If Miriam Makeba is hailed as the South African vocalist of her generation who brilliantly embraced (and actually shaped) global music sounds, and Sathima Bea Benjamin as the experimenter who entranced the modern jazz scene in Europe and the US, then Ncediwe Sylvia Mdunyelwa joins that pantheon of late, great South African singers as the consummate vocal classicist. Known affectionately in her home city of Cape Town as “Mama Kaap”, Mdunyelwa passed away on 25 August at the age of 74.
As a researcher who documents historical and current South African jazz and popular music, I believe Mdunyelwa merits recognition not only for the regard she won from fellow players, but also for her activism as a community music educator and advocate for South African jazz.
At the core of her music was a fierce insistence on respect for the tradition – of the great American jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan as well as the traditional music of her isiXhosa-speaking community – and for the song.
