Only 27, Ofentse Pitse owns and conducts an orchestra in South Africa, rewriting the soundtrack for the region’s abundant though overlooked musical talent. But the pandemic has made performing together a logistical conundrum.



IF IT REQUIRES 10,000 HOURS OF dedication to master an instrument, it takes someone of harmonic resolve to become the conductor of a 45-piece orchestra, and 30-member choir, by the age of 27. Ofentse Pitse is the owner of Anchored Sound, the Johannesburg-based, all-black phenomenon rewriting aspiration’s soundtrack for the region’s abundant but overlooked musical talent.



The first black South African woman to own and conduct an orchestra was playing the flugelhorn, a gift from an uncle, by the age of 12 (her grandfather was the trumpeter and jazz conductor Otto Pitse); her nascent talent and determination were nurtured by the Salvation Army band in her home town of Mabopane, Pretoria, the capital of South Africa.



“In the beginning, the dream was a silent dream,” she says. “I didn’t really share my ideas, I was just thinking of how far I wanted to go. I didn’t see enough representation in the brass band at church. I thought to myself, ‘hang on, I’ve not seen enough girls’! That was a leadership step.”



A formative experience at school then sparked a natural instinct for transgressive innovation.



“I remember one day just wanting to touch the piano in the music department,” she says. “And being told, ‘no, you can’t touch the piano’. That made me feel so small. My argument will always be that you have to be what you want to see; you cannot fight a system if you are not willing to challenge it yourself.”



Out of this frustration, Anchored Sound was born, named after the Biblical metaphor of hope as the anchor of the soul. The choir and orchestra, supported by Pitse, with funds from her own architectural practice, perform everything from Sibelius to Vivaldi to Dvořák, with Pitse’s leadership in turn bolstered by mentorship from the University of Pretoria Symphony Orchestra conductor, Gerben Grooten.



“I told him that if we need to do the very hard pieces, we are going to do the very hard pieces,” she says. “So we do. It’s always a challenge, every single week. He always emphasizes the leadership required. How you stand, or how you enter a rehearsal space, influences how you are treated. Because being a woman, sometimes when they see me enter the space they think, ‘ah, what does she know’!”



The obstacles she faces are financial as well as cultural; funding is scarce and difficult to obtain. “Sometimes people see your pictures and you look like money, they hear interviews, you sound like money,” she says. “But there’s not one single person investing in Anchored Sound, the brand, or myself as a conductor. It’s challenging to keep the ship afloat. I learned early on that if you want something to happen, you cannot wait for the government, or whatever, because then I would complain for years without having anything done.”



Central to her role is her support for her members, many of whom lack the resources to purchase their own instruments or fulfil their own ambitions alone.



“I empower my members by first of all being great – or at least a good enough! – example,” she says. “So beyond just the musicianship, I always encourage them to study, even if it’s not music. Education is the tool for opening up many doors mentally, not just in terms of opportunities. In the beginning, I would help them with their registration at school, with their tuition, with their accommodation.



Whenever we book concerts, the funds go straight into their education. Most of them are very talented, but they come from homes that are disenfranchized.”



The pandemic has also made rehearsing and performing together a logistical conundrum that is difficult to solve for members from disadvantaged communities.



“Technology doesn’t come as second nature to some of us, so it has been difficult to facilitate how we go digital,” she says. “All the major orchestras have the infrastructure to have your good cameras, your good clip-on mics. For us, it’s very challenging, because you have players in remote areas, some in very small houses. If you ask them to record using their phone, you find in the other room there’s a baby sister making noise. So I’ve been looking at new ways of thinking as conductors, because we are so used to meeting up in spaces that are enclosed; how do we live with this new norm? How do we create a new world symphony?”



For Pitse, the unexplored musical frontier that emerges after the pandemic will be unapologetically, dynamically African.



“My second dream is to create an African orchestra, with African instruments like the marimba and the balafon (gourd- resonated xylophone),” she says. “Most musicians who play African instruments don’t know how to read music, so it would be such a spiritual exchange. These musicians know how to be guided by the spirit of music. And that’s the beauty of all things African – it really is the spirit! I’m eagerly excited to make that happen in the near future, to find out how the spirit of Africa can come alive within this new world of what an orchestra can be.”



