Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Vusi Mahlasela
Royce Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, California
Saturday, February 12, 2005


Ben Harper made a surprise, unannounced appearance at L.A.'s Royce Hall in February during an encore of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The hall is an ornate, upscale showplace holding perhaps a thouand people. The sold-out show was opened by Vusi Mahlasela, which made it a doubly-special event for me. I'm the guy who introduced Paul Simon to Ladysmith back in '83, and I got turned on to Vusi ten years later by my South African film-maker friend, Jo Menell ("Caribbean Nights," "Dick," "Cuba Si" and "Cuba No"). Vusi's voice is an enchanting, several-octave instrument of pure love and testament - on a par, certainly, with my hero Bob Marley. He sets Pablo Neruda poems to music, writes powerful songs of forgiveness, and his take on love is rhapsodic: "When we meet again, let us defy nature/and become inseperable whole/like once-scattered grains of sand/now become as solid rock/immovable/in gaiety and love/and love." And when he sings "immovable," his voice goes up two octaves. He was identified as a talented youngster by the African National Congress and sent to the country's finest poets and musicians to train him. He brought his eloquent repetoire to ANC rallies, and for three weeks, was thrust into solitary confinement. When Mandela became president, Vusi sang at his inauguration. You see him in the opening scenes, and hear his music throughout "Amandla," the recent film about how music sustained the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. I think his album "When You Come Back," about those returning from prison or exile, is my favorite in any genre in the past 15 years, Vusi Mahlasela deserves to be an international star on the order of Salif Keita, Baba Maal, or his countryman Hugh Masakela. His tour played in NYC last night (9 April 05) with a major advance plug and picture of Vusi in the N.Y. Times. His set at Royce Hall drew a rapturous standing ovation.

Vusi Mahlasela © vusimahlasela.com | Joseph Shabalala © rockpaperscissors.biz

My wife Mary and I arrived very early to the show, and ended up sitting absolutely alone third row center while the artists did their sound check. Ladysmith's was a bit perfunctory at first, but as they grew more comfortable with the stage, banter broke out among their precision line, and Joseph Shabala, their legendary lead singer, called out directions with a broad smile. Ben showed up alone, and joined the choral group on stage, rehearsing "Picture of Jesus." His passion was evident from the first note, and there were appreciative grins appearing on the faces of Ladysmith, as he hit the high notes. The song seemed to last about ten minutes, and Joseph urged Ben to new heights. Then they did it again, this time even more intense and moving, and longer. We were in ecstacy, as though we had stumbled upon a "churchical" moment, as they say in Jamaica. I'll remember it in the same way as Bob Marley's last day in Los Angeles, in November of '79, where I sat in an almost deserted Roxy on Sunset Strip and watched Bob do a three-hour sound check in which he played all of the instruments. The whole first hour, Marley kept singing something I had never heard before, something about "redemption."
We're really lucky to have an artist of the caliber of Ben in our midst in this needy century.

One Love from Hellay
Roger Steffens
rasrojah@aol.com

••• links •••

Vusi Mahlasela
www.vusimahlasela.com

Ladysmith Black Mambazo
www.mambazo.com

Picture of Jesus (feat. Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
www.swer.net/en_paroles_doti_main.html

UCLA Live
http://www.uclalive.org

Roger Steffens' Reggae Archives
www.reggaesupersite.com