Nomfundo Xaluva-Dyantis is known for a few things: her beautiful voice, impeccable lyricism and music that engenders joy. She has conceived her own jazz aesthetic and lane. She is light years ahead of her peers when it comes to sound. As a trained piano player, her instrumental skill and vocal pacing are impeccable.
“I want to be known for my art,” she tells me over coffee at Baxter Theatre, closest to the University of Cape Town, where this music scholar teaches music. She shows up early for our interview, with a wide smile lighting up her face.
I’ve been following her work for close to a decade now and this conversation feels less like an interview and more like a long-overdue reunion. Nomfundo is unmoved and uninterested in celebrity as a persona and the performative burden of being in the public eye. She wants only to be known for her music, to teach it, write it and play it.
How do you strike a balance as a performing artist, a composer, an academic and an educator, sustaining all these and succeeding?
“I don't know if there is a balance but I consider myself an artist. I'm trained in the arts but since I came into academia, I have found a space and a way to amalgamate both my work as an artist and my work as a scholar to find a balance.
“I realised that because I am trained in art and I happen to teach music as well, all those worlds have found a way to merge perfectly with each other because being in academia has also trained me in writing. Otherwise, I never aimed to be an artist-scholar. I have just always regarded myself as an artist. But there's no balance; you just have to give something to get something back and both the academic and the music feed off each other.”
What would you say are the major changes from the Kusile project to Ndilapha?
“Yes, it’s growth and sincerity. There is just so much sincerity on that initial album.”
She tells me that some of the songs were written in 2014, long before the release of her latest album, Ndilapha. Songs such as Wendile feel almost prophetic, an uncanny foresight into womanhood. A foresight that can only be forged out of resilience, growth and survival. This is what the initial album communicates to her latest album: experiences measured in growth. Even when she writes about something sad, there's a different perspective, a different emotional depth, she tells me.
Do you feel any pressure walking in the shoes of contemporary artists like the late Miriam Makeba, Sibongile Khumalo and Busi Mhlongo, who also remained true to their own sounds?
“I don’t view walking in their footsteps as a weight or a source of pressure but rather as an immense privilege and a profound responsibility. When you look at icons like Mam’ Miriam, Mam’ Sibongile and Mam’ Busi, they didn't create art to build a restrictive mould for the future; they opened doors so that black South African women could exist authentically. My Master's thesis was focused on the musical style of Miriam Makeba. What I learnt most is that her true power was her uncompromised authenticity. You cannot honour a legacy of freedom by locking yourself in a cage of imitation.”
What are you constantly seeking to communicate with your music?
“When I write, I am always seeking to communicate my truth. Music teaches me all the time that my truth might be my truth but when it's in art form, it becomes all our truth. For me, it's when you write songs such as Bayathetha, then you realise that people can resonate with the song because we share the same experiences. And I've realised that by writing and releasing the music, I am constantly communicating prophecies because art is a prophecy. It is all our experiences.”
How do you feel the internet has impacted the music business?
“Look, I’m not mad about the impact of the internet on music. In fact, it has democratised the industry, whereas before the internet artists relied on record labels who were gatekeeping access. So, the internet has been very good in terms of giving more access to everybody. The only difference is that the internet dilutes and musicians do not have the same kind of earning power. That's the thing about the internet. When I speak about the internet, I am speaking specifically about streaming because streaming has killed the earning power of musicians. Therefore, business-wise, the internet has made us poorer. It makes people famous but it does not make it easier for them to earn money.”
What advice would you give young women who are coming into the music fraternity? More especially regarding the business side of the music industry?
“I will give advice based on what I did. I recognised that there was a big knowledge gap for me in terms of how the business of music works. I realised that the men at the helm of these large business corporations are not necessarily generous with trying to empower women about these things and so I studied it. I enrolled for an MBA and I recognised that not everybody is gonna go and study it in a business schoo, but I think it is very important for young women in business, in music, to fill the knowledge gaps. They must be open to teaching themselves about the business side of things. They need to spend more time empowering themselves with knowledge than lamenting lack of access. They must invest their time in reading, familiarise themselves with knowledge and the fine print.”
Now, looking back, it makes complete sense that Nomfundo is here. She finally owns her own masters and has full creative control of her work.