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&#8211;BY ALASTAIR HAGGER

5 Photo credit Media24 copy

The Musician Who is Conducting Inspiration Even During Covid

Legendary African jazz musician Hugh Masekela has died at the age of 78.
&#8220;After a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer, he passed peacefully in Johannesburg, South Africa, surrounded by his family,&#8221; read a statement released by his family.
He had been battling cancer since 2008.
Masekela used his music as a political tool, often against apartheid in South Africa, with songs such as Stimela, Soweto Blues and Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela). 
Masekela first started playing the piano when he was five years old.
&#8220;I didn&#8217;t go into it for notoriety or fame. I just went into music because I love it,&#8221; he told FORBES LIFE AFRICA, when he was on the cover in 2014.
At the age of 14, he was given his first trumpet by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the late British anti-apartheid activist. Hugh began to develop his signature sound in the late 1950s, melding jazz with African influences.
His first album, Trumpet Africaine, was released in 1963. He went on to release more than 40 albums and performed with Dizzy Gillespie, The Byrds, Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Miriam Makeba.
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Legendary Hugh Masekela Has Died

It’s a busy Thursday morning in South Africa’s famous Vilakazi Street, in Orlando West, in Soweto with tourists roaming about. This street was not only home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, but also legendary musician Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse.
On this day, at a wine bar, Mabuse leans on the table to make his point. He feels up-and-coming musicians should be wary of exploitation.
“If one is not stable then you lose your mind and values. When you’re young, starry-eyed and ignorant you get so exploited by promoters, record companies; everyone takes advantage of your naiveties. If you don’t have resilience you end up an alcoholic or a drug addict just to numb the pain of what the industry can inflict,” he says.
Mabuse started playing the drums at the age of eight, an instrument that he would master so well that a fellow band member, Condry Ziqubu, gave him the nickname ‘Hotstix’.
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His journey began 50 years ago, when he formed a band, The Beaters, at high school in Soweto.
“We were adored by the media and everyone. The Beaters became popular among the students in universities and high schools. We toured to neighboring countries like Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia.”
In the 1970s, they visited Zimbabwe as an Afro-funk group and named themselves in honor of the future name of the capital city.
“Zimbabwe was known as Rhodesia back then; we were influenced by the grounds of black consciousness. We were conscious of our surroundings and interacting with the struggle itself. It was imperative for us to change the name to Harari.”
In 1982, the band split. A devastating moment for Mabuse. He likened the split to a beautiful marriage that suddenly crumbles.
“I had put so much energy, love and commitment in the band. I felt like all my efforts were in vain.”
Mabuse launched his solo career and produced the hits Jive Soweto, Rise and Set Me Free. His funky township disco-jive jam, Burnout sold 500,000 records.
“A band member passed away while we were in Harare. Before his death, I made a promise to him that because he made fire when the cold wind was blowing I’ll keep the fire burning. One of the things I did was to go to studio and record a song Set Me Free. I don’t know if it was somewhat a paradox that was I refereeing to the split itself or allowing myself to go solo,” he says.
Staying on top is hard.
“To stay relevant, one has to be inventive. My music evolves with my age. I performed at some event recently and I was amazed at the response. When I started playing, the response was just overwhelming. I get goosebumps because I didn’t imagine that people would still remember the music I did 40 years ago. After I performed they kept asking for more,” says Mabuse.
“Music has provided me with things that I never imagined I could have. I managed to build homes, raise my children, and travel the world. If it wasn’t for music I wouldn’t have had the privilege of meeting the late Nelson Mandela or Bill Clinton.”
All of this didn’t come easy. For black musicians under apartheid, performing was a struggle.
“It was difficult to make music freely. I remember we were performing with Percy Sledge, an American artist. Black musicians were curtain-raisers and we couldn’t play in certain white venues so that white people could not see us. If we were found in town after 12AM, we had to state why we were there. If we say we’re a band, they’d ask what is a band? For them, black musicians were nothing but vagrants.”
With fluctuating royalties, Mabuse says it’s difficult to save money.
“The music industry is fickle. We don’t get jobs that continuously pay us. It’s important for us when we get money to plan around it but we cannot have a saving plan. Sometimes musicians stay for two to three years without getting royalties.”
According to the 66-year-old Mabuse, a retirement annuity is a must.
“People don’t understand how important it is. If I knew what I know now about money 40 years ago, I probably would have been a billionaire.”
Mabuse and his band members dropped out of school in Grade 11, for music. He says fame made them lose focus.
“In high school we dropped out without realizing it. The pressure was too much, so was the music, the money and women,” he says.
In 2012, at the age of 60, Mabuse joined an adult basic education training program at a school in Klipspruit, Soweto, to get his matric.
“Now that I’m older and wiser I know that education is powerful. I am grateful that I was able to get education, otherwise I would not be getting royalties because I wouldn’t have the knowledge of what music means in terms of financial and economic gains. I still get royalties for all the music I released,” he says.
He recently produced a documentary about his song Jive Soweto for the BBC. He also plans to study anthropology at a university away from home.
For musicians, maybe it’s better to remember his parting words rather than his songs.
“If they do not have expertise, it’s better to invest with those that have expertise. First of all, find a good lawyer, manager and pay them. If you don’t have money, get them into some kind of a deal because then you will be protecting yourself for a lifetime. Stay focused and don’t believe the hype.”
Maybe young musicians should print out these words and put them on the wall.

