For five years, Spoek Mathambo has been a pioneer of South Africa’s ebullient electronic music scene, producing and performing a digital-meets-roots sound he calls “township tech”. Now, after two solo albums, the Soweto-born writer and rapper has a new project, a five-piece group called Fantasma, whose infectious debut album, Free Love, is out next week. UK Visas and Immigration saw to it that only three of them reached the 100 Club for this first British show, but as all good teams must when they go two men down, Mathambo’s band dig in to produce an exceptional performance.
Their matching bright red, blue and green shirts definitely help: part Kraftwerk, part Nelson Mandela at a barbecue, they seem to say not just “we’re a unit”, but also “we’re representing Africa”. “We begin with three songs of maskandi music,” says guitarist Bhekisenzo Cele, grinning and picking out the hi-tempo Zulu blues on an acoustic. “This one says every mama must respect their husband,” he translates. “And every husband must respect their mama,” adds Mathambo, ever the spokesman for the new progressive South Africa.
As Cele takes the tempo of the folky opening up a notch, his guitar notes and Bantu lyrics give way to Mathambo’s computer beats and impeccably mid-Atlantic rapping. No doubt the pith helmet he sports is a knowing nod to post-colonialism, but even as he drops rhymes in perfect imitation of Ice Cube circa Boyz n the Hood, the hat makes him look cheerfully like Don Estelle in It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
“You London people have a reputation for being what we call sturvy,” he says. “It means stiff and posh.” You certainly couldn’t accuse drummer Michael Buchanan of sturvyosity, as he thumps extra analogue backbeats on top of the sequenced rhythms. “Come on,” announces Mathambo, with the tempo nearing 200 beats per minute. “I want to see the bra straps pop off.”
That provides the cue for She’s Lost Control, the Joy-Division-go-to-KwaZulu-Natal cover version that first marked out Mathambo as a talent worth following. As with all “western” music filtered through the sensibility of South Africa’s new music-makers, the song seems to gain a renewed lustre, as if equal parts sunshine and elastic have been added. Some say that African music is becoming ever more westernised; but on the evidence of figures such as Mathambo – whose chutzpah and flair for stylish hybrids make him a kind of Kanye South – a more likely future is that western music will become ever more African.
