Whenever I hear a song with a guy laying down a deep and rough bass rhyme while girls sing a liltingly melodic background, I remember the hits of Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens (some of the best music ever made, IMHO). The similarities are very striking. Thus, I was not surprised to read that Zola’s success is bringing some to realize that “American” forms of music are rarely an invention at all, but rather an evolutionary step:

“Maybe hip hop does not come from the States,� Zola proposes. “Rhyming over a beat? Zulus and Xhosas have been doing that for a long, long time.� If that is indeed the case, then kwaito has thrown hip hop just about the most raucous homecoming bash imaginable.

And this translation shows a bit of humor in the darkness of poverty and violence, if I’m reading it correctly:

You need to be fluent in tsotsitaal, the street slang of South Africa, to understand so much as a bar, but you quickly get the gist. Like the cratered streets he grew up on, Zola’s music is littered with the scree, broken glass, spent bullet casings and other detritus of recent township wars. The music is a collection of sonic snapshots taken under fire. Umdlwembe sets the tone:

Always looking for more booze
When we leave the only people left standing will be widows
Real men die and left will be the gangsters
The gangsters will die and leave the beers