Statistics for this video as of March 2, 2021at 2:09 AM ET Total number of views - 3,586,053 Total number of likes - 15K Total number of dislikes - 577 Total number of comments - 1,079
**** Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post showcases the official YouTube video "Hello My Baby" by South Africa's "Ladysmith Black Mambazo".
This post presents information about Ladysmith Black Mambazo and information about the song "Hello My Baby". The lyrics for this song are also included in this post.
This content is presented for cultural, inspirational, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owner.
Thanks to Ladysmith Black Mambazo for their music. Thanks to the producer of this video and all those who are associated with this video. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube. -snip-
**** INFORMATION ABOUT LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO AND THEIR SONG "HELLO MY BABY" Excerpt #1: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladysmith_Black_Mambazo "Ladysmith Black Mambazo are a South African male choral
group singing in the local vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. They became
known internationally after singing with Paul Simon on his 1986 album
Graceland, and have won multiple awards, including five Grammy Awards,[1]
dedicating their fifth Grammy to the late former President Nelson Mandela.[2]
Formed by Joseph Shabalala in 1960, Ladysmith Black Mambazo
became one of South Africa's most prolific recording artists, with their
releases receiving gold and platinum disc honours.[3] The group became a mobile
academy[4] of South African cultural heritage through their African indigenous
isicathamiya music.[2]'...
** Excerpt #2: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezinkulu "Ezinkulu is an album by the South African isicathamiya group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The album featured songs included "How Long Should I Wait" and "Hello My Baby", the first English-language songs sung by the group. The album (#BL 186) was recorded on April 19, 1979, and released later that month." -snip- Google translate from Zulu to English: Ezinkulu= great
Joseph Shabalala lived an impactful life from being born the
eldest of 8 children that lived on a farm in Tugela, an area close to the town
of Ladysmith in South Africa. He formed the Ladysmith Black Mambazo band and
led the acapella choir to compose songs that fused indigenous Zulu songs and
dances with South African isicathamiya, an a capella tradition that was
frequently accompanied by a soft, shuffling style of dance. The band signed a
recording contract in 1970 after an accomplished radio performance and in 1973,
they released Africa’s first gold-selling album, ‘Amabutho’.
In 1987, they released ‘Shaka Zulu’, their first
worldwide album produced by Paul Simon and it went on to win the Grammy award for
Best Traditional Folk Album. Joseph Shabalala and the Ladysmith Black Mambazo
band also contributed backing vocals on Paul Simon’s multi-million-selling ‘Graceland’
album and they were able to perform hit songs like “Hello My Baby” during Paul
Simon’s “Graceland : The African Tour” concerts.
The “Hello My Baby” performance from the tour shows
frontman, Joseph Shabalala in his elements as he leads the passionate acapella
performance of lush, warm, glorious harmonies. Their stylistic mixture of
Christian harmonies and Zulu chants created a spiritually-charged atmosphere
that still gives us goosebumps when we watch the old video recording.
Joseph Shabalala died at 78 but the impact of his music
means his legacy will live forever.”… -snip- For more information about this style of South African music, click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/01/excerpt-from-1997-article-about.html for the 2018 pancocojams post entitled "Excerpt From A 1997 Article About Isicathamiya Music (The
Music Style Popularized By Ladysmith Black Mambazo)
**** LYRICS= HELLO MY BABY
Hey baby
Hey beautiful girl
Hey baby hey
Sing hey baby hey
Hey baby hey hey
Hey beautiful girl
Come along, come along
To kiss me
Before I'm going
Come along
Come along
To kiss me
Before I'm going
Don't you kiss me nice nice
Before I'm going
Don't you kiss me nice nice
Before I'm going
Come along
Come along
Come along
You you you
Don't you meditate
I sent a messenger to tell you that
I want to meet you at the station
Come along, come along, to kiss me before I'm going
Come along come along
To kiss me before I'm going
Don't you kiss me nice, nice
Come along
Come along
Come along
You you you
Hello my baby
Hello my baby
Hello my sweet
Hello my baby
Hello my sweetheart
Don't you meditate
Don't you meditate
I send a messenger to tell you that I want to meet you
Statistics for this video as of March 1, 2021at 6:15 PM ET Total number of views - 1,400,494 Total number of likes - 12K Total number of dislikes - 259 Total number of comments -579
**** Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post showcases the official YouTube video "Umbombela" by South Africa's "Soweto Gospel CHoir"..
This post presents information about Soweto Gospel Choir and information about "Umbombela". The lyrics and English translations for this song are also included in this post along with some other commetns from this video's discussion thread.
