Louis Moholo-Moholo
https://amf.didiermary.fr/louis-moholo-moholo/
Louis Tebogo Moholo, known in later life as Louis Moholo-Moholo, legendary South African drummer, passed away recently.
If you’re into FreeJazz / AvantGardeJazz, you should check his discography.
Born March 10, 1940 in Cape Town, South Africa, he died June 13, 2025 in South Africa. He was in exile from 1964, as the Blue Notes, the […]
JE Movement – Ma Dea Luv
https://amf.didiermary.fr/je-movement-ma-dea-luv/
Before Kwaito, in 1988, JE Movement released Ma Dea Luv, the first album of the duo formed by James Nyingwa et Elliot Faku. It’s dance music, a mix of Soul, R&B, Funk and Hip-hop. The eponym track is considered a wordplay on Mandela, who was imprisoned at the time.
Toward the end of the 1980s […]
#80smusic #Apartheid #Kwaito #SouthAfrica #HipHop #Funk #RnB
Remembering Zenzile Miriam Makeba
(4 March 1932 – 9 November 2008)
Listen on AMF: https://amf.didiermary.fr/?s=miriam+makeba
Rashid Vally, the visionary behind South Africa’s iconic jazz label As-Shams, forged a legacy of revolutionary jazz that defied apartheid, and continues to inspire new generations of musicians, activists, and music lovers.
https://africasacountry.com/2024/12/the-sun-shows-the-way
Coal Train – Hugh Masekela (live)
https://amf.didiermary.fr/coal-train-hugh-masekela-live/
“Coal Train (Stimela)” recorded at the “Freedom Beat” festival in June 1986.
The song, composed by Hugh Masekela in the 70s, speaks about local history and the migrant labour system around mines and reminds everyone that South Africa’s wealth and infrastructure was built on the back of labour from all over Africa. […]
Muzi – Stimela SeGolide
https://amf.didiermary.fr/muzi-stimela-segolide/
Muziwakhe McVictor Mazibuko, known professionally as Muzi, is a South African DJ, singer, songwriter, and record producer. His EP “Stimela SeGolide” (2019) tells the story of displacement, cheap labor and love under apartheid.
“Mom used to tell me stories about how her parents had to take trains to JHB to go to em mines. How […]
Sathima Bea Benjamin – Winnie Mandela Beloved Heroine
https://amf.didiermary.fr/sathima-bea-benjamin-winnie-mandela-beloved-heroine/
About Beloved Heroine in an interview with Carol Ann Muller in Musical Echoes:
“I wanted to write this song for Winnie [Mandela], because I absolutely identified with her,” says Benjamin. “I could feel her pain,” Benjamin writes of her subject’s “soft, gentle eyes reflecting those unshed tears”.
Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela-Mandela
26 September 1936 – 2 April 2018
New Tutenkhamen – Forever together
https://amf.didiermary.fr/new-tutenkhamen-forever-together/
New Tutenkhamen, a 1970’s band from Harare, Zimbabwe, played an eclectic brand of Zimbabwean township music combining traditional rhythms and western influences.The album “I wish you were mine” was originally published in 1979, during the liberation war.
The band’s most famous release, “Itai Cent Cent” was a sad lament of the poverty afflicting black people [...]
Black Disco – Night Express
https://amf.didiermary.fr/black-disco-night-express/
2 album with Pops Mohamed (Organ – Electric Piano), Basil Coetzee (Flute, Tenor Sax), and Sipho Gumede (Bass), in two different styles with Black Disco and Movement in the City.
As the 1970s were drawing to a close, the epic Black Disco studio project with its signature pairing of drum machine and organ had run […]
Jazz/The African Sound
https://amf.didiermary.fr/jazz-african-sound-chris-mcgregor/
“Jazz/The African Sound” by Chris McGregor & The Castle Lager Big Band, one of the most important African records of all time, a lost global Jazz classic, and a true holy grail for collectors of Jazz and WorldJazz.
Post also includes Archie Shepp live in Stuttgart, with Brotherhood of Breath.
#60smusic #Apartheid #BrassBand #Jazz #LiveMusic #SouthAfrica #Blaugust
Brenda Fassie – Black President
https://amf.didiermary.fr/brenda-fassie-black-president/
Black President is a song by South African singer Brenda Fassie, the 6th track on her 6th eponym studio album in 1990. It was written by Sello “Chicco” Twala, Brenda Fassie, produced by Twala and released on February 8, 1990. The song was written about Nelson Mandela, who was arrested by the South African apartheid […]
Thelonious Monk met Dollar Brand
https://amf.didiermary.fr/thelonious-monk-met-dollar-brand/
When Thelonious Monk first met Dollar Brand… By 1964, Dollar Brand (later Abdullah Ibrahim) had already made 3 LP’s as a bandleader. He was living in Switzerland and had just gotten a boost from Duke Ellington.
[Thelonious Monk and his wife, Nellie] were at Kongresshaus in Zurich where Monk gave another successful concert. After […]
#60smusic #AbdullahIbrahim #Apartheid #Jazz #SouthAfrica #TheloniousMonk
Miriam Makeba – Brand New Day
https://amf.didiermary.fr/miriam-makeba-brand-new-day/
The song “Brand New Day” is part of the “Keep me in Mind” album, recorded in 1970. At that time, Miriam Makeba was in Guinea-Conakry, after an invite from President Ahmed Sékou Touré, following major changes in both her own personal life and politically within the USA.
