A friend of mine called Bafazana who works for Johnny Clegg as a driver and dance team co-ordinator came to see me in 2003 with a respectable-looking gentleman called Nkwanyana who plays Zulu guitar and sings his own original songs. I was deeply impressed by his talent and agreed to spend some time working with him in studio.

On and off, for the last few years, I have been working with Nkwanyana on his songs and we recently finished our recordings and finalised the master. Over the recording period, I had some of the musicians who worked with me in Johnny Clegg's band come and do sessions on the tracks. The music has become what I like to call "Maskandi with a low centre of gravity".

"Maskandi" is the name for Zulu traditional music with very high bass lines and straightforward kick and hat drum patterns. I took Nkwanyana's Maskandi music and married it with a lower Marabi / Rock type bass style and more involved drum patterns which lend themselves to mainstream radio formats more than the traditional patterns do. We also reworked one of his songs from an up-tempo shameni trot, to a slow, soulful jazz-influenced ballad.

The end result is this new album called "Thwasa". I started a recording label called Khangula Music and, under that banner, joined the necessary consumer and rights societies to legitimise the label and the product.

Nkwanyana came round to my house today and I showed him his first 1000 cd's in the freighting boxes, fresh from the factory. He got a big lump in his throat and his eyes brimmed over just a little bit at the sight of his dream come true. This is his life's work, after all.

Go and check out the music at www.khangula.co.za or at www.myspace.com/nkwanyana. It's well worth a listen. If you like it, please buy a copy. We've set up a mailing centre here and we personally package and send your disc to you. All transactions are secured and escrowed by Setcom.

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