Inspirational Music

I have just discovered the White Zulu - a South-African musician by the name of Johnny Clegg who has been active on the music scene since the late 1970'ies. Due to the fact that he is a white man playing and dancing in traditional Zulu-style, his music was forbidden during the Apartheid-Regime. If you think of it as politically motivated music, it is surprisingly cheerful. But perhaps this light and happy feature of his music makes it all the more powerful.

If you watch some of his YouTube videos you will see South-African men dancing and playing traditional Zulu tribe music. In some of the videos he dances with another man, and they move the same way and are painted the same way. It would have been very offensive to the rulers of the Apartheid-Regime precisely because it looks so natural. It looks like two guys of the same tribe celebrating an ancient ritual. One is white, one is black but they are moving in perfect sync. It does not look like a protest. It looks like something natural and that makes it much more powerful than many more angry protest songs that came out of the 1970'ies.
From a musical angle, these rhythms have clearly inspired many other genres. It reminds me of Motown and of soul musicians such as Sade. Motown was also political in a way although it was primarily driven by commercial interests. It was a one of the first commercialisations of black music in the US. The musicians were found in jazz-clubs around the city of Detroit. Many of them had moved there to find work in the automotive industry which was booming in the 60'ies - hence the name 'Motown'. The fact that you suddenly saw black musical pop-icons had an impact in the way black people in the US defined themselves. According to an Oprah Winfrey show with Diana Ross from many years back, it gave young black people something to aspire to in a culture where there were few black role-models.
So besides the fact that this is music that makes me happy to listen to, it is also nice to think about that it has inspired people in different parts of the world to do things their parents might never have thought possible.