Mzwakhe Mbuli
by Johnny Clegg
source/date n.a.
When I first met Mzwakhe Mbuli, in 1986, he was developing as the "people's poet" of South Africa, and at that time he was an uncompromising young firebrand. He was very critical of any cultural activity which did not reflect on the conditions on the country those being the conditions of apartheid to the point that he would openly criticize particular individuals, and he became very popular with the militant anti-apartheid youth.
Mbuli's wasn't an advocacy poetry in the sense that it said, "Everybody rise up and destroy." It was an educative poetry that's all. he taught people to think that what they were experiencing was valid. He reported what was unfolding in this very vivid way, and said, "this is the mouth of hell, and we have to walk through it. We have to keep going."
I think it was that same year that Mbuli first put his lyrics to a kind of musical backing, a development that linked to the government's banning of political speeches. The government would say, O.K., you can have a funeral one of the few ways that blacks could come together in public but you cannot have any inflammatory, symbolic communication. So the speech-makers would hire a band and would say their political speeches to music, usually just a riff being played over and over in the background. This was based on advice they had gotten from legal experts on the left they would not be arrested for making a speech accompanied by music.
Now, Mbuli would get up and say his poetry, but he also had to use this musical backing because of the possibility of the police coming in and banning him, or arresting him afterward for making political statements. Eventually, he recorded an album of his poetry set to music called Change is Pain, which was instantly banned by the government.
During this period, Mbuli was detained, had his house attacked with hand grenades, and was in hiding for some time, all because he was extremely popular with the youth, who knew his poems quite well. They weren't published, but he'd said them so often at so many meetings that when he got up and started off a poem, the people would carry on saying it.
The most significant thing for me about Mbuli is that he was
the only one who gave voice to the experiences that young people
were undergoing. What's important about the poetry and lyrics
is that they use very serious, heavy imagery, but then suddenly
some little bit of humor will come out. That tension is unique.
Also, his music is very cheerful, but that's not unusual. This
is Africa. In Africa you have happy music with sad lyrics on
top of it, because life is a dance, and it's a cycle. That's
an African aesthetic. You have to keep moving. [Mbuli's
latest disc is Resistance is Defence (Earthworks/Cardiac).]
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