South Africa has birthed various generations of music queens; from Miriam Makeba to Dorothy Masuka, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Brenda Fassie. But as that generation passes on or takes a back seat, the question is, who will fill their shoes.
The passing of Miriam Makeba in 2008 left a gap in a country whose music prowess is threatened by western African musicians from Nigeria and Mali. But in light of this, there is an emerging new crop of musicians and among them is young and snazzy Thandiswa Mazwai.
The songstress is definitely the next music queen after Makeba. Thandiswa was one of the biggest highlights at this year’s Sauti Za Busara Music Festival in Zanzibar. Yusuf Mahmoud, the festival director in his welcome remarks described her as one of the continent’s finest upcoming vocalists.
“Be sure not to miss her,” Mahmoud said. And she never disappointed! Thandiswa is first of all blessed with an enviable stage presence. She makes that nervous grand stage entry on a rare sound of traditional Xhosa drums. Wielding her magic stick, she keeps her eyes closed like in a spiritual world, then thumps her feet to the beat as she jumps.
With her vocal prowess, for a while you think she has been taken over by another power as she shakes her head. She straddles the urban and the rural, and effortlessly blends the traditional with the modern. Her compositions range from traditional Xhosa rhythms to contemporary styles, including a touch of reggae, thumping kwaito and quasi-gospel sounds that are truly representative of her broad range.
Thandiswa has been described as the next Miriam Makeba. But is it time to begin celebrating Africa’s discovery?
“I don’t know. People have been saying that for a while,” Thandiswa replies as we settle down for an interview at Monsoon Restaurant in Stone Town, Zanzibar. “I think she was such a huge monumental artiste. For someone that big, it is not going to be one person that follows her. There are thousands of other women who want to be the next Miriam Makeba because she was so influential,” she adds.
“When I was growing up, the music of Miriam Makeba was banned in South Africa. We couldn’t listen to it. So we always heard these hits in the township and you are like ‘I think that is Miriam Makeba’s song’ but you couldn’t hear it loud,” she says.
“She was a great influence to me. And as I grew up I was also influenced by one of the greatest singers Africa has ever produced - Busi Mhlongo.
Born in the rural Transkei, Thandiswa grew up in the Soweto of the 1980s, as part of the “Soweto generation,” who witnessed the violent dismantling of apartheid and the growth of a free South Africa. The daughter of journalists, she was constantly surrounded by banned books, writings, and political discourse.
This would eventually prove to be an important element in the singer’s songwriting and political awareness. “It was a bad experience growing up during apartheid. [But] I am lucky to be part of a generation that was able to see freedom in its own time,” Thandiswa says.
After earning a B.A. in International Relations and English, Thandiswa put all her church and school choir experience to use and made her professional debut in 1993 at the Market Theatre in a production called SA Love.
“I got into music very much by time because growing up in Soweto, growing up in the era of apartheid; it was very hard for a young person to imagine anything bigger than Soweto. You just thought this is where I am going to be for the rest of my life and that is it. And I thought that was my fate as a black person. I thought I couldn’t go any further,” she says.
“Getting into music was quite a surprise for me. I went with a friend of mine to a studio. I had never seen a studio before. I was surprised that there was this room with curtains with a microphone in the middle. I asked ‘what do you do with this microphone?’
They told me ‘you can go ahead and sing on it.’ I was like oh! And they were like ‘you sing on it, we record it, put it on the disc and goes on radio.’ And that is how I did it. I just went on the microphone and sang my first song and the next thing I knew, I was hearing it on radio and in the township with people going to drink playing my song. And nobody knew who I was. Everytime I walked by, I wanted to go in and say, that is me, that is my song,” she adds.
She did, however, catch the eye of musician and producer Don Laka, who arranged to include her in a project he was working on - Bongo Maffins’ Sophomore album. The band became one of the founders of kwaito, a purely South African mixture of hip-hop, reggae, and house music flavoured with South African sensibilities and dialects.
What made Bongo Maffin stand out were Thandiswa’s politically conscious lyrics and rich, expressive vocals. And Thandiswa burst into the public’s conscience as the lead vocalist and songwriter of the award-winning group.
After almost eight years with Bongo Maffin, Thandiswa finally worked on a solo project. The album, Zabalaza, elegantly fuses various musical genres, showcases her renowned artistic and musical capabilities, a talent which transcends borders and music genres.
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South Africa has birthed various generations of music queens; from Miriam Makeba to Dorothy Masuka, Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Brenda Fassie. But as that generation passes on or takes a back seat, the question is, who will fill their shoes.
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