On the evening of Friday, April 10, the ATEC hall glowed with warm, soft lights and an anticipatory hush fell across the audience as the lights dimmed. After a short introduction by Director of Choral Activities Jonathan Palant, the stage welcomed the eight members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a South African a cappella group with infectious enthusiasm.
Joseph Shabalala founded the group in 1960, and for over 60 years they have brought isicathamiya, a Zulu singing style, to the world stage — in total they have received 17 Grammy nominations and five wins. Their music is known for blending smooth and fluid vocals over a percussive sound. Isicathamiya developed from the mbube style, which emphasizes loud, booming vocals. Today, Ladysmith Black Mambazo is made up of eight performers, all of whom are brothers, cousins or close friends of Shabalala.
The program started off with a chirpy and buoyant piece, “Soles of Her Shoes.” During its performance, any distance that may have existed between the performers and the audience immediately melted away. Subsequently, the evening unfolded as a tapestry of story, song and memory. In “Nomatheba,” translating to mother of hope, the group’s voices featured sweeping glissandos and a traditional synchronized dance that turned the stage into the beating heart of their vocal narrative.
A striking moment came in a later song which told the tale of a man longing for his home. It started off with an interlude of sorts, featuring percussive sounds such as dental clicks made entirely with their mouths. The performance of this particular piece conveyed the man’s yearning through the illustration of mountains, rivers and birds, as well as theatrics such as rhythmic footwork and interaction with the audience.
Yet another moment in the evening featured the audience as performers themselves, as one of the a cappella members almost conducted the crowd with his hand motions that guided the crowd to sing in time with the repeating rhythmic and harmonic base in the background.
Later, came a period of deeply motivational and personal music during the song “Tough Times Don’t Last, Strong People Do.” The performance broadened into the subsequent song, which started off with one of the members giving a speech that addressed the existence of global violence and hatred. He urged the audience to question this hate, pausing deliberately on the words, “Is it true?” almost asking the audience to interrupt this unconscious cycle of blind acceptance and choose intentional peace in the face of anger.
Throughout their performance, Ladysmith Black Mambazo showcased their grasp of isicathamiya through their capacity to build a community with the audience. The audience was completely woven into the fabric of the performance itself. Right from the opening sequence, there was a ripple of applause and rhythmic clapping between numbers, and vocal amusement at the playfulness of the a cappella members as they jokingly argued amongst themselves. During the few call and response sections, the audience was encouraged to engage with the members’ conducting, and by the end of the night, had even learned some basic Zulu rhythms and phrases. By the time the members of the group urged the crowd to imitate the percussive dental clicks, all hesitation within the crowd had vanished, as children and adults alike joined to become an extension of the singers themselves.
This historical weight was perhaps the most critical undertone of the performance and made its appearance most in the songs about unity and conflict. The migrant history of the genre resonated within Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s performance through their storytelling, singing and dance movements. The man longing for his home, the warning against violence and the hopeful affirmations all emphasized just how important each note was in this story told through song. As the group urged the crowd to “be careful” and question the truth behind words, the message felt deeply intertwined with South Africa’s own history of apartheid and reconciliation. Yet the performance never lulled or lingered, and the balance between the acknowledgment of pain and the importance of resilience — “tough times don’t last, strong people do” — became central to the performance’s commemoration of South African art and strife.
The night ended with an encore, featuring “Amazing Grace” sung in a unique style and sound. Ladysmith Black Mambazo honored one of their longtime members, Albert Mazibuko, who had passed away just days before on Sunday, April 5. Their version of the song featured humming tones with pursed lips, bearing a warming resemblance to doo-wop music. After the last note faded into the hall, the audience erupted in a standing ovation to commemorate the shared humanity the evening had brought to them.
By bringing their cultural roots to an international stage, Ladysmith Black Mambazo transformed the night and the stage into a collective experience through stories from South Africa, but more importantly, shared stories that bind humanity together. Their performance and their stage presence served as a reminder that music and memory aren’t bound by culture, but rather that song is meant to be a universally shared experience.