South Africa's royalty: long live the Queens!

Reign and Shine

The Mahotella Queens 

Wrasse Record

Cat: WRASS177

There are few pop groups that are able to trace their history back over more than four decades, but the mighty Mahotella Queens can do just that. They began recording in their own right for legendary South African Gallo Records in 1964 accompanying their longstanding musical partner, Simon 'Mahlathini' Nkabinde (a.k.a. the 'Lion of Soweto'). Even before this date, the Mahotella Queens' members were individually renowned studio singers who featured on the backing tracks for a galaxy of Gallo artists.

Instrumental to getting the Mahotella Queens together in the first place was the songwriter and producer Rupert Bopape. He had heard 23-year old Hilda Tloubatla singing on South Africa's state radio station SABC and he introduced her to the other two core 'Queens', Nobesuthu Shawe Mbadu and Mildred Man-gxola, as well as to Mahlathini and the Makgona Tsohle Band, a Mbaqanga instrumental band.

Mbaqanga fuses marabi (South Africa's homegrown jazz style) with gospel, traditional music drawn from Zulu, Sotho, Shangaan and Xhosa roots as well as R & B influences, and it is a style that they made their own. Together, Mahlathini along with the Mahotella Queens and the Makgona Tsohle Band recorded hits throughout the 1960's on Gallo's Motella label. But before the end of the decade the group had split up as the Mahotella Queens took almost eight years off from the music business to marry and start families.

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Reformed, revitalised

They reformed in 1975, but it would take another decade before they would reunite with their former lead male singer Mahlathini and the band. But they picked up in 1985 from where they left off, creating more of their hallmark exuberant Mbaqanga music. The Mahotella Queens even released their first album without Mahlathini revealingly entitled Marriage is a Problem!

By this time Mbaqanga music was attracting international attention, most notably from a certain Paul Simon, previously best known as one half of a US folk-singing duo, Simon and Gar-funkel. The story goes that Simon had been given a pirate cassette tape of various township music styles and, greatly impressed by what he had heard, decided to travel to South Africa to track down the musicians and record his own material with them. The recording of the 1986 Graceland album and subsequent tours meant that South African music received a lot of international attention.

But the recording of the Graceland album was highly controversial. On the face of it, it broke the African National Congress' call for a cultural boycott, one of a number of boycotts designed to isolate the increasingly repressive and brutal apartheid regime. Simon always claimed that he was unaware of the boycott; and to the project's credit, the furore over the album and its international success meant that the very issue of the cultural boycott was suddenly given global attention--adding to the growing awareness in the US and elsewhere of the struggle against apartheid itself.

This new global recognition led to Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens undertaking extensive international touring. However, following a number of tragic deaths including co-producer and band member West Nkosi who was killed in a car crash in 1998, and Mahlathini and guitarist Marks Mankwane who both died in mid-1999, the Mahotella Queens stopped singing and went into a period of mourning.

Some months later they made a decision to return to performing and recording, in the hope--they told the world--of keeping Mahlathini's spirit alive. Their 2001 smash hit album Sebai-Bai was movingly dedicated to Mahlathini and the old Makgona Tsohle Bandand.

International debut

Reign & Shine, was released last year in South Africa, but now receives its international debut on the Wrasse label. It is an album that, with sparse instrumentation, centres on the Mahotella Queen's voices and includes songs such as Amazemul, warning of thieves taking precious items; Saphel Isizwe that demands a cure for HIV/Aids; and Muntu Wesilisa that denounces the raping of children by men with HIV/Aids. There are also fresh recordings of classics such as Dilika Town Hall, Thandanani and the South African national anthem Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika.