ALL NEWS

NEWS

Busi Mhlongo – Urban Zulu & Queen of Maskanda 1947 -2010

Ranked alongside Miriam Makeba, Letta Mbulu and The Mahotella Queens, ‘Mam’ Busi Mhlongo was the first female artist to spread the Maskanda vocal style internationally. South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma, lamented her passing and declared her “a true legend”. Just as the hopes of the South African people are dashed on the football pitch the nation has also been deprived of one its greatest voices. On 15 June 2010, at the age of 62, the ‘Urban Zulu’ – Busi Mhlongo - finally lost her battle against breast cancer.

I first met Busi through Robert Trunz’s Melt collaborations. He sought out Busi and was the driving force behind her classic Urban Zulu release. Robert loved her vocals. Busi was a primal force with a voice to match. She was a strong woman with a powerful presence that had an immediate impact on all those around her. Onstage she was nothing short of dazzling. She always looked amazing and I don’t think I’ll ever forget her performance at the Africa Centre in 1995 – one which took place against the deeply shocking news that Ken Saro-Wiwa and several other Ogoni activists had had been hanged by the Nigerian regime.

Busi Mhlongo grew up in KwaZulu Natal and commenced her singing career by winning a Gallo Records competition with a version of Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’. She had a turbulent life that was conditioned and framed by oppression and apartheid. Like others before her she opted to flee South Africa when the opportunity presented itself. She accepted a tour with a Portuguese cabaret circuit via Mozambique and Angola. She took her daughter with her but left behind her musician husband, Early Mabuse. Tragically, while on the tour, Busi received news of her husband’s sudden death. She was devastated. The next five years were spent playing in casinos in Portugal, singing pop numbers and songs from her homeland.

In 1972, she arrived in London and recorded with fellow South African exiles Dudu Pukwana and Julian Bahula but her next stop was the United States in order to received treatment for breast cancer. Upon recovery the singer joined the cast of a stage comedy called Reefer Gladness in Toronto. Five years elapsed in Canada before she returned to Africa on a tour of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Lesotho.

Back in South Africa the apartheid security police were not enthused by her return and it wasn’t long before Busi accepted an invitation to perform in a musical called Black Ground in Holland. Once there she spent a couple of years accompanying Senegalese musicians and the radical Gambian group, Ifang Bondi. In the mid-eighties, Busi Mhlongo was back in South Africa where she formed the original Twasa band with the late "Doc" Mthalane. She played with Twasa and Winston Mankunku Ngozi to packed houses at clubs like The Blue Note in Durban and it was her Maskanda recordings with Twasa that initially earned her a place in the hearts and minds of the South African people. Busi Mhlongo took the Maskanda guitar music of migrant Zulu mine workers and made it her own.

Upon her passing, the accolades have rolled in from organisations like The Congress of SA Trade Unions who – on behalf of their 2 million members - paid tribute to her unique contribution to South African music and culture, and the solidarity she expressed in songs like ‘Umentyisi’. One thing’s for sure. Busi Mhlongo would not have been happy about the police tear-gassing the workers from the football stadiums.

An initiated Sangoma – a traditional healer – Busi Mhlongo possessed a deep spirituality. As a woman she was a pioneer. Today’s generation of young South African artists like Simphiwe Dana, Thandiswa Mazwai and Camagwini all credit her as an inspiration and as I write this piece Busi’s music lives on in the townships through the hugely popular house mixes of ‘Izizwe’ and ‘Webaba Omncne’ by Culoe De Song and the legendary Black Coffee.

Busi Mhlongo: 1947 - 2010

Paul Bradshaw / Straight No Chaser

Comments  

// ALSO

• Miriam Makeba dies
• Gito Baloi
• Tenth Africa Festival, Würzburg, 1998
• Seya
• Refugee Week 20-26 June 2011
• VSO Stars Of Africa concert raises £450,000
• Ayobaness!, The Sound of South African House
• South Sudan Referendum, South Sudan Referendum
• Celebrating Sanctuary, Programme



---




// POST A COMMENT


Security code   






Nickname *


Your comment (2000 char. max) *




---


>> comment it on the forum>>

Puglia Sounds
It will be the window of Puglia Sounds in France and in all Europe. This blog will show all the i...

AFRO by SOUL
Africa is the future and the future is now…as the prophecy unfolds Eric Soul is as always ahead o...

The Center for Black Music
The Center for Black Music in Salvador, Bahia, and the International Exhibition of Black Music in...

Charlie Gillett
Charlie Gillett was one of the UK's leading World Music journalists. For years he presented a wee...

see all blogs