This content is presented for cultural, inspirational, and aesthetic purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owner.
Thanks to Soweto Gospel Choir for their music. Thanks to the producer of this video and all those who are associated with this video. Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube.
**** INFORMATION ABOUT THIS SOWETO GOSPEL CHOIR AND THEIR PERFORMANCE OF "UMBOMBELA" Excerpt #1: From https://blackgrooves.org/soweto-gospel-choir-freedom/ "Title: Freedom Artist: Soweto Gospel Choir Label: Shanachie Formats: CD, Digital Release Date: September 14, 2018
Described as “meticulous and unstoppable… spirited and secular” by the New York Times, the Soweto Gospel Choir is back with their sixth Shanachie Entertainment album, Freedom. Fittingly, this collection of freedom songs from the Grammy Award and Emmy winning group marks the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, a figure who signified love, peace, and strength and who has been an inspiration to the choir.
Freedom is a collection of twelve songs sung in six of South Africa’s eleven official languages in addition to English. The album’s first single, “Umbombela” meaning “train song,” addresses the hardships of Black apartheid-era South Africans who were forced to travel long distances as migrant workers."....
The 2018 centennial of Nelson Mandela’s birth delivered an outpouring of tributes and memorial initiatives in the form of education and anti-poverty projects, dialogues, celebrations, exhibitions, films, books, concerts, and an album appropriately titled Freedom. Few major world figures have as extensive a soundtrack attached to their biography as Mandela, from homages written during his imprisonment, to the songs he and fellow inmates sang to keep their spirits up, to the anthems that energized the anti-apartheid movement. The story of the man who became South Africa’s first president elected through universal suffrage has long attracted his country’s leading artists—including Hugh Masekela and Johnny Clegg—and the Soweto Gospel Choir is the ideal ensemble to initiate the second century of his legacy; the group has earned countless honors and also performed on several occasions for Mandela himself. Freedom, the choir’s sixth album, features the broad, lush harmonies that are the foundation of the group’s success. The album’s 12 tracks—a liberation saga performed in Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho and English—evoke struggle, memory and faith. Umbombela (The Train Song) echoes the notorious restrictions that forced black South Africans to travel long distances as migrant workers"...
**** LYRICS - UMBOMBELA (Zulu lyrics with English translation)
UMbombela, uMbombela, wenyuku umbombela (The train, the
train, there goes the train)×3
Wenyuku umbombela (There goes the train)
Wenyuka ekuseni (It goes in the morning)
Wenyuka umbombela (There goes the goes)
We baba yangishiya (oh father its leaving me behind)
Shuku shuku ×2 (*its the sound of a train*)
Yangishiya (Its leaving me behind)
Wenyuka wenyuka (It goes it goes)
Wenyuka umbombela (The train goes)
Webaba yangishiya (oh father its leaving me behind)
Musa ukungishiya, mbombela (Don't leave me behind train)
repeat
We baba iyangishiya (oh father its leaving me behind)
-posted in this video's discussion thread by Tholakele Zwane, 2019
**** SELECTED COMMENTS FROM THIS VIDEO'S DISCUSSION THREAD
1. Eddo Nics, 2018 "Someone can translate pls just little bit God bless Soweto
choir"
** Reply 2. Kgopotso Mothokoa, 2019 "Mbombela is a train, and as such this song is part of an
important body of South African art that is concerned with the challenges and
circumstances of travel. This preoccupation speaks to the difficulties faced by
migrant workers forced to travel long distances to meet the economic and
political demands made by colonial and apartheid era administrations. It speaks
of cross-border trains taking people into exile, and it recognises the pain of
lovers and families left behind.
“Wenyuka umbombela (Here passes Mbombela) Wenyuka ekuseni
(Passes in the morning) Webaba uyandishiya (Leaving me behind)”.
** Reply 3. Sibusiso Ndimande, 2019 "(We baba uyandishiya) can also refer to the writer who is
missing the train like missing a flight. "we baba" talking to their
father uyandishiya getting left behind"
** Reply 4. Moments To remember, 2019 "This talks about the migrant workers who were coming from
Mozambique, North and south Nyasaland (Rhodesia,Zambia Malawi) Mozambique. Building up this
country. We are one we owe it to all to them, enough respect to their great grand
children who are now coming here for a better life"
** Reply 5. Princely-Roy Dikuba, 2020 "Thanks for the translation. Sadness and beauty all wrapped
up in one powerful song.As
usual, Soweto Gospel
Choir delivers a touching rendition...AMANDLA!"
