Mandisi Dyantyis’s conversation is in the honour of June 27th, Youth Day. In the conversation, he discusses the part the youth played in the struggle and pay homage to those who came before us. Mandisi Dyantyis "Conversation Series" is a sonic exploration of the Zabalaza, a call to action and a declaration of resistance. Umzabalazo is definitely what the audience get, an active rebellion, as they say Sizozabalaza - We will rise up, this becomes a rallying cry for change and a commitment to challenging the status quo.
Mandisi Dyantyis is on the vocals and trumpet; Steve De Souza on double bass and Blake Hellaby on piano; they perform Songs Of Freedom, Songs Of Liberation and Songs Of Triumph as a tribute to the who stood up against injustice and sacrificed themselves for the greater good.
And listening to Mandisi speaks to the heart and songs being performed, one is moved into umzabalazo. I guess Thomas V. Reed was right in his book - The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Present, when he said …
Singing in the black tradition is very much a participatory event. Thus, going to a movement meeting even just to listen, could quickly lead to deeper levels of involvement. Get their voices, one might say, and their politics will follow. Music becomes more deeply ingrained in memory than mere talk, and this quality made it a powerful organizing tool. It is one thing to hear a political speech and remember an idea or two. It is quite another to sing a song and have its politically charged verses become emblazoned on your memory. In singing, you take a deeper level of commitment to an idea than if you only hear the idea spoken of. The movement was all about “commitment,” and singing was often a halfway house to commitment.
But the songs were not just about singing …
In our struggles, songs are not simply entertainment for us. They are the way we communicate. The press, radio and TV are all censored by the government. We cannot believe what they say. So, we make up songs to tell us about events. Let something happen, and the next day a song will be written about it. (Sangoma CD flier, 1998). – Mariam Makeba
A struggle song are songs, at times these songs were composed in moment of event or be written the next day. To me these songs were art pieces that were created from pain and struggle, in his book Tortured Artist, understood this premise when he said … “Great art comes from great pain.”
The biggest thing that always gets to me is seen how much as a society we stopped feeling each other’s pain, Umntu uyavuya xa ebona omnye umntu esokola, etsala nzima, because for me … we talk about ubuntu and we through the word around. BU ubuntu means … Ndingulo mntu ndinguye ngenxa yabanye abantu, I am who I am because of other people.It acknowledges the contribution of other people made in my life. We need to be people who feel others pain.
It is when we fell other people that we heal
Ngaske sibe ngabantu abacingayo, sikwazi ukuvelana nentlungu yomnye.
Buyisi buntu bethu, siphile!!! , return our humanness so that we can live
Lyrics
Yini, yiiiiini, yini bo! X4
Uhlekiswa yintoni na xa ubona iintlungu zam? (what amuses you when you see my pains)
Uhlekiswa yintoni na xa ubona ukuhlupheka kwam? (what amuses you when you see my hardships)
Uvuyiswa yintoni na xa ubona ukusokola kwam? (why are you happy to see my struggles)
Uvuyiswa yintoni na xa ubona ukuhlupheka kwam? (why are you happy to see my hardships)
That’s what we must do, sometimes they say we project, projecting our hurt an pain and that’s why cannot feel each other’s pain. There is a book by Ben Okri, whose the preisoner? He says there is a part where the people in the society they have started crying at night when they were sleeping. He says, it got to a point where other people could not hear other people crying because they were crying.
So maybe the reason why you don’t hear the other person’s cry is because you are crying. You don’t realize that, you don’t when I see Blake going through the stuff and it is totally fine with me. Because maybe, I am going through something more. So, that all we need to do as society, they did not other people’s cries. Other people’s wailing because they were wailing. That’s why I always talk about, we need to listen more because when you listen you could hear. You
Buyisa ubuntu bethu, siphile (Return our humanity, so we can heal)!!!, When our humanness return, we will heal
How will our humanity return? I believe when each and every one find within themselves to be human? Let’s have a conversation. Tell us your thoughts!