Don’t be Starry-Eyed And Ignorant

Letta Mbulu sings with soul, the soul of Africa.
Born in Soweto where people turned to music and dance to escape the dark days of apartheid in South Africa, her early influences were the songs of hope, joy and determination echoing through the snaking alleys of her township.
As a child, in 1959, she became a part of King Kong, the acclaimed South African jazz-influenced musical, which opened in Johannesburg at the University of the Witwatersrand.
“I learned at a young age what it takes to be a professional artiste and what it takes to develop ideas into a performance,” says Mbulu when we meet her in her Johannesburg home.
South African singing legend Miriam Makeba and jazz musician Thandi Klaasen were part of the cast of King Kong and her mentors throughout the production. While still in her early 20s, her musician-boyfriend and now husband, the hugely-talented Caiphus Semenya, invited her to join him in the United States (US).
Reluctant to travel far from home, she arrived in a cold and snowy America, welcomed by Semenya, Makeba and South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela, living in exile in the US.
“I kept searching for the New York with all the glitz and glamor but I experienced a New York which was very depressing, it was snowing, very cold and I asked ‘when are we getting to New York’?” says Mbulu.
She had left behind a South African summer with family, friends and festivities, and was now confronted by a cold New York. She had to get over it.
“I went to see Ms Makeba [for her performance], Bill Cosby opened for her and I was blown away, which inspired me to perform and we went to the Village Gate to watch Celia Cruz.”
Cruz was her inspiration to perform in her native language, at the famed Village Gate.
“Miles Davis came to give me a compliment after the performance where he asked me if I had taken coke, which I misheard as Colgate; he said things which offended me at the time, but I realized later they were compliments,” says Mbulu now.
Mbulu’s career gathered momentum when John Levy became her manager, and she collaborated with American artistes such as David Axelrod and Cannonball Adderley. Her association with Quincy Jones led to opportunities in featuring in popular soundtracks.
Jones was producer for A&amp;M Records when Mbulu was recording There’s Music In The Air. It was on a trip to West Africa that she received a request from Jones for her song to be included in the movie Roots.
“Roots was a movie about black American history, when I did that song [Oluwa: Many Rains Ago], it came deep from another place, it was wonderful,” she says.
The success of Roots brought more recognition for Mbulu as she followed up with soundtracks for The Colour Purple and A Warm December.
While on a world tour for a performance with Harry Belafonte, actor Sydney Poitier was in the audience. After the show, he asked her to perform one of her songs Bahleli Bonke eTilongweni for A Warm December.
“The song was about apartheid political prisoners, this theme didn’t fit in with a club scene as depicted in the movie,” says Mbulu.
The club scene was a sequence created to allow Poitier’s character to connect with his African love interest. Despite her dissatisfaction with the lack of sensitivity to the subject matter of the song, Mbulu appreciated the opportunity and exposure. Later, Micheal Jackson considered Mbulu for his song Liberian Girl which had a similar theme as A Warm December.
Mbulu recalls being intrigued by the King of Pop.
“Michael had a very tiny voice, was extremely shy; his first words were, ‘Are you from Africa, yes you don’t look African’. I asked him how Africans look,” says Mbulu.
The Western perception of Africa has been a topic of debate for decades and is an issue Mbulu feels can only be changed by Africans.
“African artistry becomes limited to build bridges between melodies which take music to the next level, it’s important to go to school to free yourself as an artiste,” she says.
She emphasizes the importance of education to develop talent.
“In South Africa, we learn classical music that’s great, however it limits us in terms of African instruments which have notes which can’t be written in our contemporary musical education.”
Mbulu laments the disinterest of the government in innovating arts and culture education, and aligning it with the economy.
“When we talk to our leaders, they hear it, but can’t see it. They say people are already dancing so what’s the point, not seeing that it could be sustaining.”
Mbulu and Semenya returned to South Africa in 1991 after being in exile for over two decades. She continues to produce music, is working on an album and says she couldn’t have asked for more.
“I have a good husband, grandkids that I adore; my life is good, I thank my creator, my ancestors and my people,” she humbly submits, as she awaits a warm December in South Africa.

