About Album
RELEASED IN 1997 URBANZULU IS THE ULTIMATE AND MOST SUCCESSFUL ALBUM FROM THE DIVA OF AFRO POP.
“When we first started working on these awesome songs penned by Themba, Spectre and Busi, the style was recognizably traditional maskanda. Over the months of work, the maskanda in this album metamorphosed, deepened, widened and finally has come to represent the contemporary Zulu Nation’s truest form of expression, with all the agony, the ecstacy, the pain and sorrow, the trials and ironies of life in the modern South Africa.
This is the first time maskanda has been expressed by a Zulu woman, and who better than Busi Mhlongo, one of the great voices of Africa. A truly astonishing performer on the stage and in the studio, her original creativity as expressed here represents a quantum leap in South Afrikan music. This is maskanda for the millennium. Listen and be humbled.”
– Will Mowat-Producer
“Almost alone among contemporary South African musicians, her songs tell us of the struggle for existence, the destruction of traditional culture and the need to ‘re-invent’ tradition in the context of the new situation. In URBANZULU, Busi has succeeded in melting traditional Zulu music into a new one that informs us both of its roots and of the concerns of contemporary South African women. Based on a traditional Zulu musical from Maskanda , “URBANZULU” is revolutionary on two levels. Firstly it’s being sung by a woman and secondly, it extends the traditional into the contemporary without losing anything of its roots. If you want to hear the cutting edge of contemporary South African music then this a must buy album.”
– William Bowles
Mam'Busi
By TVNDO Design. Limited Edition.
