Ladysmith Black Mambazo: In their own words

Sometime in the late 90s (maybe ’96 or ’97), I was privileged to spend an afternoon in a pub in west London with the members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. We had lunch together, and then Joseph Shabalala, the group’s leader, sat with me and my big ole Pro Walkman (sorry about the Americanism, but I am in the South right now) and talked at length about the group’s history.

The interview’s only been heard in public a couple of times – the most recent being in 2010 when I made package out of it for the in-flight radio show I produce. I’ve just stumbled upon that package once again and decided to make it public once more, this time via Mixcloud.

For a while now, I’ve been toying with the idea of doing some kind of World Music radio thing online. I still haven’t quite made up my mind as to what form it will take (a series of podcasts is one option; a full-blown internet radio station is another), but one has to start somewhere, so here goes…