Letta-014

There’s Nostalgia In The Air

I don’t think [Morgan] Tsvangirai is the number one enemy of the state, I think I am because I sing against the government,” says Thomas Tafirenyika Mapfumo, a rebel musician and African to the tip of his dreadlocks as we sit for a tête-à-tête in Newtown, Johannesburg, on one of his rare visits to the continent of his birth.
Famed author, musicologist and journalist, Banning Eyre, in his book Lion Songs, describes Mapfumo as the Lion of Zimbabwe who stands beside Fela Kuti, Youssou N’Dour and Franco as one of Africa’s greatest musicians.
“He is on par with some of the greatest musicians to come out Africa and what makes his music even more important is that it helped liberate Southern Rhodesia from [Ian] Smith’s racist rule. His music galvanized liberation forces. His interest has never been commercial but to raise consciousness, that is why he got into trouble when he sang Corruption, attacking Mugabe’s rule,” says African music expert, Richard Nwamba.
Mapfumo is as much a sharp social commentator as a musician. It is this dissent that forced one of Zimbabwe’s finest musicians to seek refuge in the United States (US) in 2005. He has even sung a song praising his hosts: We love America, everyone wants to be there. The feeling is mutual. In the US he received an honorary doctorate degree from Ohio University.
At the age of 70, Mapfumo looks frail but he hasn’t dropped the habits of his wild youth: smoking, cracking jokes and making condescending remarks about other musicians.
It’s been a full life for Mapfumo, who grew up with his grandparents in Marondera, Mashonaland East, about 72 kilometers east of Harare and a million miles from the rest of the world.
Mapfumo’s grandfather played the mbira, a metal keyed instrument, and hosho, a percussion instrument. The two instruments provide the beat to Mapfumo’s music.
“I was herding cattle at the age of seven while my parents stayed in the city. I joined them in the early sixties to attend school in Salisbury’s (now Harare) township of Mabvuku,” he recollects on a meandering walk through his music career.
“In the city I started listening to radio as we didn’t have that luxury in the countryside. I used to listen to Kwela Kwela, Jazz 9, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela, Franco, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra,” he says.
“I think I was born a musician, it was within me.”
At the age of 16, Mapfumo joined a band called Zutu Brothers, who wanted him to sing rock and roll, like Otis Redding and Elvis Presley.
“I was a very good rock and roller, I used to rock,” he chuckles.
This clashed with his parents’ beliefs.
“My parents were church people, my father was a choir leader and my mother played a leading role in the women’s league.”
There was no stopping Mapfumo.
“From Mabvuku we moved to Mbare where I joined a music group called Cosmic Four Dots and I was still singing rock and roll music. However our music genre was not consistent as we changed with the times, partly due to the influence of the Beatles and John Lennon.”
Mapfumo says it was during this time he sang his first song in his mother tongue, called Shungu Dzinondibaya (Passion Kills Me). It was recorded in a house in Mbare by a passing producer who worked for the Rhodesia Broadcasting Corporation.
“While visiting a grocery shop I heard the song being played on the radio. I never got a cent out of that song,” Mapfumo laughs.
“I then started asking myself questions… I realized that my identity was in singing the music of the people I grew up with. A lot of people thought I was losing my mind when I started mbira music with the band Acid.”
The band was named Acid because of its corrosive social commentary.
One of the songs was Pamuromo Chete (It’s Just Talk). Mapfumo says the song was an instant hit because its lyrics reflected dissent against Smith’s white minority rule in the then Rhodesia.
“We were responding to his utterances that Zimbabwe will never have a black government in his lifetime or in a thousand years.”
Mapfumo decided to form a group called Blackman Unlimited that transformed to the present day line-up called Blacks Unlimited. He started the group with his uncle and the musicians; Marshall Munhumumwe, Leonard Chiyangwa and Jonah Sithole.
By then, Mapfumo had moved from Salisbury to Mutare, then called Umtali, a small town of the eastern border with Mozambique. On Fridays, they would play at bus stops.
“We used to play music for people getting off the buses from the city. I was the highest paid person in the band earning eight pounds per week. In Mutare we worked for a businessman called Murapa but the group later disintegrated over payment issues,” he says.