** Reply 6. Officer TNation, 2020 "That explains the Train actions in the dance"
** 7. Anorld Mlotshwa, 2019 "Wenyuka umbombela”speaks about the train that goes early in
morning separating one from their parents.The songwriter bemoans the calamity
of being left alone while the father is gone with the train.Remember in our
African culture a father was a symbol of protection of the family.The train used to be the mode of transport for
the migrant workers in the pre colonial
South Africa.The song writer expresses deep concern of being left behind by the
train somehow making him/her vulnerable to life challenges.This is a highly
metaphorical song typical of an original African genre which speaks and
communicates greater messages faced by Africans during the colonial era...This
piece of art can be cross referenced to the “Shosholoza”song which was
originally sang by the Matebeleland migrant workers( now called Zimbabwe) on
their way to South Africa to work in the mines...The tone of the song is very
befitting the message being conveyed as it expresses deep sadness caused by the
train taking people to exile.One
can easily think that
this is a religious song but it’s not.This was deliberately done to make sure
that the seriousness of the message being communicated reaches the
listenership..."
** Reply 8. Willem Nangolo, 2019 "I almost dropped a tear after reading this, but then I
remembered that I'm an African young man, we don't cry. Love from Namibia. Many
Oshiwambo speaking families can relate to this me"
** Reply 9. Moi Me, 2020 "Thank you for this explanation. So touching! I'm quite a
lover of South African music 'coz their songs often convey messages of a deep,
painful history."
** 10. Nkafu Fonkem, 2019 "Song was originally mama Miriam Makeba. (First version i
heard more than ten years ago)Used to listen to her album back in the day from
cameroon 🇨🇲 . I thought it was gospel. Its now
i have read comments and understood the music. Great remastered by Soweto
Gospel Angels. #MbombelaTheMorningTrain" -snip- Here's a link to a YouTube sound file of the 1966 recording of Miriam Makeba and Harry Belafonte singing "The Train Song": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXAcMI1ROeI&ab_channel=Kaijinhikari
** 11. Norma McGillis, 2019 "OMG!! When the
soloist started singing, I thought I was listening to Miriam again! Absolutely beautiful!"
** 12. Louise Deiving, 2019 "Can I just ask in wich language they are singing? So
beautiful!"
** Reply 13. silas ndivhuho Serakalala, 2019 "zulu from south africa"
** Reply 14. Louise Deiving, 2019 "Thanks!"
** 15. Docta Matano, 2019 "I like this song too much. Thanks a lot for the translators. Listening this song, I see myself far away back home. Can you imagine the distance between my RDCongo to Canada? I miss a lot, oh my God!" ** 16. gugas sakandeya, 2020 "Para os da lingua portuguesa e amantes do soweto gospel fiz a questão de investigar o significado da letra.A musica diz o seguinte: Wenyuka umbombela ”fala sobre o trem que sai de manhã cedo separando um dos pais. O compositor lamenta a calamidade de ser deixado sozinho enquanto o pai sai com o trem. Lembre-se de nossa cultura africana que um pai era um símbolo de proteção da O trem costumava ser o meio de transporte para os trabalhadores migrantes na África do Sul pré-colonial. O compositor expressa profunda preocupação de ser deixado para trás pelo trem de alguma forma tornando-o vulnerável aos desafios da vida. música típica de um gênero africano original que fala e comunica maiores mensagens enfrentadas pelos africanos durante a era colonial ... Esta obra de arte pode ser cruzada com a música “Shosholoza”, originalmente cantada pelos trabalhadores migrantes Matebeleland (agora chamado Zimbábue ) a caminho da África do Sul para trabalhar nas minas ... O tom da música é muito adequado à mensagem que está sendo transmitida, pois expressa profunda tristeza causada pelo trem que fala É fácil pensar que se trata de uma música religiosa, mas não é. Isso foi feito deliberadamente para garantir que a seriedade da mensagem que está sendo transmitida chegue ao ouvinte ...
Que mensagem!! -snip- Google translate from Portuguese to English: "For those of the Portuguese language and lovers of gospel soweto, I made a point of investigating the meaning of the lyrics. The composer regrets the calamity of being left alone while his father leaves with the train. Remember our African culture that a father was a symbol of protection from The train used to be the means of transport for migrant workers in pre-colonial South Africa. The composer expresses a deep concern to be left behind by the train in some way making him vulnerable to life's challenges. music typical of an original African genre that speaks and communicates the greatest messages faced by Africans during the colonial era ... This work of art can be crossed with the song “Shosholoza”, originally sung by migrant workers Matebeleland (now called Zimbabwe) on the way from South Africa to work in the mines ... The tone of the song is very suitable for the message being conveyed, as it expresses deep sadness caused by the speaking train It is easy to think that it is religious music, but it is not. This was done deliberately to ensure that the seriousness of the message being conveyed reaches the listener ...
