Acclaimed musician and songwriter Dumza Maswana will be bringing his Eziko — The Village Tour to several Eastern Cape rural communities from May 13 to 16.
His rich indigenous isiXhosa rhythms, soulful melodies and poignant storytelling are sure to captivate audiences.
Maswana, 42, said Eziko promised to be a spiritual voyage, weaving together the threads of tradition, culture and contemporary innovation.
He had received help from the Umtiza Arts Festival to bring the show to the Plank Huis in Hamburg, the Mpongo fields in Tsholomnqa, the Steve Biko Centre in Ginsberg and the Gompo Arts Centre in Duncan Village.
Maswana said elders and children would only pay what they could afford to be part of the extraordinary experience.
“This is the first time that I am paying attention to rural areas,” he said.
“The reason I am doing this is that I am giving back to the people who gave me music.
“I am giving back to the communities that gave birth to the sound and music I am doing.
“I feel I owe it to them.
“I am doing this [because the] people who gave us the sound are not able to go to theatres and other venues because they live far away from them.”
Maswana said most artists performed in urban areas.
“For each and every artist, it is important that our music becomes accessible to people.
“My sound on the album, Celebrating the African Song, emphasises that there is nothing wrong with how we sound as black people, how we dress up, and how we are generally.”
Working on the album had involved “unlearning a lot of things”.
“I grew up listening to a lot of R&B music and gospel, I had to unlearn those and be left with only the music that I was taught in a hut by my grandmother.
“She taught me how to sing and the intention is to sound exactly how they sound at home.”
His aim was to inspire rural children to see themselves in artists.
“They will imagine how Maswana is going to be in their village, singing songs that they know and speaking the language that they know,” he said.
His interactive show was aimed at young and old.
“I will also be doing storytelling, reading extracts from certain isiXhosa books,” Maswana said.
“The platform will also be opened to elders and children to display their talents, which includes poetry.”
His goal is to revive interest in storytelling and reading indigenous books to gain knowledge.
“We also want to learn from them. We are trying to continue encouraging the speaking of isiXhosa and preserving it in our communities.”
He said children should be encouraged to do Xhosa as a subject at school.
Daily Dispatch
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