MAHLATHINI, R.I.P.

by Rob Brookman

Last week, as the music world busied itself sifting through the physical and emotional rubble of Woodstock '99, few noticed a small news report announcing that Simon Mahlathini Nkabinde died of diabetes July 28 in a Johannesburg hospital.

Mahlathini, of course, wasn't invited to this year's edition of Woodstock. He had been ill for months and his group, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, hadn't performed in public for two years. Anyhow, his music - a tough, ebullient brand of township mbaqanga designed for celebration in a community that often didn't have much to celebrate - would have been lost on a young crowd of Americans intent on conjuring misery where none existed before.

Mahlathini lived and performed long enough to see the fortunes of his group and signature music style rise and fall several times over several generations. His last major resurgence - and the one that brought him to the attention of his largest American audience - came on the heels of Paul Simon's Graceland in 1986 and produced what remains perhaps his best album, 1988's Paris-Soweto.

I saw Mahlathini and the Queens years ago in a Chicago nightclub, backed, as always, by the fierce Makgona Tshole band. Live, the gravely baritone that earned him the nickname "The Groaner" was a marvel, not menacing but strong, defiant and assured. Dressed in the manner of a Zulu chief, he paced the stage, danced and cajoled both his band and the audience into a kind-of euphoric, trancelike state. Over the course of two hours, he and his group played tirelessly for no other reason than to leave everyone within earshot more joyous than they were beforehand.

It was a noble mission, and a wildly successful one, to boot. On the heels of a cynical, doleful event like Woodstock '99, it's clearer than ever that American music culture could use more people like him.