at his concerts. Let's hope this is the orginal version from the 60's.

Grazin' in the Grass was his commercial blockbuster but Ha Lese Le Di Khanna is exposed, moving, drenched in passion and exhuberance held together with an earth pounding beat that moves you to your feet instantly.

The African journey commences in Algeria and then heads South, stopping off in Cape Verde, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gabon, Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Madagascar, before terminating in South Africa. The 14 tracks are representative but slightly atypical of their regions; most share a semi-acoustic yet modern and edgy esthetic. While a single CD cannot possibly showcase the music of an entire continent, these examples are a good way to get acquainted - or reacquainted - with Africa's stunning musical diversity. The set culminates in a moving rendition of the South African national hymn "Nkosi Sikilele I'Afrika," as performed by the Imilonji Kantu Choral Society, who sang it at former President Nelson Mandela's inauguration.

You get plenty of straight African music (including a lot of chanting), but you also get some more familiar songs given the LBM treatment, often with interesting guests (see Amazon's own summary of this collection). CD2 leads off with a track from Graceland.

Of course, a lot of today's radio music has it's roots in Africa, and just to remind you, the second track on CD2 is Mbube, a song which, after adaptation, became variously known as Wimomeh or The lion sleeps tonight. Now you can hear it without westernisation.