Photo Credit: Justice Mukheli.
music
Identity and Togetherness URBAN VILLAGE The music feels surprisingly fulsome given a relatively “Udondolo is a Urban Village has the impressive distinction of being the first South African band to sign with respected French label simple set-up: vocals, bass, percussion and guitar, gilded pleasingly varied Nø Førmat! The Soweto-based foursome was discovered by lightly in places with touches of cello, brass, lap steel, mbira album, ranging from former A&R manager Thibaut Mullings, who took an inter- and flute. That last instrument, played with dexterous el- jubilant, bubbly est in the band after relocating to Johannesburg. “We kept egance by vocalist Tubatsi Mpho Moloi, is an uncommon party-starters to the seeing him [Mullings] at our shows,” explains drummer choice for a modern South African musician. “In the begin- quieter, introspective Xolani Mtshali. Then, one night, during a show in Alexandra, ning, I was really interested in learning to play the saxophone, numbers and a township of Johannesburg, Mullings appeared with label but I had no access to one.” As luck would have it, Urban Vil- evocative odes to lage guitarist Lerato Ntsane Lchiba happened to have a sax rural greetings founder Laurent Bizot – also now Joburg-based – in tow. “The love and excitement Laurent and Thibaut have shown at his disposal, but when Moloi came across a flute six years practiced in cities for our music assures us that they are the best partners to ago, he swiftly changed course. “I’ve been making it part of and villages alike.” release our debut album,” explains Mtshali. “They have given the Urban Village sound ever since that moment.” Udondolo is a pleasingly varied album, ranging from jubius the chance to create an album that can reach a global lant, bubbling party-starters such as Dindi – a standout celaudience, whilst remaining true to our Soweto roots.” Udondolo, a Zulu word meaning “walking stick”, is just so: ebration of Black pride – and Marabi – a joyfully self-aware an album shaped as much by the nation’s often troubled medley of familiar South African standards. Then, there's the past, as it is by a more hopeful present. It’s a nimble, melodic quieter, introspective numbers like Ubaba, a meditation on and culturally conscious offering, a record bound by a belief fatherhood, and Madume, an evocative ode to a rural greetin “ubuntu” or “common humanity” – the same byword that ing practiced in cities and villages alike across Africa. Playing in South Africa is somewhat tricky, says Mtshali. drove anti-apartheid revolutionaries such as Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko. Songs about struggles and joys, identity and “Most of the live music venues we have here are being closed Words togetherness abound, couched in tempos and melodies that down, whilst those remaining do not have the standard back- Charlotte R-A owe as much to the rural, traditional, indigenous Zulu music line which makes it financially difficult.” Besides, says Mtshali, (Isicathamiya) played on the streets of Soweto by their older the band feel most at home with “the backyard sessions – places that enable us to be free from the concrete jungle.” neighbours, as to the more modern, multicultural sounds. urbanvillage.live
126 Aesthetica