The crunch came when Mapfumo asked Murapa for the band’s money.
“‘You haven’t yet played’, said Murapa when I asked for money after working for two weeks. The band members were disappointed and left for Harare.”
As his career progressed, Mapfumo realized he needed to sing in the language of his people.
In the 1970s, he met a musician who would become a big name in Africa. His name was Oliver Mtukudzi
“Oliver had his song called Red For Stop And Green For Go. I asked him, ‘why don’t you sing in Shona and do your lyrics in Shona?’” chuckles Mapfumo. Remember what we said about condescending?
As the liberation war came to a close, Smith accused Mapfumo of promoting insurgency with his music.
“In 1979, I was arrested by the Smith government and I was put into detention at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison for three months. I was released on condition that I went to sing at Muzorewa’s rally, this was during the internal settlement,” says Mapfumo.
The internal settlement, an agreement to end the civil war, was signed on March 3, 1978 by Smith and moderate nationalist leaders Abel Muzorewa; Ndabaningi Sithole and Jeremiah Chirau.
Mapfumo was opposed to it but was forced to compromise. As a bargain for his release he had to sing at Muzorewa’s rally. Muzorewa, a Methodist priest, was seen as a sell-out by liberation forces.
“Our weapon is our music, let’s go and sing what we have been singing all along,” he told his band. It was not that simple.
Mapfumo says the state-owned Herald newspaper pictured him next to Muzorewa and soon liberation fighters saw him as a sell-out too. Despite this, Mapfumo was asked to play at the birth of Zimbabwe on April 18, 1980 on the same bill as Bob Marley.
“On celebration day we were treated like enemies, we were made to perform last when all the dignitaries had gone. We played for the real people who fought the war.”
Mapfumo thought things would change when Robert Mugabe took over. He was wrong.
He sang against Mugabe’s administration in the late 1980s as corruption took root. He also sang in praise of Mozambique’s president, Samora Machel, for fighting apartheid. He sang against the then president of South Africa, P.W. Botha, a classic called Tongosienda. The apartheid era leader would have needed an interpreter as Mapfumo sang in Shona. Mapfumo became a persona non grata in South Africa.
“Back home I started singing against corruption, economic malaise and people getting land without knowledge of farming,” he says.
He sang that land reform was a flop in a hit called Maiti Kurima Hakunetsi (you thought farming was easy).
Thirty five years on from the birth of Zimbabwe, Mapfumo is adamant, despite threats from the Mugabe administration, he is not going to stop singing about social issues.
His music is banned on state radio stations back home and promoters fight shy of bringing him to perform for his people. He now keeps up the spirits of his fellow countrymen who left Zimbabwe for the same reasons as him by performing shows around the world.
“We haven’t looked back, we have been with the people and we will always be with them.”
After our hour-long interview, with endless insistence by his manager Austin Sibanda that I should wrap up to allow the old man to take a smoke before he talks to his relatives who have traveled from Zimbabwe, I asked when he is going to perform back home.
“I am ready to perform in Zimbabwe but there are no promoters prepared to be associated with me, I also have to be careful with the situation.”
Mapfumo fears for his life. He says intelligence operatives who are fans of his music keep him informed.
While frozen out at home, Mapfumo is taking his music to Africa. In October, he performed at the Defense and Security Forces celebrations of Mozambique in Chimoio, Beira and Tete. Clearly, he hasn’t yet upset the government of Mozambique.
Those gigs followed the two he played in Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa, where it’s believed more than a million Zimbabweans live. The Johannesburg gig was packed with Zimbabweans, both black and white, shoulder to shoulder with a few South Africans.
Throughout the show, most sang along, chanting ‘Mukanya’, the totem of Mapfumo. There were many familiar faces in the crowd. Dewa Mavhinga, a human rights lawyer and activist, looked as happy as a lawyer can be.
“The old man is still good, hey,” says Mavhinga as Mapfumo sang his last song of the night.
It’s unlikely to be the last for the 70-year-old Mapfumo, who has straddled Africa and the vast gap between Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley. Clearly the rebel with a cause is just getting started.

