For years in South Africa, everybody talked about the political situation, but nobody dared sing about it. Nobody, that is, except poet/singer/percussionist Mzwakhe Mbuli. Born in the one-time cultural hot spot Sophiatown, Mbuli got involved with theater groups after the government bulldozed Sophiatown forcing his family to move to Soweto. In 1979, his powerful voice earned him the part of God in a play about Job. Inspired by his country's martyrs and prisoners of consciousness-Biko, Mandela and Mambatta, a Zulu chief who resisted the whites to his death- Mbuli tried his hand at poetry. In 1981, he read a few of his poems for a funeral crowd and the enthusiastic response he got marked the start of a serious career. Working with the underground Shifty label, Mbuli recorded his first record Change is Pain in 1987. The government banned the record, forcing Mbuli into hiding. The next year, the authorities detained him in solitary confinement for six months, fearing both his message and the power of his performance. But once freed, Mbuli continued reciting and performing. Mbuli holds forth with a thundering, incantatory voice. Over the jovial swing of classic South African township jive, his cool, breathless oratory takes on the uplift of a gospel revival-like Martin Luther King set to Dixieland jazz. Mbuli now fronts his own band and tours internationally. A champion of township styles-kwela, mbaqanga and jive- Mbuli derides local DJ's who he says have "fallen in love with American music." In 1994, Mbuli recited at Nelson Mandela's inauguration. However, he soon ran into problems with South Africa's first post-apartheid government. He is currently serving prison time on a burglary charge, although he and his defenders maintain that Mbuli was framed as punishment for pointing out corruption in Mandela's ANC government.