'24-'25: Performance #5
The Extra Mile, Paved in Timidity
Performers:
Ndlovu Youth Choir; Lwandile Shabalala, Nonhlanhla Somo, Tshegofatso Mtshali, Lethabo Mamphela, Lungelo Masango, Busisiwe Mathibela, Madoda Moshoane, Kgaugelo Tau, Thato Magamba, Eric Somagaca, Siyabonga Mahlangu, Thabang Sikoe
Accompaniment; Ralf Schmitt (conductor, piano), Ishmael Ndlovu (bass guitar), Peter Djamba (drums)
Program:
A mystery. Announced from the stage. A mixture of the choir’s previous and forthcoming pop covers, originals, and traditional music.
Position: Front row, far right (Zankel Hall)
Purpose/Intent/Questions: Having already committed to attending the Selaocoe performance the evening before, and being due in Brooklyn for a class at Raaka that same morning, it was an easy “add on” program. I wasn’t familiar with the choir beforehand, but I’m always eager to clap for young folks, and I love to “turn it and turn it,” exploring ostensibly related items (both of these performances being part of Carnegie’s South Africa spotlight/celebration).
How’d it go?
First, the obvious: I understand that not every choir is “classical,” and this one is not! But the experience of being in formal and informal choirs throughout my own youth is linked to my understanding of not just classical music, but of religion and spirituality. Even though much of Ndlovu’s repertoire is built off of popular or once-popular music, their genre in an American context certainly isn’t “pop.” These show notes are here because this show will inevitably become part of the conversation in ways that the set lists of Radio 104 Fests past certainly will not.
One thing I’m always curious about—those who make the questionable decision to attend artistic productions with me can attest to this, if nothing else—is how many kids are in any given audience. Because this wasn’t the main stage at Carnegie, it wasn’t a ridiculously expensive event to attend. But it was also a Sunday evening that might push past a responsible bedtime, or at least past a reasonable “stop time” for exciting activities so that the little folks could get settled down and sleep well before school in the morning. It’s also been a number of years since Ndlovu hit it big with their America’s Got Talent streak. Nonetheless, there were a handful of kids in attendance, including some still elementary-aged… including some down front and center! The bliss of a childhood lived close to art.
Even though the performers are young, the majority of the audience were definitely adults, unaccompanied by minors. Program organizers all too often claim that young acts are necessary to bring in a young audience—as if fantasy and emotional resonance weren’t the basis for at least as much artistic connection as shared lived experience. It was interesting to watch the kids react to different parts of the program than adults did. At turns touching, at others… mildly beguiling. Crafting multilayered “family entertainment” is no small task.1
That said, there was an odd feeling in the room. It wasn’t the fault of the choir: they are definitely skilled, vibrant singers, who double as near-acrobatic, terrifyingly athletic dancers, capable of moving across genres, emotions, and the stage with ease.
As with the Selaocoe show, a large portion of the audience were either South Africans visiting or living in New York City, or other members of the African diaspora interested in connecting with the people and art of the mother continent. And here they were met with the tension between that meaningful desire, realized in these talented, fearless, committed young people, and a caricature of African experience that falls below flat.
I loved the choir’s performance. And I’ve seldom been so pissed off about something so enjoyable.
Yes, they had a variety of costumes that borrowed from traditional dress. This isn’t a problem. FIT is running a show of African diaspora fashion, and even a quick perusal of what African and African-hyphen designers are developing to engage and comment on the past, present, and future produces enough diversity that accusations that the choir’s attire is only Africanish dissolve.
The one white guy on the stage happened to be both “in charge” and the person who did the most talking—too much talking. One of the great things about music is that it doesn’t need half the explanation it’s given. A generous read is that, yes, perhaps he is the most qualified guy for the job. But that doesn’t excuse the narrative about the choir that has been harped on since that first AGT appearance—I am cautious of any story about any African group or institution that remains static over more than a decade. Africa progresses quickly. The original members of the choir have aged out. There should be more to the story than what they started with, otherwise something isn’t adding up.
The group performed a variety of music, but they still lean on a heavy-handed cartoon (sometimes literally) version of Africana that is approved for American consumption. Of course they gave their rendition of Toto’s “Africa,” as well as “The Circle of Life.”
Those of you who know me might have heard the story about the first song I heard in Subsaharan Africa. Fortunate to get to study abroad when I was twenty, a few days in Ghana went every which way but according to plan and changed my heart in a profound way. Sitting in a Trotro—a local van with more passengers than legally allowed and a set route, but no set schedule—the driver turned on some music once we finally got on our way out of the port city and towards… well, the address I was seeking didn’t seem to exist, but I had a great time with dozens of folks all keen on helping me find that place of nonexistence. In any event. My travel companion for this adventure somehow looked even more conspicuously non-Ghanaian than myself, and all we could do was turn to each other and smile when the speaker let out, of all things, that perfectly recognizable bit of Zulu that Americans know anywhere: “Nansi Bhe! Inyama Bakithi Baba!”2
Was it for us? Was it actually enjoyed locally? Was it supposed to be a welcome? Was it a joke? Did we like the prospect of being the butt of such a joke? (We liked it just fine.)
