Thandiswa Mazwai
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Thandiswa Mazwai (born 31 March 1976) is a multi-award winning South African musician, and is also the lead vocalist and songwriter of Bongo Maffin.
Early life
Thandiswa was born in 1976 (the year of the Soweto Uprising). She grew up almost entirely in Soweto, Johannesburg, amidst the heavy apartheid township violence of the 1980s. Both her parents were journalists and anti-apartheid political activists, and she recollects that her home was filled with books, articles and thick with political discussions. It was this environment that nurtured her perspective as an artist. She went on to attend Wits University where she studied English literature and International Relations. Her work has always been inspired by her mother (who died early in Thandiswa's life) and the writings of people like Steve Biko and Frantz Fanon, Chinua Achebe and Kwame Nkrumah.
Career
Early days and Bongo Maffin
Thandiswa's first attempt to get noticed occurred at the Shell Road to Fame talent show but Thandiswa did not even make it to the semi-finals round. She did, however, catch the eye of musician and producer Don Laka, who arranged to include her in a project he was working on. And so she began her career in 1998 with Bongo Maffin, one of the pioneering bands of Kwaito. She became widely recognised as the voice of South Africa's conscious youth, their compositions consistently combining dance floor favourites with thought-provoking lyrics. They were invited to perform all over the world, and shared the stage with musical icons Stevie Wonder, the Marley clan, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Chaka Khan, Sean Paul, Steel Pulse and Skunk Anansie, among others. Their contribution to the South African musical cannon earned Bongo Maffin numerous awards, among them South African Music Awards, the Kora All Africa Music Awards, and the Metro FM Music Awards.
Podcasts:
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by The Nits
In The Dutch Mountains
by: The NitsI was born in the valley of bricks
Where the river runs high above the rooftops
I was waiting for the cars coming home late at night
From the Dutch mountains
I was standing in the valley of rock
Up to my belly in an early fog
I was looking for the road to a green painted house
In the Dutch mountains
In the Dutch mountains
Mountains
I met a woman in the valley of stone
She was painting roses on the walls of her home
And the moon is a coin with the head of the queen
Of the Dutch mountains
Mountains
I lost a button of my shirt today
It fell on the ground
And it was rolling away
Like a trail leading me back
To the Dutch mountains
To the Dutch mountains
Mountains
I met a miller on the back of a cow
He was looking for the wind but he didn't know how
I said: Follow the cloud that looks like a sheep
In the Dutch mountains
In the Dutch mountains
In the Dutch mountains
Mountains
Mountains
Buildings