Is this  Zimbabwe’s Public Enemy Number One?

There she was, wearing a woven two-piece suit, with earrings hanging like chandeliers, flanked by empty chairs on either side.
This was at the United Nations (UN) in New York on July 16, 1963. In parts of the United States, a black person couldn’t even sit down at restaurants freely. Yet, here was an African singer from the beer halls of Sophiatown and Soweto sitting confidently before the most powerful leaders in the world, telling them of the ills of apartheid South Africa.
“I ask you and all the leaders of the world, would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place? Would you not resist if you were allowed no right in your own country because the color of your skin was different from the color of the rulers, and if you were punished for even asking for equality? I appeal to you, and to all the countries of the world, to do everything you can to stop the coming tragedy. I appeal to you to save the lives of our leaders, to empty the prisons of all those who should never have been there,” said Miriam Makeba calmly.
At the time, 31-year-old Makeba was a revered singer and activist. She was among the first female African singers to achieve international success and used this to become a powerful voice in the anti-apartheid movement.
Rivonia trialist Denis Goldberg, who faced the death penalty with Nelson Mandela, had been arrested just five days before Makeba’s speech.
“The talent of a black musician made South Africa sit up and take notice. During apartheid, it was rare to see such an outstanding woman like Miriam Makeba,” says Goldberg.
She left the country when the apartheid government banned black musicians from performing in halls and theaters, and paid a terrible price.
It was in 1960, when Makeba tried to return to South Africa for her mother’s funeral, that she was told her passport had been revoked. This was punishment for her appearance in the documentary Come Back, Africa that exposed the inequities of living under the rule of the nation’s oppressive government. She lived in exile for three decades.
When she spoke at the UN, her citizenship was taken away all together.
In 1964, Makeba spoke again at the UN. This time before the decolonization committee, where she pleaded for the release of female political prisoners in South Africa. In an interview with Bomb magazine from the United States, in 2000, she says it was the African National Congress (ANC) who asked her to use her popularity for the cause.
Makeba remained in exile until the end of apartheid in the early 1990s. During Mandela’s tenure as the country’s president, she was a member of Parliament between 1994 and 1999. She became the first African woman to win a Grammy Award, sharing the musical honor for best folk recording, with Harry Belafonte for their anti-apartheid album, in 1965. Belafonte had helped Makeba settle in the United States, where she had a successful singing career.
Makeba died of a cardiac arrest in November 2008 after a concert near the town of Caserta, in southern Italy. Her final performance was to campaign for journalist Roberto Saviano, who had received death threats for writing about organized crime.
To the end, Mama Africa, as she was affectionately known, sang in the cause of those under the heel of oppression. Millions remember her unique tongue-clicking music, sung in her mother language of Xhosa; songs such as Qongqothwane, popularly known as the The Click Song, Pata Pata and Malaika. She also made appearances in musicals King Kong and Wait a Minim!.
But maybe millions more will remember her for her brave words on a summer’s day in 1963.

