Mbaqanga grew out of earlier styles--pennywhistle kwela, township sax jive, gospel-inspired African choral music, and marabi, the lifeblood of South Africa's illegal township shebeens and dancehalls in the first half of the century. Musicians who remember marabi from the 40's and 50's evoke careening piano players, singers improvising staccato lines steeped in Zulu tradition, and colorings of pennywhistle, banjo, and drums--a kind of African ragtime. Next came the pennywhistle style, known as kwela. Kwela echoed the swing jazz sound then popular in America, but since few horns or pianos were available, kwela musicians used acoustic guitars, banjos, and the signature touch, pennywhistle. White record producers found that kwela's beguiling melodies sold records. So they developed an exploitative music industry aimed at the black market. Kwela's success created pressure for new styles, and sax jive and mbaqanga were the inevitable results.

Unfortunately, The Group Areas Act of 1959 separated the diverse peoples who had come together to create the seminal sounds of South African pop. The new order of apartheid closed down the country's greatest musical center, Sophiatown, in a crackdown that haunts South African music to this day.

In 1965, Rupert Bopape, one of South Africa's great black producers, discovered a group of young domestic workers from Pretoria. The Makhona Tsohle Band--the name meant "jacks of all trades"--played electric township pop with the sweetness of kwela and the drive of American R&B. Muscular bass lines pioneered by the country's first great electric bassist Joseph Makwela synched up with sharp offbeat snare hits to nail the band's fierce grooves to the floor, while guitar leads by innovator Marks Mankwane wove joyful abandon overhead. This band, which evolved into the legendary Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, became the model for a whole wave of mbaqanga groups. This was music for the workers, new and exciting, but loudly affirming tradition. The name mbaqanga gets various translations--porridge stirred up hot in a hurry, or fried dumplings heavy as the music's beat.

Contributed by: Banning Eyre