Nubian Festival: Healing through music

With their fists up in the air and tears gliding down their cheeks while singing along to Amanda Black’s new album, Power, the crowd at the Nubian Music Festival at the Eagle Waters Wildlife Resort, North West, on Reconciliation Day took to heart every moment of the musical festival.

It was a different Reconciliation Day, not one dedicated to healing from the racial injustices of the apartheid years, but to healing from the year, 2019, through music. I mingled in the crown looking to capture the human experience, with my pen tucked between my uncombed afro and elf ears.

I bumped into a Pretoria widow, Nomathemba Tsotetsi. I hugged her as tears slid down her face to the song Nomathemba. She told me the song gave her hope and birthed the spirit of self as she had recently lost her husband. Tsotetsi said she braved the long drive from Pretoria to Hartbeespoort Dam just to hear Black harmoniously sing “ndizothandwa ngubani xa ndishiya lendonda”, which translates into “who will love me if I leave this man”.

Black’s answer to the question, “uzothandwa ndim” (you will be loved by me), brought the sun in a rainy weather for Tsotetsi. Black said she wrote the song for a women in an abusive relationship and held on to the man because she believed no one could love her besides him.

“I wanted to give women a pillar of hope, which is self-love. I wanted to motivate women to care for themselves and love themselves,’’ Black said.

Although The Soil has not released a new song since 2010, the audience connected to the timeless trio and set the jolly mood for the day. They delivered way more than smiles and got the audience on their feet and dancing to We are Family. People held hands with strangers and families. For a second, the Hartbeespoort Dam looked like a huge family gathering, as Mafikizolo guided the audience to the traditional wedding step, and they sang every word of all-time hit, Ndihamba Nawe.

The beautiful collaboration of artists and the audience left Swedish dancer Joanna Chrona humbled and in love with festival culture.

“I love The Soil. Their music is very spiritual and they are humble but what I like the most is the unity and lack of separation of the artists from the audience. It’s almost like the audience is performing to the musicians and that is amazing,’’ Chrona said.

Many artists performed at the festival, from Mi Casa to Lira, Black, Judith Sephuma, The Soil, Thandiswa Mazwai and KB Molopyane, while DJ Fresh closed out the night with a fiery set of cool summer hits. They were all appreciated by the audience but Thandiswa Mazwai received the most beautiful appreciation; women took off their bras and threw them at her. Yes, the old tradition of showing love for a performer, happened at Hartbeespoort Dam.

The human experience of the event was beautiful but quite weird because the audience did not grasp the idea of a person writing while they jumped for joy.

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