'The Voice' gives voice to history Vusi sings for freedom and the struggle against injustice

Author: Penny Chen

Walking out on stage in an oversized button-down shirt on top of a black t-shirt, dress pants and shoes, Vusi Mahlasela, seemed just as poised and at ease as any of the usual guests of classical music performing at the Middlebury College Center for the Arts. After settling in on the piano bench with his guitar, he broke the silence with a series of arpeggiated chords. However, it was not until he began humming with a voice resonant and powerful, yet gentle-sounding like a lullaby, did the audience come to full attention to the man on stage. It was no surprise ­- back home in South Africa, Vusi is known simply as "The Voice."

For the next hour and a half, Vusi Vusi performed songs in English and a variety of African languages, joked around with the audience, recounted stories of the Apartheid Movement in South Africa and emphasized the importance of human rights, forgiveness and compassion. His wide display of vocal textures and range captivated the entire audience.

The majority of the songs that Vusi's played were politically infused, describing the injustices being done in South Africa with "the police playing with dead corpses," as well as other global ramifications of cross-national injustices. He sang about the effects that the influence of the United States, the country that "[speaks] of Texas and Oil…" had on their neighbors. They also gave voice to those who wanted to heal after the bloody apartheid movement, which gripped South Africa from 1948 to the early 1990's.

Apartheid, which means "apartness" or "separateness" in Afrikaans, one of the many languages spoken in South Africa, was a system of racial segregation that began when the National Party in the country won the national election in 1948. It included legislation prohibiting mixed marriages and interracial sex, as well as laws splitting schools, buses, hospitals, beaches and many other facilities by race. During this period and until the 1990's, black South Africans were relocated into "colored neighborhoods," and if they were caught without a valid pass in a white neighborhood, they would be deported back to the their "homeland." After decades of underground resistance, violent uprisings and multiple attempts by the government to crush anti-apartheid insurgencies, the oppressed people of South Africa finally began to see change, beginning in December of 1991 with the Convention for a Democratic South Africa's draft for a multiracial transitional government.

While Vusi's songs have been played many times over in movements against apartheid and at political rallies, they are not aimed at placing blame on anyone. Rather, through them, he hopes to raise awareness of the suffering he has seen and experienced. He conveyed the feeling of being overlooked and ignored when he sang, "Did they even look at your face, or ask you your name? Who died last night? Who died this morning, and why?" Later, he beckoned the audience to consider his statement that "People choose not to care."

Such messages, deeply ingrained in Vusi's music, have meant that he has been in high demand with a whole range of activism groups and movements, from anti-apartheid campaigns to political rallies to independent films. One of his compositions is featuring in the Oscar-nominated film, "Tsotsi." In 1994, he played at the inauguration of South Africa's newly-elected President Mandela. He has performed with other big-name talents from South Africa, for example, poet Lesego Rampolokeng and Dave Matthews, who was born in Johannesburg.

In 2002, not least, Malhasela's music for the documentary film, entitled, "Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony," won him two awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

The four songs from this documentary were compiled alongside some twenty protest songs that played a definitive role in South Africa's liberation struggle. What is particularly striking about them is that they do not evoke violence as the answer to their oppression - they emphasize the need to respect fellow human beings and the wisdom of forgiveness and humility.

Vusi's display of strong-willed optimism shows itself not only through his words but also through his music, as the Middlebury audience experienced on Monday evening. It is rare, indeed, to hear a song about the pain of separation be sung predominately in a major key, but for Vusi, that was the best way to sing it.