The post-apartheid singer on her commitment to use music and storytelling to make change.
When Thandiswa Mazwai sings, her voice consumes the air with melodic, crystal-clear tones and power-backed lyrics. In 2024, Mazwai graced NPR’s intimate stage and dedicated her first song to the “beautiful and ever-resilient people of South Africa… back home.” Mazwai’s artistry has been a clarion call and source of comfort wrapped into one beautiful body. A body adorned with perfect spiraling braids, cowrie shells, and striking prints. Mazwai, 49, is a living, breathing protest and proof that the fight against apartheid lives on into the 21st century.
Mazwai’s world was inherently political when she was a child. “Growing up in apartheid South Africa left a major imprint on me,” she says, thinking back. “I saw army tanks while walking to school ensuring us natives were ‘well behaved.’ It was impossible to miss those things.” Mazwai also had reinforcement at home—her politically engaged parents never let their daughter forget her responsibility to dismantle systems of oppression.
As journalists and political activists, they introduced their child to books by the Martinican political theorist Frantz Fanon and Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe early on. Mazwai was surrounded by books, writing, and rigorous debate about freedom and Blackness.
In their ideal world, Mazwai’s parents imagined their daughter following in their footsteps and becoming a serious academic. But while she was studying literature and international relations at university, music found Mazwai and never let go. “I was interested in something different and followed radical pathways to making art,” she notes.
“Music gave me a natural medium to express myself and all I was seeing.” In line with the legacies of women like Miriam Makeba—the famous South African singer and actor who also championed human rights—Mazwai began writing and performing songs that gave voice to a generation at one of the most critical crossroads in South African history.
“Struggle didn’t need to be a bad thing, so long as we knew what we were pushing towards.”
Mazwai was 18 when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa after decades of imprisonment and apartheid fell. By this point, her fierce, freedom-fighting mother had passed and sadly wasn’t able to see the future she’d worked so hard towards, but her daughter could. “We were kind of swept away by this idea of freedom,” Mazwai says, remembering the excitement.
Young South Africans were being taught songs about a new South Africa alive with possibilities, and they looked to the changing face of political leadership as a beacon of hope. “Having grown up so un-free, there was a euphoria hearing Nelson Mandela was being freed and that we could get an ID and be a true South African with the rights of any other citizen,” she says.
With that excitement hanging in the air, Mazwai released her first radio and club hits, “Fester” and “Chommie,” as part of the musical group Jacknife. The feel of the music was upbeat and celebratory, mirroring the moment and offering a soundtrack to the young Black people craving something more than the society they’d been born into. With time, however, these young people—including Mazwai—saw that the work of realizing freedom was far from over. “We were trying to wrap our minds around neocolonialism and the way power corrupts,” she says.
“In spite of having a Black-led government, we quickly realized we still needed to struggle, protest, and fight.” It was disheartening initially to go from such a hopeful era to one more grounded. Again, Mazwai turned to her revolutionary roots—and music—to lead the way. “Struggle didn’t need to be a bad thing, so long as we knew what we were pushing towards,” she says.
Toni Cade Bambara, a Black American author and activist, famously said, “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.” Mazwai’s music came to reflect this sentiment as she used her voice to compel other South Africans to dream of what success and justice could look like—and to run boldly towards that vision. “I wanted to show what lies on the other side of fists and rage [in order] to give the community the impetus to continue the fight,” she notes.
Over time, she truly became the voice of the first post-apartheid generation. Listeners could count on Mazwai to speak truth to power and encourage critical thinking and action, not only when she was singing and performing but in all aspects of her life. Her parents’ dream of birthing a rigorous activist had come true. And as Mazwai’s platform has expanded, she has become more and more outspoken about the issues facing Black people across the African Diaspora.
Throughout her career, Mazwai has been mentored by and collaborated with other artists who share her outlook on life and the role of creativity in an unjust society. “When I was in my twenties, I had the blessing of working with a lot of my heroes,” she says.
One of the highlights of her life was creating with Hugh Masekela, one of the most famous jazz musicians in the world and a South African native. The two met when Mazwai was a teen performing background vocals for him with her school choir, but their relationship evolved over time, and Masekela—known as “the father of South African jazz”—took great interest in the younger musician.
“Even as I sing in my own language about a South African experience. I also see it as pan-Africanist music that speaks to the Diaspora as well. I create work that is interested in connecting us and bridging gaps.”
One day, in jest, Mazwai asked, “Uncle Hugh, when are you going to feature me on one of your albums?”, to which Masekela replied, “I’m in the studio right now,” and invited Mazwai to join him. “I recorded two tracks on his Sixty album, and that really changed my world,” she recalls. Their collaboration signaled to others that Mazwai was a serious artist with a co-sign from one of the greatest musicians South Africa had ever birthed. It also put Mazwai in community with artists who had decided that life was too short to make music that didn’t also speak to the times.
As Mazwai’s artistry began to garner international acclaim, she leaned in further to a global feel to her music. From albums titled after the Ghanaian Twi word sankofa and the use of Indo-Pacific and West African cowrie shells in her hair to infusing funk and jazz sounds into her work, Mazwai has refused to be boxed in. “Even as I sing in my own language about a South African experience,” she says, “I also see it as pan-Africanist music that speaks to the Diaspora as well. I create work that is interested in connecting us and bridging gaps.”
From South Africa to America to Senegal to Brazil to Zimbabwe, Mazwai has been inspired and moved by what is happening to Black people all over the world. Blackness, she says, is a political identity just as much as it is a racial one. That, as well as music and culture, is a great uniter. Learning from and about Black people in other contexts has been critical to her understanding of what justice for Black people will truly look and feel like. Thandiswa Mazwai is both a dreamer and a realist, and freedom has always been on her mind.
Neither fame nor money has stopped Mazwai from saying what needs to be said at any given moment. She is a true voice of the times. “You need to take on a fearlessness,” she advises. “When you’re on stage or on a radio station or podcast, there are so many ears listening, and I want to use that time to share my ideas and thoughts.”
Mazwai has never been afraid to speak about genocide and apartheid in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, or Zimbabwe, whether she’s performing at benefit concerts or giving charged and timely statements to the press. Lately she has also been vocal about dictatorship and the death of diplomacy in America.
When asked how she avoids succumbing to trepidation and what advice she has for artists looking to follow in her footsteps, Mazwai doesn’t hesitate. She encourages people to follow their calling and to be vigilant about how they may be used or weaponized.
“Money draws people in and takes away agency,” the veteran singer warns. “Learn when to say no to the money, because it comes with so many complications and people who feel entitled to steering your career.” Autonomy is key.
Homepage image: Thandiswa Mazwai by Trevor Stuurman. This feature is taken from Women of Today issue. Out Now.
