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A conversation with Vusi Mahlasela. Listen to program
When I met Vusi Mahlasela, or The Voice, as he is known in South Africa, he was talking on his cell phone in a downstairs rental on a narrow street in Venice Beach. Helicopters and crows circled, garbage men threw bottles outside (all of which you may hear). So much of this man’s life was familiar to me. The evidence of a traveling life was all around -- the apartment simple and bare, with little personal save a few trinkets and notebooks, the snippets of songs in progress safeguarded on a handheld tape recorder on a coffee table, as yet untranslated to the rest of the world. Vusi spoke of loneliness, homesickness, music without lyrics, lyrics without music, and I stood nodding my head in agreement.
But there is much Vusi’s life that I cannot begin to understand. During Apartheid in South Africa, he was a voice of protest and freedom, jailed countless times. Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony, a film chronicling the role which music and Vusi played during Apartheid, is something that everyone should see. Since the Revolution, Vusi has worked as an instrument of healing and forgiveness, and also as an advocate to help fight the AIDS epidemic his country faces. The lessons he teaches of democracy, hope and faith are both important and intimidating in their depth.
My favorite part of our interview was when Vusi confided to me that his mother was a healer, his great, great grandfather a rainmaker, and that the healing gift is now being passed to him, and that he is really dubious of it. He laughed and shook his head and feigned confusion. I don’t doubt that Vusi is a healer already. That music can appeal to our highest common denominator - Vusi is proof. His voice is so pure and full of compassion that he lifts even the hardest heart upwards. But there was little talk of his enormous gift and his enormous experiences sitting at that table. There was just an everyday goodness in the quiet way Vusi told stories. Humble, weary from travel, laughing at the thought that he might be a healer, he untangled a knotted pair of travel headphones and cleared his throat.
I suppose we all have moments where the light catches us just right, when we are exhilarated, moved, uplifted. But then we return to laundry and street signs, and we set those moments aside. At least I do. Life continues on apart from them. I think about it at my piano. How do broken pieces of melody and a few ragged words turn suddenly into something more? Is it giving yourself to a process bigger than one person? Is it there all the time simply waiting for me to notice? Is it that even quotidian life is full of wonder and amazement? As Vusi handed me his little plastic headphones and the first rhythms of some future song began, I thought, yes, it must be that. Thank you, Vusi. Thank you everyday.
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