South African global jazz icon Abdullah Ibrahim once commented that the freedom struggle was a “revolution in four-part harmony”.
South African global jazz icon Abdullah Ibrahim once commented that the freedom struggle was a “revolution in four-part harmony”.
And he’s not wrong.
Struggle songs were the fabric that bound protests together and united a myriad multiracial voices into a single call for freedom.
“Show us the way to freedom, comrade Nelson Mandela.” I remember belting the lyrics out as a Wits student on the library lawns in 1988.
A row of riot-geared cops with batons and sjamboks were marching down towards us. That unifying song helped many of us stand and face for just that little while longer before running, as tear gas fell and rubber bullets flew.
We asked and Madiba delivered – showing us the way to freedom indeed.
Twenty five years on, beyond freedom songs about him, as a musician I’m inspired by how much music’s been made in honour of Nelson Mandela. Who remembers the Wits / Nusas Free People’s Concerts, the Voëlvryers on tour, Tananas at The Bassment, Shifty Records album launches, and the Cherry-Faced Lurchers at Jamesons?
“I’m a white boy who looked at his life; gathered in his hands and saw it was; all due to the sweat of some other man; the one who got; shot down in the streets.”
These were some of the greatest live music protest performance events in our history. Smack bang in the middle of the 80s and apartheid’s middle-class white South Africa. But Madiba magic music-making was also going global by then.
On 11 June 1988, the occasion of Madiba’s 70th birthday was celebrated by a mammoth live concert in London’s Wembley Stadium.
Artists included Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Dire Straits, Simple Minds, George Michael, Whitney Houston, Aswad, Sly and Robbie, Tracy Chapman, the Bee Gees, Sting, Paul Young, Natalie Cole, Al Green, Joe Cocker, Joan Armatrading, Wet Wet Wet, Salif Keita, Youssou N’Ddour, Mahlatini & the Mahotela Queens, Jonas Ngwangwa, Jackson Browne, Bryan Adams, the Eurythmics, Salt n Pepa and Sly and the Family Stone.
Known as Freedomfest or the Free Nelson Mandela Concert, it was seminal for its time – broadcast to 67 countries and an international audience of 600 million.
Then came the 46664 concert phenomenon. Inspired by Madiba’s prisoner number on Robben Island, it was one of his initiatives to raise awareness about HIV/Aids.
The first was at Cape Town’s Green Point stadium in November 2003. The cream of local and global music performed! Televised live around the world, it was followed by several more in Johannesburg, George, Spain and Norway.
Of course there was Madiba’s 90th birthday concert in London’s Hyde Park during June 2008.
If you think about it, everyone who is anyone in world music has performed at a Madiba-inspired concert. He danced and we adored him for it!
Ultimately, if we combine the rhythmic timeline from struggle songs about him, to concerts inspired by him, to music still to be made in his honour, Madiba’s melodic magnificence will live on in song forever.