What message!!"
** 17. Mayibongwe Nyathi, 2020 "missing home today and umbombela has been stuck in my head.
take me home stimela. Thank you Soweto Gospel." -snip- "stimela" = coal train; "Stimela" is the title of a hit 1974 song by South African musician/singer Hugh Masekela.
** 18. Artists Gallery Media, 2020 "I love to hear such a song like this it's really emotional to me, I'm even running of tears. I love South African singers, they are costume are so beautiful and so colourful I love their traditional way."
** 19. ALFEUS-ALFY LUKOLO, 2021 "Music heals and gives hope,it uplifts the human sprit 🙏...i
just can't get enough of this song.shout out to uncle Charles of Eagles FM
Namibia🇳🇦 for introducing me to this amazing
song on the 30th January2021 on his
radio show🙏"
This pancocojams post presents an excerpt from the online page entitled "Articles from the 1997 Festival of American Folklife Program Book. That article is entitled "Songs of the Night: Isicathamiya Choral Music from KwaZulu Natal" by Angela Impey.
The Addendum to this article showcases a YouTube video of an isicathamiya competition.
The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.
I present excerpts of online articles on this blog to raise awareness of those articles. Pancocojams visitors are encouraged to read the entire article and those article's source material.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all members of isicathamiya choirs. Thanks also to Angela Impey, and all others who are quoted in this post. Also, thanks to the choirs that are featured in this embedded YouTube video and thanks to the publisher of that video on YouTube.
-snip-
Click the isicathamiya tag below to find more pancocojams post about this South African music genre.
****
EXCERPT: SONGS OF THE NIGHT: ISICATHAMIYA CHORAL MUSIC FROM KWAZULU NATAL
by Angela Impey
The origins of isicathamiya are rooted in American minstrelsy and ragtime. U.S. vaudeville troupes such as Orpheus McAdoo and his Virginia Jubilee Singers toured South Africa extensively from 1890, inspiring the formation of numerous Black South African groups whose imitation of crude black-face troupes, song repertoire, and musical instruments signaled notions of cultural progress and self-improvement.
Even earlier, the educated, landed Black elite, or amakholwa (believers), whose Christian missionary education instilled in them the desire to imitate all things British, performed choral singing (imusic) - one of the main symbols of identification with Victorian values. Sankey and Moody urban revival hymns learned from the hymnal of the American Board Missions were central to the repertoire.
The Native Lands Act (1913) prohibited Black property ownership and forced thousands of indigenous peoples from their ancestral land. This devastating piece of legislation led to increasing political repression of all Black South Africans, regardless of educational, religious, and class status. In response, religious hymns were replaced with minstrelsy and other forms of African-American music and dance, as these performance models were considered better suited to emerging discourses of Black social and political dissent. The combination of four-part hymnody (imusic) and minstrelsy (and, later, "traditional" Zulu music) thus became the basis of much subsequent Black popular music in South Africa.
One individual who made a significant contribution toward exploring expressive forms able to satisfy an emerging nationalist, Black identity was Reuben Caluza. A choral composer who emerged from a Presbyterian mission background in KwaZulu Natal, his musical education spanned the whole spectrum of Black performance (Erlmann 1991:118). Although not an overtly political man, Caluza lived with strong commitment to Christian values and was sensitive to social injustice. His convictions became the main inspirational source for his songs. His first composition, "Silusapho Lwase Africa" (We Are the Children of Africa), was adopted in 1913 as the first theme of the South African Native National Congress, the precursor of today's African National Congress. Caluza's use of four-part harmonies and melodies taken from European and American hymn tunes, coupled with Zulu lyrics, did not simply imitate White choral music but "expressed the new relationships and values of urban groups, who expected fuller participation in the social and political life of the community into which they had been drawn economically" (Blacking 1980:198 in Erlmann 1991:121).
Caluza directed the Ohlange Institute Choir, which he toured extensively and which people of all classes and identities came to hear. His concerts, considered one of the earliest forms of variety shows for Black performers, combined imusic, brass bands, film shows, ballroom dancing, traditional drum-and-reed ensembles, and back-to-back dances (Erlmann 1991:122). Significantly, Caluza introduced ragtime into his repertoire. Although black-face minstrelsy groups had existed for a number of years and had come to be known as coons (isikhunsi), Caluza's ragtime renditions, which combined slick dance action with Zulu topical lyrics, more vigorously represented nationalist sentiments through their positive images of the ideal Black urbanite (Erlmann 1991:159).
