The return of King Ta’s blockbuster at the State Theatre

FOUR years after Thandiswa Mazwai staged A letter to Azania, which became a blockbuster, the songstress has announced the return of the multi-dimensional show, at the State Theatre in Pretoria that has even bigger capacity.

Mazwai, who is known for her conscious, purposeful, and culturally representative content, has conceptualised this production around the idea of a musical letter written to “Azania” - depicting it as that place of freedom that once dominated the minds of many during the struggle days compared to what we have now.

Mazwai says that this letter is an ongoing expression of her longing for true freedom.

“As a black, queer woman living in South Africa, I have both ongoing historic traumas as well as everyday struggles waged against me and others like me, also others very much unlike me.

"Freedom is a restless place and although we thought we could arrive at it, we seem very far from it. We are still landless, still poor, still under the fist of the white capitalist patriarchy. We, the people, are still searching for that utopian place of no violence and more than that, a place of joy, imagination, love,” she said.

Mazwai's love and dedication to Azania, which she describes as somewhat of a personal obsession, stems from the days of growing up among PAC members in a time when talks about a new world, post the struggle, that would be found at the gate of our freedom, dominated most conversations.

“And that idea of a utopia was so different from the world I find myself in now. For instance, the level of violence against women is so unlike what Azania speaks to. The rapes and murders signal the absence of Ubuntu and that is a frightening idea for a child of Azania. An absence of Ubuntu is the absence of umNtu!

"We are slowly erasing all that we are, kindness to strangers, non-violence, community; these are all very fundamental pillars of Ubuntu and yet we have so little of them in today's society. And yes, these are utopian ideas, but they are also all I have in this dystopia we live in now, " she said, adding: "ngaphezu koko amalimi ethu ayatshabalala. (above that, our languages are disappearing)”.

A letter to Azania, curated by the star in partnership with the South African State Theatre, offers a range of sounds from jazz to kwaito, Afro funk, reggae, gospel, and traditional music, with Mazwai explaining that as someone born in the 70s and growing up in Soweto during the 80s, these are all her musical influences.

“From church to school games, my uncle Fitzroy Ngcukana’s jazz collection and the story of Bob Marley at Zimbabwe’s independence also brought a lot of his music into our ether.

“My mother loved Pavarotti too, and one of my early lovers Phybia Dlamini introduced me to a lot of African music. Also, with the very powerful American cultural imperialism during apartheid, we consumed a lot of American cultures, especially once the TV came here.

“Over the years I have played with so many genres from kwaito to jazz and I think this is what keeps me curious about music. In many ways, because I experiment so much, I remain a novice and that allows me to learn and push myself more. I am also driven a lot by the love of my people and the pursuit of our collective joy,” said Mazwai, who believes that music is her calling.

“It is my purest gift to the world and I am blessed that we found each other. It keeps me humble and honest. It also continues to bring healing to me, that’s why I’m still doing it.

“My first album was kwaito and my last album was Jazz. It’s been 26 years and the evolution is more than physically apparent. I still go around the same subjects, but that’s because I’m still black, I’m still woman, I’m still queer and I still believe in love as a divine guide, a love supreme as Coltrane put it.

“The stage is a place of great fellowship for me and I always hope to achieve some kind of sacred or transcendental feeling. Music is powerful and it is not lost on me that we play with such a divine element,” she said.

This audio-visual experience kicks off with the words of revolutionary Ché Guevara, “the revolution is driven by great feelings of love”, with Mazwai adding the words “a love for the people, a love for country, and a love for justice”, using her music to fashion new worlds that beckon for the awakening of one’s imagination and the remembrance of the teachings of the old “as we forge a new world”.

A Letter to Azania will be staged at the South African State Theatre, Pretoria on February 25 at 7pm.