Broadcast DetailsShow: Headwrap IIEpisode Title: Isicathamiya Strings
Date: Thursday, 10 August, 2006
Time: 18h30
Channel: SABC 1
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The Zulu Messengers ABongani Nxmalo is the leader of the Isicathamiya group in Kwamashu, KwaZulu Natal called the Zulu Messengers A.
The group members originally came to the hostels to seek work and are mostly from a rural area called KwaHlabisa. Isicathamiya or unaccompanied acapella male-voice choral singing is a dynamic musical art that has survived for almost a century.
The word isicathamiya originates from the movement the singers make, the moving back and forth and the way they move their feet like a stalking cat.
This art form is a musical way in which a community is able to think aloud about itself and the changing environment around it. The Zulu Messengers A meet in the afternoons and rehearse in the hostel bathrooms as they don’t have any other place to meet.
While other hostel residents do their laundry the isicathamiya choir practices and the acoustics of the baths enhance their voices. Bongani explains the importance of tradition to their music: “Our songs used to talk about the history of the Zulu’s, that’s why we are called Zulu Messengers. My grandfather started the Zulu Messengers”.
KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic OrchestraMaralize van Zyl, Jabulani Dlamini and Gèza Kayser are classical musicians from the KwaZulu Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, the largest working philharmonic in Africa.
Jabulani plays the viola while Maralize and Gèza play the violin. The string group is worried about how they are going to approach the collaboration since isicathamiya is not well organized like the orchestra. “Looking at their background, the way they look at music is different from how we approach music. But with music you don’t need to be educated, it comes from the heart. It an international language” says Jabulani.
The Head Wrap Challenge Headwrap challenges the string musicians to work with the Zulu Messengers A on a song that fuses isicathamiya and classical music.
The classical musicians think the two genres of music are very different and putting them together might be easier said than done. The choir are worried that they will need to change their compositions too radically in order to accommodate the strings players.
“We do not know classic music very well because it of being a white culture. We are ready for them. We do vocals and they do instruments. Maybe they might want us to do it their style. We are not to be taken for granted by educated people. We didn’t go to school, but our music is our talent. They use notes, we don’t, our notes are in our hearts. We don’t read our music whereas they read their music,” says Bongani
This musical journey becomes more than a sharing of two musical traditions. Gèza says that sometimes a professional musician simply plays: ”We don't always get spiritually connected to the music we play, it’s nice to get spiritually connected for a change.”
For a member of the Zulu Messengers, the collaboration was about more than music ”I never thought that I would see a white woman sitting on my bed in the hostel. Not only that, but she played the guitar with me