Soweto Gospel Choir Riding High After Grammy Win

When the Soweto Gospel Choir was named as winner of the Grammy for Best World Music Album, it earned the ensemble a place in the music history books.

Announced by Questlove, drummer from the US hip hop band The Roots, the award sparked an explosion of excitement among the South African singers.

“He was almost stuttering, like: ‘And the winner is Fr- Fr- Freedom, Sss- Soweto Gospel Choir,’ then we jumped up! Like he took long, man,” chuckled choirmaster Shimmy Jiyane.

“I screamed my lungs out,” admits choir member Mary Mulovhedzi.

“Then the ululating came, the Sowetans (in us) just came out — we couldn’t hold back.”

What earned them the award was their album “Freedom” — a 12-track tribute to Nelson Mandela released to mark the 100th year of his birth.

It was the choir’s third Grammy in its 17-year existence, adding to accolades which include an Emmy and a debut album called “Voices From Heaven” which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s World Music Chart.

Freedom” gives a modern twist to so-called struggle songs — campaigning music rooted in South Africa’s apartheid past, when the black majority were subjugated by the white minority.

“It’s a story in a way of what happened during those days,” bass singer Mulalo Mulovhedzi told AFP.

The album draws inspiration “from the freedom fighters of 1976,” he said, referring to a linchpin year in the fight against apartheid — the Soweto uprising.

The whole idea (was) that we have to go back to Soweto, where freedom started.”

‘Food for the soul’

Soweto — a shortened form referring to the South West Townships on the edge of Johannesburg — became a worldwide symbol of resistance.

And it is where the group has been based since it was founded in 2002.

Much of the choir’s captivating sound is composed and arranged in indigenous South African languages including Zulu, Xhosa and even Afrikaans.

Yet some of their biggest audiences are in Europe and America.