Inspired by misery but fuelled by joy of performing
CELEBRITIES love to remember their rites of passage as struggling nobodies. But few can match the rough ride endured by South African Music Award-winning Afro-jazz singer Mbuso Khoza.
Soon after he arrived in Johannesburg from Eshowe in KwaZuluNatal in 1999, he slept in a shack made from blankets in an abandoned building in the shadow of the M1 bridge over Newtown. He washed with a bucket at an outside tap and foraged for food in dustbins. Occasionally, he would sneak a shower at the Bassline jazz club.
“Whenever I had some money I would buy four vetkoeks for R2,” said the irrepressible Khoza, 35. “One for breakfast, one for lunch and two for dinner.”
At 21, the country bumpkin sang for everybody he met, but the people who mattered looked before they listened. “The challenge was my ap- pearance because I had no clothes. I looked like a needy person, so people didn’t believe I could sing.”
He auditioned for Idols and other music contests. “After the first note, they would say ‘Thank you, thank you’ and chase me away.”
But he had nowhere else to go and no other skill to sell. After four years of survival, he struck gold by offering backing vocals without pay. His crystalline tenor found the ear of piano maestro Themba Mkhize, who used him on the acclaimed album Hands On in 2005.
Since then, the former cattle herder has been carving a throne for himself as a milder, purer-voiced successor to Jabu Khanyile, supplying premium Zuluphone world music to the nation and the world. This year his solo debut album, Zilindile, bagged best contemporary jazz gong at the Metro FM Music Awards.
This month, he will return as a conquering hero to the scene of his desperate days — starring at the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz festival in Newtown. “It’s going to be inspiring,” he said. “I used to just hang around there not knowing what to do. Today I’m going to perform on one of the biggest stages. You must expect fire. The walls are going to fall.”
Khoza reveres Salif Keita, Oumou Sangaré and Richard Bona, and his sound stirs their West African inflections into a subtle soup of Zulu hymns, R&B, mbaqanga and maskandi. It is a sweet but melancholy recipe. “I’m inspired by misery, but when I start to perform and write music, I get joy. So that’s how it’s balanced. When you look back and think ‘now I’m here’, then it’s worth it.”
The track Eshowe revisits his traumatic memories of childhood abandonment. “I never met my dad. He passed away when I was three. Apparently he had a fight with my mom, arguing that maybe I might not be his son.
“And I had no home until my uncle took me into his house. My mother, who passed away when I was 19, had no space for me to live with her. She stayed in a compound on a sugarcane farm where she worked, so she left me with friends and relatives.”
Young Khoza found solace in the hills, chanting to the cattle in his care. “It was so interesting to communicate with an animal. Each cow could recognise my voice. When it wandered off in the wrong direction, I would just call it and it would come back — no rope needed. I also wrote a praise song for the bull and whenever I sang it, he would go straight off to fight a rival bull. That was amazing.”
Khoza never writes down his lyrics and has no formal musical training. Sometimes he wishes he knew more about harmony, but the consolation is an untrammelled spontaneity.
At a recent gig with Carlo Mombelli’s Prisoners of Strange at Lucky Bean restaurant in Melville, Khoza’s exultant chants brought the house down. He felt blessed by the unusually focused audience — a rarity on the South African live music circuit, where many uncouth audiences tend to treat bands as background muzak if their sound is not danceable.
“Otherwise, people scream but never hear a word of what you’re singing. They’re just moved by bass lines and beats, but they think they know your music.”
At Joy of Jazz, Khoza will perform on August 24 on the Conga Stage. He will be backed by Luyanda Madope on piano, Sam Ibe on drums, Billy Munama on guitar and Bongani Masina on bass.
Major acts on this year’s bill include Abdullah Ibrahim, Terence Blanchard, Rene Marie, Ahmad Jamal, Carmen Lundy, Adam Glasser, Themba Mkhize, Jeff Maluleke, Stimela and Selaelo Selota. Tickets are available from Computicket.