Maskandi

TRANSLATION

‘Musician’ (Zulu) – derived from the Afrikaans word ‘musikant.’

Other names: Maskanda

INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGY

Guitar, concertina, accordion, violin, (referee) whistle.

INFLUENCES

Ukuvamba, Zulu gourd bow songs, Zulu ngoma drum dance rhythms, choral dance songs.

The Zulu maskanda tradition is yet another example of a South African genre that evolved from a solo, grassroots performance style, to an ensemble style, and finally to an electrified ensemble style over the course of the twentieth century. The maskanda playing style was founded on the adaptation of rural Zulu folk songs for performance on neo-traditional instruments, such as the guitar and concertina. Despite its utilization of Western instruments, maskanda would become so ingrained in twentieth-century Zulu culture that today it is considered a ‘traditional’ Zulu musical practice ¹. In this respect, maskanda draws specific parallels to the pennywhistle jive music that emerged from Johannesburg inner-city street culture; though maskanda conversely has its roots in the rural towns of the KwaZulu Natal countryside. So while South African ‘jazz styles’ like kwela and early mbaqanga were peaking in popularity in Johannesburg and the neighboring townships, maskanda culture was emerging as a popular musical pastime for working class people laboring in Durban and the surrounding rural areas of KwaZulu Natal province.

The maskanda tradition has its roots in nineteenth century KwaZulu Natal countryside life. Both guitars and concertinas were available for purchase in mine compound stores and rural trading posts before the Second World War; though the concertina was first to achieve widespread use among migrant and Zulu mine workers during the war, with the guitar and violin following soon thereafter. So although maskanda would later settle on the guitar as its foundational instrument, maskanda actually began as a playing style meant for the concertina ².

The maskanda playing style most likely stemmed from traditional folk melodies played by Zulu women on instruments like the gourd bow, ugubhu and umakhweyana, which were then adapted for the concertina by Zulu working men. Interestingly enough, though maskanda is inherently derived from a musical practice historically exclusive to Zulu women, it would become a strictly male-associated past time once it was adapted for the concertina. Since the concertina was an introduced instrument designed originally for typical Westernized tuning systems, each concertina had to be physically modified in order to reproduce the penta and hexatonic scales utilized in traditional Zulu tsonga. Likewise, playing Zulu folk tunes on guitar necessitated a specific combination of tuning strategy and playing ingenuity to effectively emulate traditional instruments (such as the gourd bow):

“The droning pattern kept up by the thumb on the lower strings reproduces the beating of the stick on the (gourd) bow string, while the forefinger picks out melodies based on the harmonic partials, ” while “the vocal part improvised above is also integrated but has a different, off-setting rhythm, creating a structure of call and response.” ¹.

Guitar maskanda utilized a strumming playing style (ukuvamba) that involved the vamping of a few simple chords, inspired by Bulawayo-hailing artists like Josaya Hadebe (of Ndebele descent), George Sibanda and Sabelo Mathe, who likely introduced this method when they toured South Africa in the late 1940s. Later on, John Bhengu (who would later become known as the maskanda sensation Phuzushukela) helped pioneer a picking style (ukupika) that was assimilated with the strumming method ¹.

Maskanda players were traditionally Zulu migrants, hailing from the KwaZulu Natal province, who worked in the mines outside of city of Durban. As such, traditional maskanda lyrical content often evoked strong nostalgic symbolism for the plight of nomadic Zulu migrants, who were frequently forced to leave their rural homesteads and families for long periods to work in the cities, and thus wrote songs centered around themes of struggle and loneliness ¹. As Siemon Allen describes in his historical perspective on Zulu maskanda: “The ambulating musician and the cyclical, repetitive structure of the music almost suggests a journey or even a kind of nomadic life” (SOURCE). These exclusively male musicians also carried a social reputation as ‘amasoka’ – ‘great seducers of women’ – and often depicted their social reputations in the narrative content and stylings of their music ¹.

A traditional maskanda song typically included four main sections: the intela izihlabo – an improvised intro, which was a “flashy” run up and down the scale of the song to follow; a harmonized chorus section; a vocal narrative containing relevant thematic anecdotal material, and the ukubonga – “an interjection of praise” ¹. Public maskanda performances – when the genre was still being practiced as a solo style for the first half of the twentieth century – were often quite competitive in nature, and participants were typically judged on the basis of a few select criteria: the originality of the intela izihlabo; the ubugaku, which was a term for the originality of the melody and lyrical content (this could range from descriptions of rural life, to political commentary on issues surrounding urban life, working conditions and apartheid); and the quality of the ukubonga, or the extent to which the player granted praise and recognition to himself and his community ¹. The skill of a maskanda player was also determined by their ability to adapt other popular or folk songs to guitar as well as creating their own original music while staying true to the maskanda format and tone.

The maskanda playing tradition is the exemplary definition of a ‘neo-traditional’ musical style, as it was founded on the adaptation of traditional songs and melodies for non-traditional instruments – initially for the concertina, then for solo guitar, and subsequently for guitar with violin and concertina accompaniment ¹. Beginning in the late 1960s, maskanda expanded to further include electric guitar, electric bass and drums, which were used to strategically emphasize the Zulu ngoma dance rhythms that backed the lead guitar part. The switch towards including electronic instruments to thicken and diversify maskana’s sound helped make the music seem more ‘danceable’ and likely more commercially viable for the South African (and international) popular music industry ¹.

Maskanda evolved and diversified considerably over the span of its popularity, which began in the 1920s and arguably continues in various formats and offshoot styles to this day. John Bhengu (Phuzushukela) is credited with popularizing maskanda in the 1940s, first as a Durban street musician and later as a commercial recording artist. Hamilton Nzimande (simanje-manje producer) began working with Bhengu (Phuzushukela) in the late 1960s to create an “electrified” version of maskanda with a mbaqanga-style bassline, which was popular for decades thereafter ¹. In the 1970s, Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu and their band Juluka pioneered a combination of “Zulu rural maskanda, mbaqanga migrant dance, and American folk rock” to produce a style that would become the most internationally well-known and commercially successful form of maskanda. This was also one of the first examples of what was dubbed “cross-over music” by nature of the collaboration between white Clegg and black Mchunu, a term which “during the 1980s…came specifically to denote any music that clearly drew from, and amalgamated, styles held apart by apartheid” ³. In the 1980s, Clegg’s music declined in local popularity, but he continued to record and tour overseas successfully throughout the decade ⁴. Meanwhile, maskanda locally took on a heavily electrified and rock-influenced form in the 1980s often referred to as “maskanda” or “maskandi rock,” “Zulu rock,” or sometimes even just “maskanda.” This form was popularized in the 90s and onward by local proponents like Phuzushukela, Phuzukhemisi, and Mfaz’Omnyama.

Today, it is possible to find new artists practicing maskanda in a range of derivative forms and variations. Interestingly, maskanda in its ‘electrified’ form, originally pioneered in the 70s to compete with or parallel the instrumental mbaqanga sound popular at the time, arguably outlived mbaqanga with regard to sustained commercial popularity. For example, popular South African artist Ihashi Elimhlope still releases music that is virtually unchanged from 1970s-era maskanda; albeit with updated lyrical content to include modern street slang ^1,5. Another derivative example is the trend of maskanda songs and elements that have been stylized or repurposed into hip hop and EDM forms – such as ‘digital maskandi’ or Zulu Boy’s brand of ‘skandi hop’ – which might include rapping in Zulu and more aggressive electronic drum and synthesizer elements.