Maskandi was music made by Zulu men, migrant workers playing guitar and singing about the long walk between village and city. Busi Mhlongo, a woman from Inanda, took the form and turned it into something that played in concert halls across the world. Her 1998 album Urban Zulu is still one of the great South African records.
Inanda
Busisiwe Victoria Mhlongo was born on 28 October 1947 in Inanda, near Durban, in what is now KwaZulu-Natal. She grew up surrounded by Zulu music, church singing and the sounds of the township.
My Boy Lollipop
A talent scout from Gallo, the South African record company, discovered her, and she moved to Johannesburg. Recording as Victoria Mhlongo, she had a national hit in 1963 with her version of “My Boy Lollipop”, the song Millie Small made famous internationally the following year.
Exile
Like many South African artists, Mhlongo left the country during apartheid. She spent years abroad, performing in Europe and elsewhere, and working with musicians from across Africa and the diaspora. Exile broadened her music but kept her away from home.
Return
As apartheid ended in the early 1990s, Mhlongo returned to South Africa. She went back to the music of her childhood, especially maskandi, with its quick guitar picking and storytelling vocals.
Urban Zulu
Urban Zulu, released in 1998, mixed maskandi with jazz, funk and modern production. Mhlongo’s voice moved from growls to soaring cries, sometimes in the same line. South Africa’s presidency later described the album as traditional Zulu maskandi expressed by a Zulu woman to an international audience, something new in the genre. The album became a hit in several markets abroad.
A woman in maskandi
Maskandi had female singers before Mhlongo, but its image was male. Her success challenged that. She brought her own concerns into the music: women’s lives, spiritual power and the dignity of Zulu culture.
Illness and death
Mhlongo was diagnosed with breast cancer and battled the illness for several years. She died in a Durban hospital on 15 June 2010, during the week South Africa hosted the football World Cup.
Honour
On 27 April 2011, Freedom Day, President Jacob Zuma posthumously awarded her the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver for her contribution to music. Younger South African artists still cite her as an influence. Busi Mhlongo did not invent maskandi. She showed that it could carry a woman’s voice to the world.
