Told In Music by GWEN ANSELL
December 06, 2013 5:00 AM
has lived a life filled with rich musical associations.
Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images
It's worth pausing to consider not only the legacy and
achievements of former South African president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who died Thursday, but also the rich musical associations of his life.
Mandela was born to a high-ranking family of the Mvelo Clan of the Thembu people in Transkei, South Africa, on July 18, 1918. Apartheid reduced groups like the Thembu to "tribes," but such clans represented important political states and kingdoms before colonialism arrived. Throughout his life, Madiba — his clan name, and a title of respect — has shown achievements of former South African president Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who died Thursday, but also the rich musical associations of his life.
appreciation for music. His home province, the Eastern Cape, is home to some of the richest musical traditions in the country.
The Sounds Of Mandela's Childhood
The Xhosa-speaking peoples of the region have a tradition of split-tone singing: Vocalists can create more than one note simultaneously and weave those tones together in magically complex rhythmic patterns. They call it "putting salt in a tune," and this is the music Mandela heard during his village childhood.
The link above demonstrates the hymn sung in church fashion by an Eastern Cape choir, but it has passed into the South African canon, and was also recorded as "Ntsikana's Bell" by jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (at the time, in 1973, he was known as Dollar Brand) with bassist Johnny Dyani on the album Good News From Afrika.
Mandela excelled at his various schools, taking his leaving exams at a mission school, the Wesleyan Healdtown Academy. He began studying law at Fort Hare University, also in the Eastern Cape, but after being expelled for joining student protests, he returned home and completed his first degree by distance study. By 1941, he'd left the Eastern Cape for Johannesburg, where he began articles with a law firm and enrolled for an LLB (an undergraduate law degree) with the University of the Witwatersrand. But increasing involvement in politics meant he did not complete the degree at that time, although he obtained sufficient qualifications to practice and to cofound South Africa's first black law firm, Mandela & Tambo, in 1952.
In Johannesburg: Practicing Law, Organizing Rebellion
Mandela was also a promising amateur boxer, a stylish dresser and a much-admired man-about town who socialized in the politically aware, racially mixed suburbs of the city, such as Sophiatown. The late jazz guitarist General Duze recalled Mandela as a fan of his music, a jazz enthusiast in general and an avid dancer. For a flavor of the music that made Mandela dance, listen to the late singer Dolly Rathebe — the most admired beauty and singer of her generation — and her work with the African Jazz Pioneers, a revival band composed of veteran former stars of the South African jazz scene.
By the early 1960s, repression had increased and Mandela was tasked with establishing and leading Mkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation, MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress. In 1962, he traveled to the U.K. to build support for the anti-apartheid struggle, and around Africa to receive training in Morocco and Ethiopia. Months after he returned, he was arrested and charged with leaving South Africa illegally. As the apartheid state discovered more of the scope and effectiveness of ANC plans, the imprisoned Mandela was put on trial again with other comrades. In June 1964, he began a term of life imprisonment on the harsh lime-quarry prison of Robben Island. It was at that point that the musicians of South Africa and the world began drawing attention to his plight, and to the nature of his struggle.
The ANC was establishing effective liaison offices in independent Africa and in Europe; in March 1960, 8,000 people attended an anti-apartheid solidarity rally in London's Trafalgar Square. Black musicians and artists had long been leaving the country: Apartheid's rules restricted what they could play and record and with whom they could collaborate. These restrictions, and the censorship, intensified through the years that followed. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, and even more after the 1976 Soweto uprising, many young people fled the country to train as ANC cadres, and to find educational opportunities that were closed at home.
From the military training camps, trombonist Jonas Gwangwa recruited a performance group, the Amandla Cultural Ensemble, to take the story of the imprisoned Mandela and the struggle to stages across the world. Here, they sing the marching song "Abazali Sobashiya" (We have left our parents...).In London, a group of exiles formed the Mayibuye ("Freedom") Cultural group to weave together poetry and traditional and original new songs — including another called "Rolihlahla Mandela" — in a way that would tell the struggle's story.
In America in 1963, a young exiled South African trumpeter named Hugh Masekela — working with the singer Miriam Makeba, whom he married in 1965 — helped make her first hit album: An Evening With Miriam Makeba. Both musicians constantly referred to the South African struggle and Mandela's plight in their performances, as in this clip of Makeba with Harry Belafonte in the 1950s, singing "Give Us Our Land (Mabayeke)."
Others were more upfront. South Africa's most popular female singer of the 1980s, Brenda Fassie, sang two songs directly addressing the man she saw as president-in-waiting. "Black President" is self-explanatory; "Vulindlela" (Let it be opened) was about flinging wide the prison doors. Here, she sings the songs after Mandela's release, in the latter case, at the 2001 Kora African Music Awards, with her president in the audience.
Solidarity Around The World
Mandela hasn't just been celebrated in his homeland. Musicians around the world made tracks in his honor: His Google playlist tops 100 tracks, and that's just the ones that exist in digital formats. One of the best-known is "Free Nelson Mandela," made in 1984 by the British multiracial ska band The Specials. The group had a mission: to fight racist attitudes among its generation and build links between the U.K.'s many diverse ethnic communities. This clip shows the song's debut on British TV, on the program Top of the Pops; although the quality is typical of an airshot, it conveys the song's intense energy and emotion. The band has sung it many times since, including at London birthday solidarity concerts for Mandela, and on the occasion of his 1990 release.
Singing Mandela: The Freedom Years
Since the euphoria surrounding Mandela's release, followed by South Africa's first democratic election and the dismantling of apartheid's structures (relatively rapid) and socioeconomic legacy (much slower), the urgent need to campaign for his freedom has gone. But while the chart-topping campaign songs may have ceased, artists have not forgotten Mandela. The massive birthday concerts reflecting on his period in prison have been followed by events around 4664, the social action and fundraising campaign linked to his former prison number. Every July 18, the world has been urged to celebrate U.N. International Nelson Mandela Day by dedicating 67 minutes (one minute for each of Madiba's years of struggle) to a community service or social-uplift project.
The music hasn't stopped, either. When his health permitted, Mandela spent time back in his home village of Qunu, still rich in traditional Xhosa and church music. Even young artists still remember him. For Mandela's 90th birthday in 2008, Cape Town singer Melanie Scholtz, the late jazz saxophonist Robbie Jansen (himself a struggle veteran) and other Cape musicians created Nelson Mandela: Born in the Landof the Sun. Based on a struggle song of the 1980s, the music has become a tribute and expression of gratitude.
Last year, Ndodana-Breen premiered Winnie, the Opera, the story of the turbulent life of Mandela's second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. The early scenes of the opera, such as the one in the clip below, evoke the years when the Mandela family lived on Vilakazi Street in Soweto and were instrumental in community action.
Members of Mkhonto we Sizwe still remember him as their commander-in-chief from the days when it was necessary to resist the bullets of apartheid. Since Mandela has died, across South Africa former MK militants have been singing a song of mourning called "Hamba Kahle Mkhonto" (Go well, MK soldier), an anthem traditionally sung within the movement when a militant dies. This version is that of the Mayibuye Cultural Group, recorded in 1978.
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