Ladysmith Black Mambazo

With roots in the four-part harmony of 19th century African American jubilee singing, Zulu choral music has undergone steady re-Africanization. Nutured in fierce, men's singing competitions in South Africa's mining hostels, the style once known as mbube took its name from Soloman Linda's big-selling 1939 hit, which the Weavers covered successfully in the US as "Wimoweh" in 1950. The song soared again on the US charts in '61 when the Tokens reworked it as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight."

Meanwhile, mbube had evolved into the aggressive, almost shouted 1940s style called isikhwela jo. --or "bombing"-- and then into the softer, velvety isicathamiya ("to walk on one's toes lightly"), pioneered by the King Star Brothers. Isicathamiya's most successful popularizers were the Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who took the music to worldwide audiences.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo came together in the town Ladysmith in the early '60s under a gentle visionary, Joseph Shabalala. His inspiration came in 1964, in a dream in which a choir of children, suspended in the air, sang in a strange language and presented harmonies and movements that Joseph worked into Ladysmith's act, with Shabala's lithe alto coos and growls above two tenors and seven basses that make soothing, rhythmic textures punctuated by breathy bursts. The group took its name – "mambazo" being zulu for "axe" – from the way they would chop down the competition from neighboring towns in vocal contests in their early years.

The years that followed brought Joseph's revelation of Christian faith, many competition victories for Ladysmith, a recording career that has produced over 30 albums since 1970, a high profile 1986 collaboration with Paul Simon on the GRAMMY-winning album Graceland, and now, fame that rivals or tops that of any African performing group.

After the murder of brother Headman Shabalala by an off-duty South African policeman in 1991, Joseph added his three sons into the lineup. Ladysmith's own GRAMMY-winning album, 1987's Shaka Zulu, successfully blends English and Zulu lyrics and remains the best introduction to their work. While in 2005 they added a second GRAMMY to their accolades for Raise Your Spirit Higher. – Banning Eyre, Courtesy Afropop Worldwide: www.afropop.org