Ladysmith Black Mambazo - 'Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu'

It's easy to write off seminal South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo and to say that "they never do anything new," but I think it's a failing of a lot of world music fans and critics that, because of their love of new discoveries, they hold hard-rooted groups to the same standards that they hold trailblazers. Ladysmith Black Mambazo don't break much new ground on Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu, but they do their own thing, and they do it well.

Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu is not Ladysmith Black Mambazo's first album based around this man - their 1987 release Shaka Zulu (one of their first releases to really hit it big on an international scale) was also, obviously, Shaka Zulu-themed. So who was he? Well, back in the late 1700s, the Zulu tribe was fairly small, and somewhat powerless in the face of European colonists. Shaka kaSenzangakhona, later known as Shaka Zulu, was a tribal leader who consolidated the remaining tribal members and led them into cultural unity. He's almost a Christ-like figure to the Zulu people (which Ladysmith Black Mambazo are), which is interesting, as Ladysmith Black Mambazo have created their sound by melding traditional Zulu music with modern Christian gospel music.

Because of their respect and reverence for their own traditions, as well as their deeply rooted Christian beliefs, Ladysmith Black Mambazo have become a touchstone for millions of African Christians and Christians of the African diaspora. Through music, they have found a comfortable way of reconciling their belief system with their ancient cultural traditions. By this standard, Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu might just be their best album to date, and the song "Prince of Peace" sort of boils that down to its purest level.

In regards to "Prince of Peace," bandleader Joseph Shabalala says, “This song is about that young man named Jesus. It’s about encouraging people to love one another. It’s similar to the story of Shaka Zulu, but Jesus was much more than that. Shaka would sometimes take his spear and fight. But the spear that Jesus used was the truth. He told people how to live in peace, even when some people in his time didn’t want to hear that message.”

Musically, Ilemba: Honoring Shaka Zulu is a fairly pure dose of Ladysmith Black Mambazo at their best: thick, rich a cappella gospel harmonies, with those great little African touches that make it so different than American gospel - the clicks and tongue rolls, the bluesy slides, the rousing back-beat, and the easy mid-song transitions between tempos and time signatures. It's nothing new, but I think that on some level, Ladysmith Black Mambazo has kind of done all of the trailblazing that they need to do. At this point, sticking to the roots that they've created for themselves is probably the best thing that they could possibly do. There's understated but highly infectious joy in this record, and that, to me, is LMB's hallmark.

'Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu' was released on Heads Up Records in January of 2008