MAKING HER OWN MUSIC
Mthwakazi Lenga’s healing music lives at the intersection of two traditions and is also entirely new, writes Tsepang Tutu Molefe
Tsepang Tutu Molefe meets Mthwakazi Lenga to unravel her unique Xhosa opera sound
Whatever it is that invades her soul, she is at one with it Her music serves as a harbinger of the birth of something new, refreshing and healing
ONCE upon a time, a long time ago in a township called Mdantsane, there was a little girl. A little Xhosa girl who sang with a voice so beautiful that even the birds were envious. Mdantsane, the second-biggest piece of apartheid engineering in the land after its pompous and worldfamous cousin Soweto, is in the Eastern Cape.
Like most townships it has social ills beyond the ones listed on public domains, but it is in those Mdantsane streets that the little girl learnt her first song.
She soon became the source of entertainment at family gatherings, a very common form of “child labour”. As nature dictates, the little girl grew to be a fully-fledged woman and her voice so powerful it could be heard in faraway lands. Somewhere along her musical journey she met a man. She married, had kids and continued to make healing music.
Perhaps this is how a Mthwakazi tale would be narrated if she was an ordinary artist. But during my first interaction with Mthwakazi Bongiwe Lenga the spirits informed me that she is not an artist to be consumed in a single sitting, so I re-strategised the operation to a few days of social espionage. I was to ask no questions, but allow the story to tell itself.
Day one, and the skies are as clear and blue as the day Mandela walked out. Before I can bang on it, the door opens. Mthwakazi says she spotted me doing the chicken trip from the other side of the road, while she was peeping at the dirty world from her kitchen window. We embrace as she welcomes me into her home.
The band has already started when I step in. Luyolo, Mthwakazi’s husband, is on guitar, playing melodic riffs. Next to him is a young white man with a bass guitar in his arms, rocking a denim jumpsuit that completes the Alabama blues look. There is also a man in a Thesis hat that is probably on its third life term; he is on saxophone. On percussion is a Rasta-mon, banging a Turkish drum. Mthwakazi joins in the musical orgy, effortlessly breathing melodies. During the band’s stop-and-go moments, she walks around the room with burning sage in her hand.
Prior to releasing her solo effort, Amax’okwenza, Mthwakazi paid her dues in many forms, including being a hype-woman for Simphiwe Dana. “I was performing at the launch of Chimurenga magazine. Apparently some random person who was part of the audience called her and insisted that she drop everything and come to witness my performance. By the time she arrived I was on my last song. We spoke after the show, and she promised to call me. I didn’t think much of it, but she called me when she landed in Joburg.”
This is how she got to feature on Dana’s Culture Noir album.
Lunch is served, and we sit around a table. Luyolo sparks a conversation about how they are planning to wear wet-suits for their next performance, with the exception of the leading lady. Mthwakazi interjects “I want to look half-alien, half-octopus. Like that singing alien in Bruce Willis’s The Fifth Element.” There is more talk and laughter before going back to the main course, the music.
DOING her number titled Mphefumlo, she transgresses to a high that has me thinking she is not alone in there. But whatever it is that invades her soul, she is at one with it.
“I want to own a farm one day, so Luyolo and I can have our own corners from far different ends of the land,” she says.
Hlubi dumps the saxophone for a flute and Mthwakazi positions herself next to him as they do Nguwe, a love song that reaches deep into the core of any being, where love ought to reside. Her music does not elude the soft ear, but welcomes and educates it, and the syllabus is mainly about the music that is here now and the music that was played at the beginning of time.
The second day is at a nameless studio, where the now worldfamous Beatenberg are composing and recording for their next project. The main room is dominated by a collection of vinyl that dares one to go through it. There is a smaller room at the back of the studio, and it resembles Dr Evil’s office. It has so many buttons, I’m certain if they were all pressed at once it would end the world.
Daniel Gray, the bassist from Alabama, has “killed” himself for this session, but a star-studded cast has been added in Rob Brink and Ross Dorkin of Beatenberg. Hlubi Vakalisa, the saxophonist and Mava Ntontela, the percussionist, have stayed the course. Mthwakazi seems to be more pensive than the previous day, often drifting to the side to have a conversation with herself. Luyolo maintains his position as a high-ranking general, commanding the troops.
It is near impossible to tell a Mthwakazi tale without Luyolo stepping into the spotlight from a supporting role. The man possesses extraordinary songwriting prowess. As a team they are artistically adept.
They tell an emotional story about how, as music students at the University of Fort Hare, they had to walk for 45 minutes daily to attend classes. How they once drove the length of the country in search of a record deal that never came to be. On a different scale of tragedy, how they lost their son to a pool accident in Johannesburg.
OUTSIDE the studio, I spot workers in overalls on the roof-top of a nearby building, intimidating the skies with their stronger version of blue. The workers play their own instruments, which are useful for many a purpose, but good sound is not one of them. The botched collaboration fails, and the men in blue all end up facing where the real music is coming from.
Much of the day is spent arranging and re-arranging the songs, and when they do the final take, the energies of all the individuals fill the room and Mthwakazi seems to be the link binding all the elements into one solid tune.
Her music is just one facet of a complex artistic being. The woman is an exceptional cook, and she makes beautiful accessories. Her performances are accompanied by costumes that shake the audience’s imagination.
I bang my head against many walls trying to distinguish between the humorous, outspoken Xhosa woman and the crowd wow-er. But it soon dawns on me that there is no manufactured artistic character or alter ego who pops up at her behest.
She has positioned herself as the point of intersection between opera and the traditional Xhosa sound. It is at the merger of the two worlds that her art emerges. This is how she is able to find a complete identity, Xhopera.
If you are geeky enough to have your music collection sorted by genre, this one will have to sit in isolation. Mthwakazi’s music serves as a harbinger signalling the birth of something new, refreshing and healing. The content is rich, the melodies are soothing, and the vocals are pure and honest.
I possess no supernatural gift to see the afterlife, but one thing I know is this: every time Mthwakazi plays her music, Princess Magogo Ngangezinye kaDinizulu, our patron saint of traditional music, listens with delight from the other side of the timeline. LS