Various - Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa

An astounding compilation of the breakneck Shangaan dance output
of the Nozinja studio in Soweto, recorded between 2006 and 2009.

My name is Richard, my stage name is Nozinja, from Nozinja Music
Productions. I'm from Giyani in Limpopo.
I'm an engineer, I'm a producer, I'm a composer. It's my record label.
I'm the marketing manager. I transport them — I've got a microbus.
I do everything on my own. I've got manufacturing. I buy CDs, I will silkscreen myself. I sing, too.

I'm a scout for talent. When you look at the person, you must see the
artist. He or she must be able to dance. If you can dance, you can sell.
Shangaan dancers, they dance, they can go on for almost an hour with
that speed, without getting tired. When you see them dance you feel
like they have got no bones. It's similar to the Zulus, but faster and we
put a lot of style inside. There's disco in there, we use Pantsula moves.
We don't use the sounds of the hiphop guys, or the afropop, or
whatever, we're using Shangaan sounds. The traditional Shangaan
music is fast. You play it slow, they won't dance.
Firstly it was played with bass and lead guitar. I'm the one
revolutionized it, because when I came I didn't use any guitar or any
bass, I just used marimba and the organs. We are not using the live
bass, we are using the marimba bass which is played from the organ.

A small sample of voices, that's what I specialize in. We use them in
English. Those are the new aspects they never had before. At first
people thought I was mad, and now it's the inthing.
You can play that music with bass, that's the oldtimer music.
Shangaan is fast. While others play at 110, we are at 180, 182, 183. And when you hear those marimba beats and that live guitar through the keyboard, you know it's Shangaan. You hear those toms, then you
know, this is Shangaan music. Shangaans don't typically love Joburg. They work in Joburg, but their heart is in Limpopo. People want to go back to the country and to their families. Limpopo is rural. It's hot, very hot and vibey. Shangaan music is about love. It's about a wife and a husband. We are familyoriented musicians.

Now Shangaan music is both, rural and urban. We jumped the
boundaries by changing that bass into playing with the marimba,
that's when we touched the nerves, and now it's all over.
From his small home studio in Soweto, Nozinja (aka Dog) sells more
than 50,000 records a year (DVD, cassettes, CDs) — without iTunes,
without digital distribution. This is hyper‐local music, all of it still
considered traditional, all of it marketed through Shangaan radio and
newspapers to a relatively small set of people who live between
Johannesburg, Limpopo and Mozambique.

Besides Dog himself — or rather Zinja, Dog's performance name —
his label roster includes BBC, Tiyiselani Vomaseve, and Dog's famed
mask‐wearing, clown‐dancing group, Tshetsha Boys. Dog often goes
to the dances to scout for new talent. That's where he found
Tiyiselani Vomaseve, two sisters who perform together as one of the
most popular Shangaan traditional groups in South Africa. They
count South African President Jacob Zuma's wife, Thobeka ka‐
Mabhija‐Zuma, as a fan and won a 2010 SABC award for best female
traditional album, which is just one of many awards that Dog has
accrued recently. Tshetsha Boys won best newcomer, best male song
of the year and best Shangaan song of the year. BBC (Black Beautiful
Culture) took home an award for best song as well.
The awards are indicators of Dog's success, but the real test comes
every Sunday in Soweto. Groups like Tiyiselani Vomaseve and BBC
compete regularly for the crowd's favour. "You must be prepared to
see the fastest dance ever," Dog declares.
The dances are wild, with films of them attracting more than half a
million hits on You Tube. The tradition grows out of the Shangaan
disco movement, a music that dominated in the '80s with artists like
Penny Penny and Peter Teanet. Shangaan disco ran at 110 BPM.
Dog's music is around 180 and it's getting faster.
Yet the lyrics seem to run counter to this rapidity. They read like
African soap operas, tied up with domestic matters and a yearning
for the slower life. This is country music.

There's something distinctive in this Shangaan perspective: they are
one of the more rural and traditional groups in the wealthiest African
nation, yet ‘tradition’ to them can also be living, electronic and
nuanced. Just as Dog samples American phrases in his songs, his
videos cut in shots of white joggers on a spring day, a foggy lakeshore
somewhere like Wisconsin, even a corporate office space —
mundane yet exotic images which become intriguing takes on the
modern South African dream. Instead of African music becoming Americanized and re‐framed for the global market, Dog’s productions do the opposite. American phrases and foreign images become samples in his collage, in his traditional context. This album is the first release of its kind outside South Africa. Here is Dog's music as‐is.

BBC ‐ Ngunyuta Dance ‐ The Shake‐Your‐Behind Dance
Tshetsha Boys ‐ Nwa Pfundla ‐ Pfundla's Daughter
Mancingelani ‐ Vana Vasesi ‐ My Sister's Children
Zinja Hlungwani ‐ Ntombi Ya Mugaza ‐ Shangaan Woman
BBC ‐ Ngozi ‐ Danger
Zinja Hlungwani ‐ Nwa Gezani ‐ Gezani's Daughter
Tiyiselani Vomaseve ‐ Vanghoma
Nka Mwewe ‐ Khulumani ‐ Let's Talk
Tiyiselani Vomaseve‐ Na Xaniseka ‐ I'm Suffering
Zinja Hlungwani ‐ Nwa Gezani My Love ‐ Gezani's Daughter, My Love
Tshetsha Boys ‐ Uya Kwihi Ka Rose ‐ Rose, Where Are You Going?
Zinja Hlungwani ‐ Thula ‐ So Quiet

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