But there is discomfort in the idea that Africa should “be” or “become” what non-Africans have decided it is or should be. Original work and traditional work deserve to be elevated above a “comfortable, palatable” McDonald’s Happy Meal toy version of Africana. It seemed—and it seemed that it didn’t just seem this way to me—that it was a bit insulting for the choir to be contained to this gimmicky approach, that perhaps their music director was not simply talking over them on stage, but in the grand scheme of things, as well. They made it this far, and it would be a shame if it’s the same folks who helped them forward who are also the ones holding them back.
In all of the gabbing, Schmitt did bring up an interesting bit of discussion about expanding their repertoire. He mentioned that they had at one time floated the idea of opera. There was quite a positive audible response from the audience on this, with the dominant sound being “proud auntie,” that harmonic expression of nachat that seems to transcend cultures, when we know that the kids are alright and reaching for the top shelf version of their lives.
Naturally, the idea of opera was a fugacious distraction, not to grace this stage. Instead, we were told to prepare for a notoriously difficult song from an African composer—oh God, please tell me he’s not talking about Bohemian Rhapsody—reimagined as if the composer had stayed in Africa, rather than moving to England—damn it, he’s talking about Freddie, they’re going to do Bohemian Rhapsody—a musician from Tanzania…
I think the hardest part of that for me was watching the woman seated to my left get her hopes up with each turn, wracking her brain, growing increasingly excited around the thought that she was going to learn about an African composer she’d never heard of before, rather than learning that Queen’s frontman was born in Zanzibar.
That’s the gimmick, though.
Let me be clear: I love “Bohemian Rhapsody” and have more than once been caught making a puppet show of it when I was supposed to be doing homework. And yet… the song’s reputation for difficulty is tied to the condition of having one person sing all of Freddie’s part. It is also challenging for three drunk college girls who are a few vodka crans past any awareness of what their respective vocal ranges are and can’t quite figure out how to share the microphone at karaoke. The thought that it would be an issue for a professional choir who have arrived at a reasonable arrangement is frankly pretty silly. It felt, to me, like a slap in the face of these remarkable young peoples’ demonstrated talent.
And “Africanizing” the song of a man who was from an English-speaking Parsi family, whose father worked for the British Colonial government, who attended a British-style boarding school in Bombay, whose family fled to England due to a revolution which saw native Black Africans attacking Arabs and Indians associated with said government…
That’s the gimmick.
I get it. I think the kids deserve better. I know they can do better. Judging by their facial expressions during some of Schmitt’s pontification, I’d imagine that at least a few of them want something better than translating parts of a—stunning as it is—mock opera into Zulu.
The previous night’s performance had me excited to see Abel Selaocoe conduct a large professional ensemble one day, but I think I might have been hoping too small with a symphony. Here’s a brilliant choir, and they’re horrifically talented dancers, serious about their work even in their youth, entertaining multiple costume changes throughout the course of a physically demanding show.
Why not opera?
America’s Got Talent might have seemed too high a bar for some, but maybe it’s simply the wrong one to jump. Selaocoe has managed to set and reset his own bar—I’d imagine that would be possible for at least some of these young singers, as well. While the choir as it stands may indeed have a meaningful “rags to riches” function, however unfortunate the racial optics, that doesn’t mean that the musicians in the choir can’t “graduate” into international arts careers that perhaps have a more authentic relationship to their own souls than a repertoire of Africanized American rock hits from the 80’s.
I wish the young folks in Limpopo the privilege I had in school at their age: two choirs, one that you sing in, and one that you never set foot in. Given how many of us opted for Mrs. Friedman’s traditional “art music” choir over the other teacher’s pops chorus, it isn’t difficult for me to imagine that there are also children in South Africa who want to sing other worlds into being—if not through an Italian aria, then maybe in that one part-Swahili, part-English banger3 that seemingly every 90’s choir kid has lovingly stitched into her internal songbook. Pazeni sauti ili nasi mwimbe!
And I wish for each of these kids what Abel Selaocoe has: the opportunity to develop and display his full musical self, unfiltered, untranslated, undiminished, unabashedly African in ways that were not granted prior approval by arbiters of Anglo-Western media.
Shoutout to the person who inserted that wild circumcision joke into The Rugrats Movie. Went right over my head as a little kid, but my university roommate and I were utterly stunned when we caught the film, again, in our fledgling adulthood. C’est parfait.
No, really, you know it.
“O Sifuni Mungu (All Creatures of Our God and King)” is not a traditional African song, but a deliberately concocted bilingual rendition of the hymn by Francis of Assisi, crafted by First Call, geared towards praise choirs. What’s more surprising than a bunch of pale public school kids throughout Connecticut singing in Swahili is just how long it took for the song to be removed from the mandatory music curriculum (while remaining in the extracurricular art music circuit)… given the presence of a blatant (plain English) statement of Trinitarian doctrine. Oops! I am that precise age where I have performed in school Christmas Concerts, Winter Holiday Concerts, and Winter Concerts, but for some reason—we won’t get into it here—music containing “ethnic” expressions of faith took longer to wrestle out of the songbooks. 🤔 It’s been stuck in my head and guts for decades, though!