Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Today I had planned on writing a post about the frustrations of the job search, but I just spent two hours with Ladysmith Black Mambazo and just can't bring myself to write anything negative. For those of you who don't know, Ladysmith Black Mambazo is a South African harmony group, perhaps most famous for their contribution to Paul Simon's Graceland album ("Homeless"), a LifeSavers commercial, and one of the more memorable moments on Sesame Street. The show started out tight. Vocally, they were tight throughout the evening. After the first song one of them tells us they sing to spread "peace, love, and harmony." The phrase feels genuine.

During the next song, I notice the singer on the end, by far the youngest of the group. I watch him sing, and he looks like an American teenaged boy forced by his father to do something he really doesn't want to do. The man next to him looks like he could be his father. The program says there are five Shabalalas in the group. He could be the boy's father. I feel sad for both the father and the son because of this scenario I've written in my head. How could the boy not love performing such wonderful music? How could the father not see that the boy hates what he's doing?

Then they start to dance. It's choreographed but not synchronized. They all do the same moves but not together. Some of the audience starts to laugh. Their dances, lots of high kicks and stomps, are silly by American standards and even sillier when the dancers can't even do them together. But soon it becomes clear. They are not trying to dance exactly the same as one another. They may be dancing the same moves, but each member dances the way he wants to dance. Some are more energetic than others, more flexible, more playful. Suddenly we aren't laughing at their silly dances, we're laughing with the group, all of us happy because of the moment. Their dancing is about harmony, all different, but in it together. Now the boy on the end wasn't forced into it. He loves it. You see it in his dance. He kicks higher than any of them. He adds more personal flourishes, fills more dead space, than any of the others. There is a chemistry between the boy and the man next to him. The boy's dancing now seems to be a show for the man, and the man smiles.

Later they sing about South Africa. It's one of the few songs with English lyrics that they sing all night and is about the recent hardships in South Africa and the people's struggle for freedom leading to the recent democratic elections. While singing, the group raises their fists to the air. Their nation has overcome a lot. They are proud of South Africa. And I am proud of South Africa as well. Ladysmith Black Mambazo is infectious. They are proud. I am proud. They laugh. I laugh. They sing. I sing. At one point, they even get a few members of the audience to come up and learn some of their dance moves. The people they get are so game that everyone in the crowd has fun rooting for them as they struggle with the high kicks and low crouches.

The show was good. I want to gush on and on about the experience, about how one of the singers invited us all to come to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010 and said that we wouldn't have to stay in hotels because he was building an addition onto his house so he would have room for all of us. But I'm not sure I'm doing the experience justice. You all should go out and see them if you get the chance. It's way better than how I write it.

I'm grateful for peace, love, and harmony (20).