Jazz pianist and composer Ndunduzo Makhathini takes us on a spiritual journey in his latest album Ikhambi.
The Pietermaritzburg-born musician is not only pointing out the relevance of spirituality in modern times but also dishes out lessons of a symbiotic existence of both spirituality and Christianity.
Ikhambi is his eighth offering and opens with a beautiful classical sound, Amathambo.
From the first song to the last, one can tell that the album was well thought out. Every song and theme tells its own story and represents a particular narrative.
With song titles such as Ithemba, Umthakathi, Impande, Makhathini explores the deep and complicated subject of spirituality.
"My music focuses on imagination around our culture, and crystallises the African methodology. I have realised that there is nothing wrong about our ways of doing things," he said.
Makhathini said, through the album, he tries to find meanings and definitions and what healing means.
The album uses themes familiar to the Nguni traditions and those common in African cultures, he said.
Makhathini's new album explores spirituality in our modern times
Jazz pianist and composer Ndunduzo Makhathini takes us on a spiritual journey in his latest album Ikhambi.
The Pietermaritzburg-born musician is not only pointing out the relevance of spirituality in modern times but also dishes out lessons of a symbiotic existence of both spirituality and Christianity.
Ikhambi is his eighth offering and opens with a beautiful classical sound, Amathambo.
From the first song to the last, one can tell that the album was well thought out. Every song and theme tells its own story and represents a particular narrative.
With song titles such as Ithemba, Umthakathi, Impande, Makhathini explores the deep and complicated subject of spirituality.
"My music focuses on imagination around our culture, and crystallises the African methodology. I have realised that there is nothing wrong about our ways of doing things," he said.
Makhathini said, through the album, he tries to find meanings and definitions and what healing means.
The album uses themes familiar to the Nguni traditions and those common in African cultures, he said.
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"Through music I try to look beyond what is presented to us by the West and what is presented by the colonial period and try to create new definitions of what democracy means to us."
He said he became fascinated with the word "umthakathi" (the witch) because it denotes a powerful being in the spiritual realm.
"When we were growing up, we heard about umthakathi, but we have never seen that human being with our naked eyes. Though umthakathi has negative connotations, it is the highest being in the realm of spirituality though it happens in a negative way."
Makhathini said Ithemba is a song for hope and peace dedicated to the students of 1976.
Multi-award winning Makhathini is also a music lecturer at the Walter Sisulu University in Port Elizabeth.
In 2008 he toured Europe and the US with late jazz saxophonist Zim Ngqawana's Zimology Quartet. He is married to the singer Omagugu and they have three children.
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