RURAL-URBAN COMMUNITIES
By the 1920s, minstrel shows had gained widespread popularity throughout South Africa, extending deep into remote parts of the countryside, where traditional performance practices remained relatively unaltered. These shows particularly impressed Zulu migrant workers from the KwaZulu Natal regions, who combined stylistic elements of minstrelsy performance with ingoma (dance characterized by forward-stretching hands and high-kicking footwork) and izingoma zomtshado (Zulu wedding songs closely related in structure to ingoma songs) to form the prototype of present-day isicathamiya song and dance.
The vast number of Zulu men who entered the migrant labor system were made to occupy the marginal spaces of the cities: squalid, single-sex hostels, compounds, and impoverished locations. City dwelling demanded creative responses to the dislocation from home and family and to the new experiences of everyday life. With urban development in South Africa, Blacks formed trade unions, sports organizations, and entertainment clubs. Zulu isicathamiya groups developed a complex network of weekly competitions; they were prescribed and stately occasions, organized around set pieces, as had been the convention of school and mission competitions. Choral groups comprised men who shared regional and kinship ties. While isicathamiya competitions may have originated in Durban and KwaZulu Natal, they soon emerged among Zulu migrants in Johannesburg, where performances took on subtle stylistic differences.
The organization of choirs and the repertoire of actions, dance, and songs which characterized isicathamiya performance did not merely represent creative adaption and straddling of rural and urban, traditional and Western worlds. Rather, choirs and the web of competitions which held them in place became an important survival strategy for migrants in an increasingly fragmented and alienated existence.
"We're here and suffering," sing the Nthuthuko Brothers, "just as we come from difficulties in Zululand.... we're going up and down, between town and homeland.... We're going here and there, riding the train, see you later my sweetheart" (Meintjes 1993:4).
THE SACRED DIMENSIONS OF ISICATHAMIYA
Isicathamiya song repertoire spans a wide range of styles and orientations, ranging from Zulu wedding songs to renditions of Beach Boys hits. However, basic to the performance genre is an underlying Christian commitment - expressed not only in frequent references to biblical texts and Christian hymn texture but also in the ritual action which patterns the competition. Choir members will customarily congregate in tight circles prior to a competition and pray for spiritual direction during their upcoming performance. (The gathering of men into tight circles with the leader in their midst also recalls isihaya, the cattle enclosure in a traditional village. Being the most sacred space in the homestead, it is considered a powerful, male domain where men likewise request guidance and spiritual strength from ancestors prior to going to war [Erlmann 1996:190]).
[...]
Angela Impey is a South African ethnomusicologist presently lecturing at the University of Natal, Durban. She received her doctorate from Indiana University in 1992, worked as music coordinator of the Johannesburg International Arts Alive Festival, and has worked with numerous outreach programs in southern Africa to facilitate research, documentation, and performance of indigenous music.
Works Cited
Erlmann, Veit. 1996. Nightsong: Performance, Power, and Practice in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
_______. 1991. African Stars: Studies in Black South African Performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Meintjes, Louise. 1993. "The Hobo Judge Wears No Coat Tails; Zulu Choristers Do." Unpublished paper."
****
ADDENDUM: YOUTUBE VIDEO ABOUT ISICATHIMIYA
Amazing Zulu ISICATHAMIYA choirs
VIVIDPRO, Published on Feb 27, 2009
Zulu Isicathamiya choirs
-snip-
Here are a few comments exchange from this video's discussion thread:
Mabonga Khumalo, 2010
"i'm so glad this sacred music have been protected to survive the attack of modern day vultures. as a proud Zulu, it is a privilege & honour to finally see this old traditional music being airwaved on the internet for the whole world to enjoy. i use to go YMCA, during my time in Johannesburg to watch real men competing on a saturday night. well dressed, caring a lot of respect with them. may this legacy be protected for the next generation. thanks for posting.
**
Peter Gibbs, 2013
"I had a chance to see one of these competitions in Durban... it lasted all night and included a fashion show. I think I sitll have some of it filmed, but I had the sense during my time in Durban that the culture (especially the musical culture) was on the verge of being swalled up by modernity... I heard some of the older kids sing in one of the schools there as well. You just can't not smile. :)"
**
REPLY
VIVIDPRO, 2013
"Hey Peter, Thanks for the comment. Yeah! thats why I did this video, unfortunately this cappella style of singing is quietly dis-intergrating with all the Kwaito, Afro beat and House taking over in the dance halls but at least at this stage, there is still a national competition held once a year where these back room basement choirs gather for competition to prove who the best choir is.....going to try to film that this year."
