Vusi Mahlasela has just released his new album. He spoke to Glynis OHara
Had a hard day? A hard week? In fact, a revolting month and an indescribable year? Well, you could always drown your sorrows in music, in this case in the minor-key, the healing, caressing notes of Vusi Mahlasela. As Peter Falk said in the movie Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter: When its raining shit, theres no umbrella like art.
Vusis art crosses musical boundaries in a unique way, blending Western folk acoustic guitar with his own vernacular lyrics, often sung in a very high voice. Sometimes hes a Zulu warrior stomping about in basso profundo ho-hummm fashion; sometimes hes the man singing a walking song on a long, hot and dusty road; sometimes hes in a band doing a warm, 1950s opskop. But the unifying theme is his acoustic guitar and his distinctive singing style.
Hes been likened to Bob Dylan, although he sings much better than Dylan, and to Paul Simon, whom he more closely resembles in voice. I did listen to Bob Dylan, and to Paul Simon but only after journalists compared me to them, he says, laughing. Does he like Dylan? He considers the question, and answers diplomatically: Lyrics are where the power of song lies. So no, I wont dismiss the comparison.
Just so long as he doesnt go electric, remarks a record company PRO. Oh no, he responds, acoustic is for me, theres no danger. Hes seated on a sofa in his room in Mamelodi, built in the back yard of his grandmothers matchbox house. The room has a large double bed, a wardrobe, a few chairs, a sofa and a hi-fi. Vusi says that he doesnt dream of riches whatever comes, you know. I enjoy my music, so why hurry?
The record company representative says later that Vusi is often asked to perform for free a service expected of musicians the world over, as if music wasnt really their work but an after-hours hobby. Were sitting there to discuss his beautifully melodic third album, Silang Mabele (Crush the Corn, or Get Down to Work), the last of a trilogy. The other two were called When You Come Back (1992) and Wisdom of Forgiveness (1994).
Theyre all thematically linked, commenting on the condition of the country. The first concerned returning exiles, the second the demands of forgiveness, which were still grappling with in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the third reflects the need to buckle down and produce the goods in order to fight poverty.
Now only 31, Vusi says hes never, ever been interested in township dance music. Its not my way. Most of the time Im with people who talk and make sense; older people. That way you pick up words and language youve never heard. With youngsters its all programmed. Its all hey brother, its all the same phrases duplicated endlessly. Vusi started playing a self-made guitar when he was a boy, emulating a neighbour, and teaching himself.
This house used to be a shebeen; the first one in Mamelodi. I used to listen to the men singing Ingomo Busuku (Night Songs), a capella and very beautifully. I was very young but I just loved listening and thats how I came to be interested in song.
He was quickly in demand and made a few pennies from schoolmates. I used to roll up my exercise book and sing straight into their ears and they would give me two cents or five cents.
He got into poetry through listening to poets at mass meetings and joining a writing group which met in the garage of the late Dr Fabian Ribeiro, who was soon after shot dead by the security police. Dirk Coetzee confessed to it much later … At the time, the police harassed us and confiscated my writings. I had to report to the police every day and I thought why? what for? Thats when I started to get more involved in politics.
He joined the Congress of South African Writers in 1988 and it was that organisations Raks Seakhoa who first recognised his talent and took his material to Shifty/BMG, which promptly signed a contract with him. His music has always been melodic and sweet as well as eclectic, but on Silang Mabele he goes even further and introduceskfunk, flutey rock as well as a Tom Waits-styled, piano-based song, Africa Is Dying, composed by the late James Phillips.
We were very good friends. He was quite a religious person and he wrote very powerful, spiritual lyrics. I like people who are not afraid to express what they feel.
Its obviously written by a white person, not a black person, and its fit for now. Together with Weeping, which I did with the Soweto String Quartet, it enhances reconciliation.
Africa Is Dying ruminates very sadly and movingly on the idea that the continent is a mess, which flies right in the face of the current attempt to give Africa a renaissance.
It will arouse different emotions, says Mahlasela, but it will also open up a debate and get people to ask where we are. Another track, KwaZulu, comments on the trauma in that province through using a traditional, very old chant (with a hint of Irish pipes), which Mahlasela has expanded. Its Zulu refrain translates as Ill never go to KwaZulu because my father died there.
Its really a curse to see old women naked, says Mahlasela, and the lines say Ive seen the naked thighs of old women, because of the bullets killing them/ So I dont know if Ill go to KwaZulu now. Musicians working on the album with him include Victor Masondo on bass, Louis Mhlanga on guitar, Kevin Gibson on drums, Themba Mkhize on keyboards, a three-piece brass section, three backing vocalists, percussion and producer Lloyd Ross on mandolin and extra guitar.
There are also two tracks putting music to fellow-poet Lisa Combrincks work, Loneliness and Love Prints, as well as a co-composition with Tananas members Ian Herman and Steve Newman, called Sleep Tight Margaret. Vusi says his previous two CDs have sold steadily. My audience is a big audience.
Hes a widely travelled musician, having played in places like Germany, France, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and the United States and with a tour to Korea in the company of the deputy arts and culture minister, Brigitte Mabandla, in the offing.
Does vocal music, for him, have to have serious purpose? It doesnt have to have a message, it can be meditative, for example, but its better if it has something to say.
Whatever, his version is pretty angelic.