The township kid who inspired a generation

25 September 2016 - 02:00 By Bongani Madondo

Mduduzi Tshabalala's story all depends on who tells it and why. My version is partly told through a man who practically co-raised Mandoza, one of his two uncles, Melusi Tshabalala. Melusi is a gap-toothed, soft-spoken township ou with terribly good manners.The day after I heard the news - like everyone else does these days, through social media - I chose not to grieve. If public grieving is bad manners, wait until you deal with public grieving through a medium no one has any control over.Instead, I headed to his granny's house, in Zola 1, Soweto. Melusi was nowhere to be found.I caught up with him the following day in a swanky block of Pimville. The house on Sentlentle Street, Zone 4, is architecturally pleasing and spacious, resembling a spaceship or mini Noah's Ark. Mandoza had built it for his mom, Nobesuthu Tshabalala, but ended up occupying it with his family.story_article_left1Melusi paints a portrait of a young man, an aspirant athlete and gymnast, but not before mapping out the family tree."He is the grandson of my dad, Zephaniah Tshabalala, and Esther Muthoa. They had seven children, three boys and four girls. Mduduzi's mother, Nobesuthu, is the fourth child in the brood. Zephaniah and Esther were among Zola's oldest residents."Nobesuthu met a Sowetan gent, Musa Sibanyoni, a good 40 years ago and although they never got hitched, they brought three children into this world: Mduduzi, the eldest, and two sisters, Thobeka and Phindile.For Melusi, the story of Mandoza the musician, composer and performer parallels the story of a township then in need of an image overhaul, seeking to reveal untold stories about itself.For decades since the days of James Sofasonke Mpanza, regarded as the "founding father" of Soweto, Zola-Mdeni had been a no-go area. Most of the residents came raw from KwaZulu-Natal to the mines and industry on the Reef. Most had to eke out a living much tougher than in the townships closer to the city.Because of its history of knifing and petty crime, Zola-Mdeni as a whole acquired an unfair rap as having the baddest mean streets in Soweto."The good thing is," says Melusi, "Mduduzi and his friends did not have to contend with all that k*k. By the time they came up, all that was just ghetto lore. The story of Zola as a no-go area ended way before I was born and I am 52 years old now."Zola is not the birthplace of kwaito per se; the truth is more ironic. Most of the early kwaito innovators such as Mandla "Spikiri" Mofokeng and Zane "Mahoota" Mabitla were graduates of music conservatories, or Shandel Studios or Sello "Chicco" Twala's studio sessions.While Zola might not be the birthplace of kwaito, the township became the breeding ground for the music's singular talent: gruff-voiced, ghetto-centric and hardcore rapper-style acts such as Mandoza, Mapaputsi, Zola 7, Brown Dash and Chiskop.Melusi remembers it as though it were yesterday. "Mduduzi and his friends were recruited by a coloured I only remember as Pam. He taught them gymnastics and they in turn improvised break-dancing moves out of that. The community was especially encouraging as such gestures and commitment helped to steer those laaities off the streets."It seems, though, that the lure of the streets was way too sexy. Mduduzi fell in with the bad boys and was nabbed for car theft at the age of 16. He served 18 months.Coming out of jail, he was faced with life's chances: you have to be ready to die, live, get rich or die trying. The stakes were high and the odds, frankly, stacked against young Mdu. He was not educated, had no technical training.Luckily he had talent.full_story_image_hright1Arthur Mafokate of the 999 Music stable identified Mduduzi and his friends - Siphiwe "The General" Sibisi, Sizwe "Lollipop" Motaung and Sibusiso "The Bless" Thanjakwayo, all going under the group name Chiskop - as future stars.Besides Boom Shaka's brazen lyrics and manner of dressing, kwaito was largely saccharine and too chilled. In Chiskop, Mafokate discovered a quartet of passionate boys for whom music seemed the only way out of the townships. Their debut album, Klaima, marked them as different. It would only be the most ambitious among them to make it as a superstar, though: Mduduzi Tshabalala.His first album, Zola South 9-II-5, with its youth-empowering song, Uzoyithola Kanjani, marked him not only as a talent to reckon with, but one that combined township blues with a social conscience.It was his 2000 album, though, with its megahit Nkalakatha, that made Mandoza. Here was a crossover artist beloved by both whites and blacks. While Johnny Clegg crooned Asimbonanga uMandela, and the other earlier crossover stars, Joy, serenaded the nation with Paradise Road, Mandoza told the millennial generation that Mandela, or God, was well and present in their lives.With Uzoyithola Kanjani, a working-class lad did in one lyric for black youth what the National Youth Commission and National Development Agency could not do in their entire existence.Which prompts the question: how did it happen that one of the wealthiest artists to come out of the townships post-1994 could not get the best medical care?Madondo is the author of "Sigh, the Beloved Country: Braai Talk, Rock 'n' Roll & Other Tales"..

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