Migration and Performance: Zulu Migrant Workers' Isicathamiya Performance in South Africa, 1890-1950
1990; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/851683
ISSN2156-7417
Autores Tópico(s)South African History and Culture
ResumoThe topic of this paper is the early history of a genre of Zulu male choral music in South Africa called isicathamiya and its relationship with labor migration. Recently, one representative example of the isicathamiya style reached the top notches of the international pop charts as a result of the appearance of the Durban based isicathamiya choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Paul Simon's Grammy Award-winning album Graceland.1 The roots of isicathamiya, however, reach well back to the turn of the 20th century and have primarily been associated with Zulu-speaking migrants. Together with other forms of expressive culture among South African migrants such as Sotho miners' sefela songs (Coplan 1986, 1987, 1988) and Zulu migrants' ingoma dance styles (Clegg 1982, 1984; Thomas 1988), Zulu male choral singing has been closely linked with half a century of industrialization and urbanization in the most advanced political economy of the African continent, and as such it constitutes one of the most compelling and complex statements about the experience of millions of black migrants in South Africa.2
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