Matsuli Music is a reissue record label focusing on jazz and other sounds from Southern Africa. Allen Kwela’s Black Beauty is its latest release.
Charles Leonard: Please give a short bio of Matsuli Music.
Chris Albertyn: Matsuli Music finds and reissues great South African music on vinyl. The core ethos of the label is to give these recordings the respect they are due. Established as a partnership between Matt Temple in London and Chris Albertyn in Durban, Matsuli Music has, since 2010, released 25 albums, each with newly commissioned liner notes, archival photography and remastered audio from the best available sources.
In addition to historic recordings from the late 1960s and 1970s Matsuli also explores future classics. These include Derek Gripper’s One Night on Earth, acoustic guitar renditions of complex kora compositions by Toumani Diabate; a solo piano album by Kyle Shepherd and Tolika Mtoliki by The Brother Moves On.
CL: How do you pick the records you reissue?
CA: For reissues we typically hone in on records that are out of print on vinyl, recordings that carry an important contribution to the history of South African jazz, music that we love and believe in and, finally, we need to make an assessment of whether the project will be commercially viable. This viability depends on around 80 to 90 percent of a print run selling internationally, with the rest moving through independent record stores in South Africa.
CL: What role does preserving and celebrating South African music heritage play?
CA: In celebrating our heritage via vinyl releases, we see its preservation as a by-product of what we do. If we don’t personally love a recording we won’t reissue it.
Digging into South Africa’s cultural history inevitably stirs up the ghosts of exploitation — so much so that some artists have flatly refused to agree to their music being rereleased.
Sometimes great recordings are strangled and lost in the history of sour relations between artists and those who own the recordings. At other times, the original master recordings have been lost to fire, or just bad archiving.
Vinyl records have proven themselves as a most hardy, accessible and satisfying means of preserving musical heritage. Vinyl collectors are filling a gap that government is generally unable to address. South Africa just does not have an official music archive and, because of that, there are countless gems that are now effectively lost. We see it as a huge bonus that there are now quite a number of local and international labels reissuing South African musical heritage on vinyl.
CL: Why the Allen Kwela record?CA: We think he is a forgotten master of the guitar whose influence on South Africa jazz has largely been forgotten, in part due to his reputation of having been difficult to work with. Black Beauty is without doubt a beautiful and formative cornerstone in the evolution of South African jazz.