August 10, 2007 – 11:26 pm
This tune – Little Lemmy – is played by Little Lemmy (‘Special’ Mabaso) with Big Joe on alto sax (I might be making that second bit up – but he is credited as playing, and it sounds like Lemmy on the whistle). It can be found on the old, Decca LK 4292 “Something New from [...]
Back in June there was a blip in the visitor stats that was the result of a link to the Kwela Project from a post in the Banjoroots Yahoo group. The post was about Africa-American single-stringed instruments, and as well as mentioning the renowned ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik (who happens to play clarinet in Donald [...]
With a web site with as little traffic as the Kwela Project, it’s pretty easy to notice what kind of things are bringing visitors here. For example, Sunday’s BBC Prom performance by the Buskaid Soweto String Project, which you can still listen to online, resulted in a number of visits that had been referred from [...]
If you’ve ever wondered how “35 pennywhistlers and two drummers, dressed in Scout hats, kilts, tartan sashes, and neckerchiefs” could possibly be connected to the 1956 Alexandra bus boycott, then David B. Coplan’s essay Sophiatown and South African Jazz: Re-appropriating a Cultural Identity is for you. Telling the story of life, and music in particular, [...]
The City of Johannesburg website reports that the Buskaid Orchestra of Soweto will be performing as part of the BBC Proms in London on Sunday 15 July.
Buskaid plays mainly classical music, with a fusion of classic pop and kwela.
You can find out more about Buskaid in the Kwela Project’s post “Unite with the Buskaid Soweto [...]
Flickr user “ethekwinigirl” is a writer/journalist and photoblogger in Durban, South Africa. Her photoset Street Musicians shows that kwela is still performed live in open, public spaces; maybe by the same musicians who, as youngsters, performed on the streets and heard “Kwela, kwela!” as the police vans tried to round them up!
It would be so [...]
Every now and again I find something really interesting as a result of the kwela project. It’s not always about kwela either, but in this case I’d say there’s quite a strong connection. ýlowek scavel-cronek is a blog that presents music that can’t be found in the shops any more. The first track on Take [...]
Ten Real Audio :-( tracks spanning some fifty years of South African music from 50s kwela to 90s bubblegum. Presented by Andy Kershaw, the flippin’ hypocrite fades each track after only about 30s – in much the same way that Kirsty Young curtailed Andy’s Desert Island Discs – much to his annoyance! Still, there’s some [...]
It’s always interesting to hear contemporary interpretations of kwela and to learn more about those who are bringing these sounds to our ears some fifty years after kwela’s heyday. I stumbled upon Buskaid whilst undertaking some search-engine led investigation regarding a long-forgotten question, and what a fortunate turn of events this has been.
Buskaid is a [...]
April 14, 2007 – 10:17 pm
… by accepting the MySpace Terms and Conditions.
Postively Testcard, “South-East London’s premier whistle-driven afroskankabilly instrumental beat combo” emailed me with this scintillating fact (which is, indeed, more news-worthy than today’s other headline story) today. Their follow-up email included the relevant URL too :-) When I looked, there were two, complete tunes for our enjoyment – [...]