Compelled to produce soul-stirring protest music
LAST week, the 2017 National Arts Festival featured artist Neo Muyanga told me that he is consumed by music. He said: “It’s not a choice to either make music or not. It’s a compulsion.”
When I went to watch his one-man show, Solid(t)ary – which can be read as solid, solidary, solitary and solidarity – on Sunday evening, I didn’t know what to expect. All I knew is that it would be a rich experience.
The concept of the show is based around Muyanga’s contemplating and surveying of the tradition of protest music. The show is structured as a free-form musical journey centred on his meditating on protest songs and other modes of resistance.
When Muyanga emerged for his performance at Thomas Pringle Hall, the expectant audience broke into rapturous applause. And when he started on the piano, many around me closed their eyes. I figured it was an attempt to connect more deeply with the music, and so I, too, closed my eyes.
Solid(t)ary demands that you listen attentively. The complexity of his set was something to marvel at. If you listened closely, at any given time you could hear him playing more than one tune at a time. He even played South African “spirituals”. In one of them, he echoed the words, “my soul does not agree for me to keep quiet”.
Having begun his set playing relatively smoothly, his set gradually grew more intense. The piano is a delicate instrument, but Muyanga made it roar angrily. His techniques were not conventional; they were disruptive. He physically banged on it and pulled the strings through its open top. At one point he even dropped a chain into its mechanism to disrupt the sound.
His face strained as he played. You could feel the emotion. At times his voice would break and quiver off key, yet even in that chaos, the music was beautiful and powerful.
Beneath the noise was a powerful message, a powerful demonstration and exploration of where we stand as a country and as black people. It was rapturous and raw.
When he moved to the guitar, his playing was more upbeat. Yet it still maintained a sombre feel. This part of his set was a series of sad serenades. There were even love songs here. Overall, it was a full experience, and it was an absolute joy to have experienced it. When the show ended, we all looked around in awe, searching to see the looks on everyone else’s faces.
Muyanga’s other show, Works For Trio, will be performed at the Thomas Pringle Hall today at 6pm. The show will feature Andre Swartz and Peter Ndlala. Msaki will join the trio as a guest artist.