COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Sony
PERFORMER: Sibongile Khumalo (vocal), etc
CATALOGUE NO: CD 8142
Literally and musically, this round-up drifts northwards. One of South Africa’s global ambassadors, SIBONGILE KHUMALO, starts with the third instalment of her ‘modern African song repertoire’. She has a fine instrument for the job – classically trained, locally rooted – and sings with eager warmth, an easy speaking quality, and a lightly vibrant low register. Over an unhurried pulse she can improvise freely, until the album tips over from traditional to jazz with Themba Mkhize’s piano solos, before summing itself up in a Hugh Masekela number about music giving wings.