Producer Lewis Merenstein suggested two Van Morrison songs […]
#Apartheid #Madiba #MiriamMakeba #SouthAfrica #OldAfricanMusic
Hugh Masekela – Bring Back Nelson Mandela
https://amf.didiermary.fr/hugh-masekela-bring-back-nelson-mandela/
“Bring Back Nelson Mandela” is one of Masekela’s composition at the time of apartheid in South Africa, as he was a clear anti-apartheid activist.
Also known as “Bring Him Back Home“, the song is an anthemic anti-apartheid protest song written by South African musician Hugh Masekela.
#Apartheid #HughMasekela #Jazz #Madiba #QOTD #SouthAfrica #OldAfricanMusic
Miriam Makeba & Hugh Masekela – Soweto Blues
https://amf.didiermary.fr/miriam-makeba-hugh-masekela-soweto-blues/
Freedom song! Soweto Blues, released in 1977, is a protest song written by Hugh Masekela and performed by Miriam Makeba.
The song is about the Soweto uprising that occurred in 1976, following the decision by the apartheid government of South Africa to make Afrikaans a medium of instruction [...]
#Apartheid #Documentary #HughMasekela #Jazz #Madiba #MiriamMakeba #SouthAfrica #AfroJazz
Paul Simon – Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes
https://amf.didiermary.fr/paul-simon-diamonds-soles-shoes/
“Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes” recorded live @ The African Concert in 1987 with Joseph Shabalala & Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The song features on Graceland, the seventh solo studio album by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon.
“Graceland: The African Concert” was given in Zimbabwe, featuring such South African musicians [...]
Paul Simon & Ladysmith Black Mambazo – Homeless
https://amf.didiermary.fr/paul-simon-ladysmith-black-mambazo-homeless/
Graceland is the seventh solo studio album by the American singer-songwriter Paul Simon. It was released on August 25, 1986. The song “Homeless” was the first recorded by Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo with lead singer Joseph Shabalala. It is considered one of the first modern “WorldMusic” albums, although [...]
#80smusic #Apartheid #Documentary #LiveMusic #SouthAfrica #Global
Somi revisits Pata Pata
https://amf.didiermary.fr/somi-revisits-pata-pata/
This cover of Pata Pata is from "Zenzile, The Reimagination of Miriam Makeba," released, at the end of 2022, in which Somi reinterprets 17 songs of Mama Africa with a jazzy approach. At regular intervals, we hear excerpts from an interview with Mama Africa who explains in no uncertain terms what apartheid is. Somi brought […]
#Jazz #MiriamMakeba #Rwanda #SouthAfrica #Uganda #AfroJazz #Apartheid
One Night in Pelican
https://amf.didiermary.fr/one-night-pelican/
“One Night in Pelican” is a compilation that features all the key groups and players of a special time and place. It captures the musical dreams escaping from Soweto’s first nightclub.
Ten seminal tracks journeying through Jazz, Funk, Fusion and Disco, detailing the incredible story and sounds behind the Soweto nightclub during the height of […]
#70smusic #AfroFunk #Apartheid #Jazz #SoulJazz #SouthAfrica #AfroJazz
Prophets of da City – Never Again
https://amf.didiermary.fr/prophets-of-da-city-never-again/
A track that’s part of (music) history.
PoC (Prophets of da City) was the 1st HipHop group/crew to release in South Africa and the only group to be banned pre and post apartheid!
Prophets of da City (POC) is a socially conscious […]
Oratorio of a Forgotten Youth
https://amf.didiermary.fr/oratorio-of-a-forgotten-youth/
Inspiré par le travail de grands musiciens comme Jonas Gwangwa et son Amandla Cultural Ensemble, qui a accompli un travail politique important pendant la longue lutte pour l’autodétermination qu’a connue l’Afrique du Sud, l’Amandla Freedom Ensemble est un jalon important pour la tradition du jazz sud-africain. [...]
“‘They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,’ the Turkish activist Ersin Çelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.
Lorenzo D’Agostino, a journalist and another flotilla participant, said after returning to Istanbul that Thunberg was ‘wrapped in the Israeli flag and paraded like a trophy’ – a scene described with disbelief and anger by those who witnessed it.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/04/greta-thunberg-israel-gaza-sweden
#israel #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #Gaza #Palestine #GretaThunberg #GlobalSumudFlotilla #StopIsrael #StopTheGenocide #FreePalestine
Hugh Masekela – Mace and Grenades / Riot
https://amf.didiermary.fr/mace-grenades-hugh-masekela-riot/
Here’s a 7″ released on Chisa in 1969 “Mace And Grenades / Riot”, directed by Stewart Levine and written by Masekela.
This is the soundtrack of an ongoing revolution.
Yep, Feelin’ it!
#60smusic #Apartheid #HughMasekela #SouthAfrica #Vinyl #AfroJazz
Batsumi (1974)
https://amf.didiermary.fr/batsumi-apartheid/
Many years after the fall of Apartheid, Batsumi remains sublime… and transformative, and its resonance hasn’t faded at all over the years.
During the brutal era in South African history known as Apartheid, the minority-white ruling party forcibly moved millions of black South Africans from their homes to segregated areas, stripping them of their citizenship […]
#70smusic #Apartheid #FullAlbum #SouthAfrica #AfroJazz #Jazz
Sathima Bea Benjamin – Africa
https://amf.didiermary.fr/sathima-bea-benjamin-africa/
Beatrice “Sathima Bea” Benjamin (17 October 1936 – 20 August 2013) was a South African vocalist and composer, based for nearly 45 years in New York City.
