Intangible cultural heritage comprises performing arts and oral traditions, among others, with radio one of the platforms utilized to promote elements of performing arts, especially vocal and instrumental music. Bob Marley said of the power of music: “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
On the last Friday of September, Heritage Month in South Africa, as I was listening to Bertha Charuma’s show The Chill Zone on SAfm, Mango Groove’s Special Star was on the playlist and when it came on it brought back fond childhood memories.
Well, besides, I have followed Charuma’s impressive radio body of work since her time on Metro FM and Radio 2000.
Special Star always invokes mixed memories for me. Mango Groove held their 40th anniversary concert “Memories and Moments” in Joburg on September 14. How I wish I was there!
The Afro pop group, whose style is influenced by township music, fusing marabi and kwela, was founded in 1984 and in 1985 it released the first single, Two Hearts, featuring lead vocalist Claire Johnston.
Their staying power has seen the band’s music transcend apartheid South Africa, the 1985-1986 state of emergency to still remain relevant today.
This excerpt from a piece of writing on their website and about celebration of their four decades of magic, sums up their four decades of existence: “Born in turbulent times and rooted in unity. Mango Groove’s music has always been a soundtrack to SA’s journey: from moments of change and conflict to times of reconciliation and celebration.”
In 1984, when the band was established, I had just started Grade 1 (then Sub-standard A) at Madenathaga Primary School at Mohlonong village, GaMashashane, in Limpopo.
The school was disestablished in 2019 and is currently a shell of its former self as it was stripped of windows, doors and the roofs.
Intro to Special Star goes, “On my left hand I have king of kwela Spokes Mashiyane”, a reference to kwela penny whistle icon from the 1950s to 1970s. This part always gets me reminiscing about my late maternal grandmother, Raesetja Rebecca Motha-po (née Moshoeu) in the nearby Mapeding village.
As the song was playing, the Mothapo matriarch would also remember her younger days. Significantly, the multi-racial band was founded the same year her husband and my late grandfather, Lesiba Mothapo, who served in World War II as part of the Native Military Corps, passed on at the end of the winter season.
My recollection of my maternal grandfather is a distant memory, but notably, one of his last surviving niblings, a granddaughter of his only sister’s granddaughter and my mother’s first cousin married into the Mashiane family.
I was in Grade 6 (then Standard 4) when Special Star was released in 1989. If my memory serves me well, I was properly introduced to the song around 1991 during my Grade 8 year at the Dr Moses Josiah Madiba Secondary School.
My late brother, Mashabela Andries Maubane had a cassette collection, which besides Special Star, also had Cruel Crazy, Beautiful World by Johnny Clegg and Savuka, Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt’s Don’t Know Much and Volare by Gipsy Kings among others.
We had a Tempest home theatre system and an Omega portable radio on which we played the music during the pre-electricity era in the villages.
My maternal grandmother would chastise us to reduce the volume whenever she would hear Mango Groove’s most famous song pumping a decibel higher than necessary through the music centre.
On September 10, I wished my mother Raesetja Agnes Maubane (née Mothapo) a happy birthday but remembered that her husband, my father, Malesela Samuel Maubane had passed on September 8, 1992.
That Friday night when Special Star was played on Bertha Charuma’s The Chill Zone, it also reminded me of another special star, my late nephew, Tshepo Lordwick. He was born on September 12 and he transitioned earlier this year together with his mother, my sister, Philda Ramokone.
Mango Groove discography spans six studio albums: Mango Groove (1989), Hometalk (1990), Another Country (1993), Eat a Mango (1995), Bang the Drum (2009), and Faces to the Sun (2016). Besides the evergreen song Special Star, other songs that come to mind include Dance Sum More, Hometalk, Moments Away, Nice to See You, Another Country and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Mango Groove continues uniting South Africans through 40 years of music brilliance and a celebration of a rich musical heritage.
The first verse in Special Star opens like “When the stars no longer shine”, making September a bittersweet month and a mixed bag of heritage celebration on my side for the past 33 years.
Nevertheless, German poet and author Berthold Auerbach’s words “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life” ring true and brings comfort.
- Maubane is a non-practising journalist, communicator and storyteller