The Song Bird Who Changed The World

When I first met multi-platinum selling, multi-award-winning singer, Lira, about 10 years ago, she was a struggling artist dying to be taken seriously. She had just quit a promising job as an accountant to take the risk of a music career. It was a massive leap of faith and things really looked bleak for a while, thanks to a failed debut album and the fact that she was tied to an unwanted recording contract with a music label.
What a difference 10 years makes. This may sound really corny but, back then, there was something about Lira that made me a believer. There was something in the way she outlined the picture of her fantasy career as she saw it in her head, and that made me really want her to succeed. After all, she had quit a career that most of us were raised to believe was it.
“I was employed full time, I read the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it was at that moment that I decided I wanted to do something bigger with my life and music was the tool that would help me achieve that,” says Lira.
As I meet Lira in 2012, it is a weird moment, like we have come full circle. Not only has she won 10 South African Music Awards (SAMAs) and been nominated twice for an MTV Africa Award,  Lira has become one of the best-selling African artists to date, who has been on front covers around the world.
It was the disastrous first album that made all the difference.  Lira went into a deep introspection, changed from RnB to Afro-pop and started singing about aspirations and dreams instead.
“In retrospect, the failure of that first album was necessary in me becoming who I am today. The pain and discoveries I made resulted in Feel Good, Soul in Mind and Return to Love—the albums that are most personal to me,” she continues.
The albums that Lira mentions achieved an incredible level of success across the continent. Feel Good, which is Lira’s second offering, was a best-selling album in Kenya in 2004. She has since performed in almost every corner of the continent; countries like: Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland, Namibia, Ghana and Benin.
When Lira tells me during the interview that her next move is to conquer the giant music industry in the United States, I am reminded once again that it is probably wiser to be a believer where she’s concerned.  There are many more believers:  325,000 Facebook fans and 50,000 followers on Twitter, to be precise.
“I am currently packaging an album—a kind of ‘best of’—that will be distributed in the States. Then I will launch a full-on performance tour. America is a huge market. It is a very influential market and I feel that cracking it will make it easier to infiltrate smaller markets. Oprah Winfrey chose one of my songs to feature in a documentary produced for her television network—OWN, and from the smaller tours that I’ve done in the States already, I believe that America is ready to see and hear an urban African,” she continues.
This will be a bigger leap of faith than leaving accountancy. The United States has proved a graveyard for African artists. Many have been called, few have been listened to.
To improve her chances, Lira has taken on one of these slick management companies in California.
“My American manager has been amazing. In the space of two months, I have been featured on magazine covers in the United Kingdom and Dublin, and have featured in editorials inside over a 100 publications. I really like that my management is globally-minded because my plan right now is to have a global career,” she adds.
As Lira goes into the intimate details of her plans, she reveals what could be her most powerful weapon.  She is clearly someone who thinks a lot about the struggles that lie ahead; someone who, as they say in the boardrooms these days, has blue sky thinking and also sees the big picture—if you will pardon the dalliance with mixed metaphors.
“The idea was never to be a South African artist—but a global one. I looked at my childhood, my education and everything else, and I designed an image that showcases me as a ‘modern African’. I am a product of now; I am not trying to be traditional as I have always been exposed to urban culture. I was raised to be proudly-African, but at the same time to be an African who could be ambitious and not limit myself to one space. I was raised to know that I can transcend borders and know that growing up in this continent didn’t mean that I would have nothing to offer the rest of the world,” she says.
“I have always [learnt] from the mistakes of people that came before me. After having seen how others have fallen, I told myself that I had to learn and retain as much control as possible. The beautiful thing with that is that it became my own vision, and I could direct it any which way I saw fit. It comes with a lot of pain, but record companies have a thousand artists on their rosters, and are notorious for treating artists as just another catalogue number. Right now I am the commander of the financial structure that I and my whole team survive on. It is not the other way round where my managers pay me a certain percentage of the earnings that come in from my brand—I pay them as sub-contractors. This includes my band, the design team, the management company and the booking agency. I use Sony Music solely as a distribution agent for the music product,” says Lira.
“My philosophy in life is that you can do and be anything that you can imagine, so the more examples you get to see, the more motivated you get. If I can do it; principally, anybody can as well. The fact that my career broke in the manner that it did may be unique to me, but essentially, this proves that it is possible to self-actualize and live your dreams,” she says.
Right now, if anyone is living their dream, it is Lira.

Tag: Musician

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