I claim no expertise or
special insight into South Africa but I am very fascinated with its music, and
from the comfort of a Lazy Boy, I enjoy hearing about its politics. So, unlike my friend Phillip, who is very much
an expert on matters South African (music and politics) and who is also
responsible for introducing me to today’s spotlighted artist, I enjoy the
protection of the novice, which means I’m to be forgiven for making sweeping
generalisations and broad judgments.
And my first such
generalisation is this: there appears to exist within the South African soul an
equal capacity for creativity and destruction. For art and violence. Sure, this
is true for most human beings and societies at some level. But the two forces
of violence and artistic imagination seem to find a unique hospitality in South
Africa.
This thought came to me as I
read an article about Moses Taiwa
Mololekwa, the pianist/composer who died a dozen years ago. A death, not of
natural causes or illness, but of violence.
Moses Mololekwa and the loss of “new”
South African innocence
FEBRUARY 18, 2013 BY STEFFAN HOROWITZ
Recently, I’ve found myself
listening to more and more South African Jazz. In particular, I’ve been
gravitating towards the late pianist and producer, Moses Taiwa Mololekwa. Now,
I must admit that my appreciation for Mololekwa’s music did not come about
immediately and I fully acknowledge that his music is not for everyone
(especially his inaccurately-labeled ‘fusion’ work), but there is certainly
something magical and profoundly important about his work.
The reason I chose to write
about this now is that last Wednesday marked the twelve-year anniversary of Moses Taiwa Mololekwa’s death at the age of 27. On the morning
of February 13, 2001, Moses was found hanged next to his wife, who had evidently
been strangled, in their office. The circumstances of their deaths are
troubling, to say the least, yet this should not obfuscate the significance of
Mololekwa’s contribution to South Africa’s already impressive musical legacy.
Predominantly active in the
90s, Moses Molelekwa’s music fused an eclectic
mix of influences such as Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, and Bheki
Mseleku, among others. His compositions contain references to genres as varied
as hip-hop, jungle, kwaito (in fact he produced a number of tracks for the
legendary kwaito group, TKZee), and perhaps most notably, marabi. His ability to play
around with and recontextualize marabi grooves was nothing short of spectacular
and as such, his music should be considered the archetype or standard against
which all bubblegum and crossover production and instrumental arrangement of
the time should be compared. This is true more for albums like Wa Mpona
and Genes and Spirits, than for his comparatively straightforward (yet
equally brilliant) Finding One’s Self and Darkness Pass.
For many of those who listen to
the former two albums today, the music may come across as rather kitsch.
However, the sound Mololekwa crafted on albums like Wa Mpona and Genes
and Spirits must be understood within a larger context. The particular moment
in South African history in which Taiwa made his music was one of excitement
and celebration, as the apartheid era officially ended and the popularity of
the ‘new South Africa’ rhetoric reached its peak. From a musical standpoint,
this was a moment of immense pride, where musicians were looking inward and
trying to create sounds and aesthetics that were uniquely South African,
thereby setting themselves apart from the rest of the world (people were
attempting to define themselves largely in relation to their ‘South
Africanness’). Hence, popular genres like kwaito and crossover emerged as this
shift towards prioritizing and performing ‘new South African’ subjectivities
picked up steam. To be clear, Mololekwa was not necessarily trying to create
music that was uniquely South African in the same way that folks like Johnny
Clegg and the Trompies were, but this sentiment and the sonic aesthetics of
the time inevitably found their way into his compositions. In many ways, Moses
Mololekwa’s music became emblematic of the ‘new South Africa’ and for some, his
death signaled the loss of this ‘new South Africa’s’ innocence.
Today, it does not require much
of a leap of the imagination to hear Moses’s influence when listening to much
of the deep house music being produced by popular South African acts like Black
Coffee and Culoe De Song.
What drives a man so full of talent and Spirit to kill his lover and
himself? A man who is young and admired at that. What great darkness is so
powerful as to extinguish one’s light with such finality?
There is a school of psychology and therapy which is founded on the
belief that each individual belongs to a ‘system’ or more accurately, multiple
systems; family, society, culture, class, country. And at an unconscious level
she/he retains strong bonds of loyalty to the values of those systems and acts
out what those systems demand. Healing is finally brought through awareness and
consciousness. By consciously severing these bonds, one experiences liberation.
It seems as if many artists from South Africa (Oscar Pistorius, falls into this category, too. He’s an artist of
the track) remain unconsciously but very loyally and mightily bound to the
expectations of an apartheid society that was born and experienced in
violence. Art is never far from violence
and death.
This recording is from 1997 when a 23 year old Moses Taiwa Mololekwa performed at the Nantes Fin de Siecle Festival.
The music is thrilling. You can feel his talent and imagination. And at the end
feel the sadness that he was unable to break the bonds of loyalty to a
monstrous system.
Track Listing:
01 Biko's Dream
02 Matswale
03 Mountain Shade
04 Dance To Africa
05 Ntatemoholo
06 Spirits Of Thembisa
