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
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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 - […]
Four seconds short of the nominal 3 minute 30 second kwela format, the Solven Whistlers recording of Kwela Blues is to be found in the Gallo CD Sampler currently shipping with the May 2007 edition of Songlines magazine. “The Very Best in South African Music” contains the following tracks:
Mahlathini & The Mahotella Queens
Lilizela Mlilizeli
African Jazz […]
OK, here we go: Welcome to the blog of the kwela project at www.kwela.co.uk. Take a look at About to find out more. Nothing much else to say now - I just want to start fixing up the blog and I need an initial post to be able to see my changes ;-)
Kwela Project link repository