Struggle musicians bridge the gap
A UNIQUE venture by Johannesburg veteran struggle music group The Mavrix has seen them collaborate with Palestinian Oud player Mohammed Omar on a music video launched last week in Palestine that is believed to be a world first.
The oud is a traditional stringed instrument commonly used in North Africa and the Middle East.
Titled The New Black, the song is taken from The Mavrix's upcoming album Pura Vida, due for release in June 2012.
The roots of The Mavrix go back to the early 1980s and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
The founding members, Jeremy Karodia and Ayub Mayet, became political activists writing songs about the inhumanity of racism, poverty and exploitation.
“Our music was a reflection of a South African society that lived in fear of itself,” explained Karodia, adding that they mainly performed at political rallies and cultural events.
With the advent of democracy in 1994, the group began to evolve.
Their music covered broader world issues such as war, globalisation, and domestic violence, with CDS more often than not being distributed free of charge.
Shahzaadee Karodia on violin, Reshma Lalla on santoor and Ketan Parshotam on tabla joined The Mavrix in 2003, allowing the band to explore new musical boundaries.
Written and composed by Karodia and Mayet, the original version of the song was a musical reaction to the horror of the Gaza Massacre of 2008/2009.
Mayet had penned the first lyrics in 2009 after the massacre and the song went into musical hibernation.
Having read the novel, Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa, he then re-wrote the lyrics and the song evolved into its current version.
Haidar Eid, a Gaza-based activist and friend of the band, heard the song in 2011 and urged the band to do a collaboration with Omar.
He also suggested that the band do a video highlighting the collaboration between South African and Palestinian musicians and also the similarities in the struggles in the two countries.
“The song was recorded by The Mavrix in South Africa whilst Mohamed recorded the Oud in Gaza and, although never having had the opportunity to meet, the interplay between the musicians so far apart illustrates the empathy and solidarity musicians feel for each other,” Karodia said.