With their feet in tradition and their eyes on the future, the four Urban Village musicians set out to raise awareness of the culture and history of the South African township of Soweto, the apartheid-designed dormitory town that became home to of people from all over the country, bringing with them their diverse cultural and musical identities. Urban Village embodies this story, and in their latest work Udondolo (Walking Stick) they present us with a question not only of music but of identity, they are inspired by their upbringing in Soweto and build their imaginary based on the quasi-romantic idea of life in rural.
Urban Village was formed in 2013 when bandleader guitarist Lerato Lichaba teamed up with vocalist and flutist Tubatsi Mpho Moloi (who also plays the mbira), drummer Xolani Mtshali, and bassist Simangaliso Dlamini. They were all born in Soweto in the last days of apartheid, and the story of Urban Village is one of chance encounters and shared values.
Lichaba is an alumnus of Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness (BCUC), the Soweto avant-garde collective that plays "Afropsychedelic future pop" and sings in all eleven official languages of South Africa. Curious naturally, one day Lichaba came across older Zulu musicians playing maskandi on a street corner in Soweto. Lichaba was inspired to start mixing this old school maskandi and other styles from his hometowns and rural places that he had been exposed to to create something completely new. The laboratory for these experiments would be improvisation sessions in clubs where the spoken word, hip-hop and jazz came together and where Lichaba met Tubatsi.
Sung in English and Zulu and cooked in his home studio, Udondolo is a stew of the best of South African music from the last few decades: kwaito, jazz, amapiano, mbaqanga, pop, maskandi or swing, and the spiritual energy of South African choirs. , cooked slowly, slowly and mixing all its flavors. A fresh and authentic album, in which ideas flow smoothly, leaving room to breathe, but tracing new paths in each of its songs. Furthermore, Udondolo seems to be bathed in a clear, friendly and cheerful light, leaving the aggression of modern beats aside. Cuts such as the initials "Izivunguvungu", "Dindi" and "Ubaba", the friendliness of "Marabi" or "Empty K-Set" or the delicacy of "Ubusuku" and "Umhlaba Wonke" make up a work with hardly any ups and downs, delicious, unclassifiable and surprising.
A journey through all the colors of Soweto, which has become a music laboratory where, even today, the hopes of an entire people resonate.
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