/ 22 August 1997

New visions, new voices

The Zulu Messengers, exponents of isicathamiya, are being applauded in a documentary. Andrew Worsdale hung around on set

Every Saturday night, virtually without fail, the 15 members of The Zulu Messengers congregate at the downtown YMCA in Durban with over 20 other groups to perform in an isicathamiya competition that lasts through until late Sunday morning. It’s like church on Saturday, an endless multitude of choral strains that become hallucinogenic and trance-like.

There’s no beer here, no raucous drunkards or hormone-inducing kwaito – it’s all a picture-perfect vision of dignity. At the tea-room, piled high with biology, science and maths exam refresher books, you can buy bread for 40c, eggs for 60c, apples for 30c, tea or coffee for a rand or “Kentucky”(chicken) for three bucks. When I arrived early in the proceedings at 10.30pm, all of Colonel Saunders’s product had sold out so I settled for a sausage and some fierce chilli sauce from the street vendor outside.

Isicathamiya is an a cappella form of music that developed in single-sex hostels inhabited by migrant Zulu workers from KwaZulu-Natal. The name originates from the Zulu word catham which means to walk like a cat and it describes the way the men dance – they step lightly, making no sound with their feet (a contrast to traditional male Zulu dancing) and sing about tribal issues, religion, miserable work conditions and the pain of living so far away from home.

The reason I was witness to such an extraordinary and inspiring marathon of performances is because director Junaid Ahmed is making a documentary film about the Zulu Messengers, called Two Worlds, One Heart. Ahmed calls isicathamiya “night songs of pain … It’s very pure,” he says. “It’s like a worker’s lament.” It got its name because the mine workers could only perform at night and had to be as quiet as cats so as not to alert their bosses.

The most famous exponents of the music form are Ladysmith Black Mambazo but evidently they are scorned by the likes of The Zulu Messengers, who believe they sold out by signing deals with Gallo, and turning a dignified and poignant art form and tradition into showbiz.

Ahmed, who has been hanging around the competitions since 1963 and has acted as a judge, originally wanted to make a movie about maskanda music, the art of the single guitarist, but felt a piece about the Messengers would allow for more narratives.

The film is one of six commissioned by satellite broadcaster The Discovery Channel in a series entitled New Visions, New Voices which gives emerging young film- makers the opportunity to direct documentaries across a broad range of subjects, from black yuppies through taxi wars and Bo-Kaap rugby players to Ahmed’s beguiling insight into the life of the national isicathamiya champions.

The film follows the lives of three of the group’s singers – leader Elphas Nxumalo, Enoch Madonsela and the youngest member, Bongani Nxumalo. The day I arrived in Durban, series production manager Stella Horgan and cameraman Giulio Biccari were positively brimming with excitement about the movie. They had just filmed Elphas working at a chemical plant, cleaning pipes – a job that he’s had for about 23 years. After photographing him in layers of gladiatorial waterproof wear – the stuff he wears to wash industrial pipes – the workers decided to take a lunch-break, which included a rehearsal of their songs for the camera.

Cameraman Biccari was clearly ecstatic at the prospect of filming these “virtual iron-clad workers” singing in front of their factory. “Here we are, film-makers who ought to show the toil of these workers, and they end up singing and dancing outside,” he says. “All the actors and characters in this film are movie stars … I mean they’re Marlon Brando and the production design is amazing.”

The crew are incredibly happy that they caught the group rehearsing the night before the concert and allow me to watch the rushes in their downbeat Gauteng- visitor holiday flat. But the shot scene is astounding. A rehearsal by the group in Kwa Mashu, it consists of a single beautiful hand-held track from the kitchen to a bedroom where four beds stand on bricks. Inside, 15 singers practise their repertoire, Biccari’s intuitive camera-work capturing them moving typically cat-like in and out of the glow from the single light bulb, tilting down as their knees rise up in song.

The rushes are truly amazing; no wonder the crew are so overbearingly enthusiastic.

Back to the contest night and the disco across the road, the Razz Dazz, is blurting out Sing, Hallelujah and Every Breath You Take as drunken customers are frisked at the door. Across the road the isicathamiya competition is in full swing. Dolled-up ladies wait in the foyer for an impending fashion show. It’s going to be a long night and sombre master of ceremonies Paulos Msimango says: “Other concerts take two hours; others take six hours or eight hours. It’s our tradition this concert takes all night.”

In the past, any poor white trash person was selected as the judge, but with the new dispensation any colour is alright. On this Saturday, moments before the contest, a judge was found at Durban station – in tradition someone no one knew – and he decided against the Zulu Messengers. Bongani said that was okay as, “a judge might just like a tune; not a group. It’s personal taste … maybe one tune is nice to me; maybe someone else doesn’t like the tune. But it’s fine with us. What is his melody is his taste.” As for the filming, he said: “It will be a jubilation that we’ll be seen on the TV channels.”

The next day the crew watch the rushes and are enthralled. Sound man Lee Edwards, previously bass guitarist for the Cherry Faced Lurchers, had a difficult job but enthuses nonetheless. “It’s one of the nicest projects I’ve worked on in a long time. It’s got a backbone of emotion. I must say they’re nice people, the Zulus. These guys have been fantastic.”

At 10 in the morning the film crew finally wrap things up, but for the singers, by far the most talented assembled, long confrontational chats are in evidence before an arduous but well-known journey home.