Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Forbes Africa|March 2018

Fresh off winning their fifth Grammy award, for Best World Music Album, South Africa’s legendary music group on producing timeless music and staying true to culture

Melitta Ngalonkulu
Ladysmith Black Mambazo

What does the latest Grammy award mean to you? 

It means so much. The American music industry is the biggest and most important in the world. For them to vote our album Shaka Zulu Revisited the Best World Music Album of 2017, making it our fifth Grammy award, says to us that we’re still doing it right. We’re still at the top of what we do. Sometimes people ask if winning another Grammy is boring. What? Our group has been doing what we do for over 50 years.

So many groups come and go, never to be heard from again. We don’t want to be that type of group. We plan to be around for decades more.

How do you continue to produce timeless music? 

The first thing is to love what you do. We have never lost the love of what we sing. Then, we know it needs to be special.

This story is from the March 2018 edition of Forbes Africa.

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This story is from the March 2018 edition of Forbes Africa.

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