MBE MBHELE

It is not just about Mandisi Dyantyis, it is really about the thing that makes the music happen. It is the thing locked inside Mangaliso Buzani’s poem titled Revelationz<sup>[1]Mangaliso Buzani (2019) A Naked Bone

Revelation

From my palm
I blow away a pile of dust
that flies away with my flesh

for the first time on earth
my bones see my nose
and start to run away

I say to my aunts
the choir of god was here
wearing clothes of dust

they look at each other
and laugh</sup> It is the thing that cannot be easily titled or named. Yet it is not the abstract thing that many confuse with sophistication or authenticity. It is the thing that borders on simplicity yet is hard to understand or imitate. This thing cannot be easily explained using Mogorosi’s DeAesthetics, where there is ‘no language to speak, where there is a void in subjectivity’.^{[2]Tumi Mogorosi (2021) DeAesthetics pg10.} To do this one would have to try hard and run the risk of obfuscating or over ‘theorizing’ it instead of listening to it and feeling it. This thing is in the music of Mandisi Dyantyis who without shame concedes that ‘these songs are not mine, they have their owners and maybe one day they will come and claim them’.^{[3]Mandisi Dyantyis – CWAKA “One Night Only” accessed on 22 May 2024.} He tempts us to ask the question posed by kwaito artist Professor, ‘ubani os’nika lento’?^{[4]Professor ft Speedy (2011) ‘Ubani o’snika lento’ accessed on 22 May 2024.} He forces us to think about this thing and what we should do with it because in many ways this thing is necessary, and as Gabriel Letswalo would perhaps say, if it is necessary it is the truth and the truth is always life affirming.^{[5]@gabe_letswalo} This is why the music of Mandisi Dyantyis matters.

There is no doubt that the music of Mandisi Dyantyis has had an immense effect on a number of people. From those who truly appreciate music to my old lady hanging laundry on the washing line and listening to Molo Sisi on Ukhozi FM. He has touched the faux jazz connoisseur wearing denim on denim, prescription glasses and covered with false ideas about style and taste. Even the so called middle-class that rides the wave of whatever is ‘cool’ has ensured that his shows and concerts are always full. What I am trying to say here is that wherever Mandisi Dyantyis reaches he finds resonance, he is undeniably a star. He understands the South African audience and its psychology, how it relates to music and sound. There are many reasons for this; it probably should not matter but he is a music graduate from UCT, he is a music conductor, has a strong church background which has been a strong incubator for musicians in South Africa. Mandisi Dyantyis is not only skilled but he is also heavily talented. He is black.

We must concede though that he is not the kind of guy who would walk down Small Street during month end, take out his wallet full of notes and buy a cigarette (metaphorically). He is not trying to play it dangerous. He takes risks but within boundaries. Neither pushes nor stretches anything – which he perhaps should. It is as if he sometimes forgets that Thebe ‘Earlsweatshirt’ Kgositsile says ‘we bend we don’t break’,^{[6]Earl Sweatshirt (2018) The Bends accessed 22 May 2024.} and where we bend we begin discovering new pathways, new ways of expressing and new coordinates to map out different directions – more interesting directions. But who is to blame Mandisi? He has never claimed to be interested in ‘breaking rules’. He wants to play for his people and give them his truth, share himself with them. He is aware that he is not the first to do it and perhaps not the last. See when he performs – the man has closely watched Ringo. See when he plays – he has seen Phillip Tabane. He has been eCaweni and learnt the technique of ministering while singing. But out of this mosaic of influences he manages to come out as Mandisi Dyantyis.

What Dyantyis does in his music is to go against the idea that the nature of music/poetry is to be found in its withdrawal from itself.^{[7]Viliminer Khlebnikov On Poetry.} He does not attempt any flight from the I. He plunges deep into his past, into his memories. When he shares with us he is not perched up in some high place, he is immersed in the experience. You see/feel it in his medley on motherhood^{[8]Mandisi Dyntjis (2020) nguMama accessed on 23 May.} borrowed from igwijo, and when he blows that trumpet on the song dedicated to his late brother titled Olwethu.^{[9]Mandisi Dyantyis (2018) Olwethu accessed on 23 May 2024.} Mandisi’s music and performance carries what Lorca calls the duende.^{[10]Frederico Lorca (1933) Theory and Play of the Duende.} Something that is there but cannot be held, a force that arrives, one he need not labour for (of course there are rehearsals and stuff). The music comes to him, he does not have to fetch it. There are some of us in the music and literary landscape who try way too hard to be critical and ‘avant-garde’ so that our work feels dead. Mandisi is not one of us; he has what we call isigqi, ingoma egijima ngegazi.

A certain delicacy is necessary if one is going to speak about the past and present conditions of those who are marginal – black people.

Mandisi is like an archeologist who sees bones as more than just things buried underground, but sees them as things that could open us to think about our past and traumas – a sangoma who sees bones as instruments that can foretell and facilitate healing.

Mxolisi Nyezwa speaks about Inkenqe in his essay titled I heard rhythms.^{[11]Mxolisi Nyezwa (2015) I heard rhythms (Unpublished MACW).} He defines it as a power that lives within a person, a spirit that is reflected in someone’s artistic expression – the bouts of extreme creative energy. Does Dyantyis have this? Will he have a permanent place in South African musical practices? Does his value come from invention or in his perfecting an already existing practice? Does it come from his popularity? Is it measured by his sold out tours?

Who cares about Mandisi Dyantyis anyway?