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CD
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EW 2424CD
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1992 release. Mzwakhe Mbuli is South Africa's biggest political poet and rapper, and not only because he stands nearly seven feet tall. He came to prominence in the early 1980s after reciting two poems at the funeral of an assassinated anti-apartheid activist. Realizing that he could appeal to a larger audience with music, he began fronting a band. The more popular he became, the more he was harassed and detained by apartheid enforcers. He was living underground in 1986 when he recorded and released his first album, which was, of course, banned in South Africa. But by 1992 the momentum toward freedom was unstoppable, and Mbuli's Resistance Is Defence became his best-known record. Most of the songs contain English as well as Zulu or Xhosa verses. The hard-swinging mbaqanga music echoes the lyrics' message of racial harmony, justice, and peace, and needs no translation.
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