Spha comes home

Jazz artist Spha Mdlalose has released her first album, and Manosa Nthunya thinks it’s one of the best releases this year.

Spha Mdlalose: Indlel’eyekhaya

Available on all streaming platforms

4/5

I could not contain my excitement when Spha Mdlalose released her debut album, Indlel’eyekhaya, loosely translated “a way home” or “my way home”. I spent the whole weekend trying to understand what it was that Mdlalose was saying to us as I had waited for this album for more than a year.

Indlel’eyekhaya is about home – the longing for it, appreciation of it, but also the doubt of home.

The 10-track work delves into these themes, reminding us, as we are quick to forget, that the search for home is not an easy one and that when one does find it, it is important that it is nurtured as it can easily dissipate.

When I meet Mdlalose to talk about the album, she tells me: “It touched on a lot of themes that are dear to me, and that is what one’s first body of work should be. You are letting someone into your heart, your home. I wanted people to feel good and warm, to say this feels like home.”

She adds: “The title is quite pliable. I’ve come home now, into my own home.” And there is no doubt as one listens to the songs that this is indeed Mdlalose’s home and one we are lucky to be invited into.

But then Mdlalose’s home does not start where she is now. There is a longer history and in many ways this album gives gratitude to those who have made it possible for her to be where she is.

You hear this in the song When I Think of You Pt.2. In it she thanks her family, her parents in particular: “You taught me how to sing/ Your love is the reason why I sing these melodies/ I hear melodies when I think of you.”

The track was a fan favourite at her album launch, with almost everyone singing along.

She tells me that she wanted to pay tribute to both her mother and father: “Patriarchy dictates that you only take from your father’s name, but it was very important to me that I indicate that I take from both my parents.”

Home is, however, not only where we come from but also where we are going, and in Indlel’eyekhaya we are also invited into what Mdlalose has been creating for herself.

In tracks such as Song To My Love and Noah’s Ark it’s clear that romantic love is something that matters a great deal to her. They are testaments to the beauty and satisfaction that comes from finding a beloved. But such accomplishments, as songs such as How Why When and Come Back To Me show, can be easily troubled as there are often doubts about the very nature of love.

When I put these contradictions to her she says: “As someone with a heart and who’s vulnerable to another, there are times when you question: Will this work? What are we doing ... ? Sometimes in love there’s no fire, we are not communicating, how did we get here?”

And it is these questions that she puts in her lyrics. My personal favourite songs are the second track, D 103, and the lead single, Lefatse. Mdlalose says that D 103 is named after her grandparents’ home in uMlazi in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

Her grandfather was sick while she was recording this album and passed away right as it was going into production. Lefatse, a song that affirms everyone’s right to belong anywhere in the world, also has an interesting story.

She says when she heard the sound: “I knew that it had to be in Sesotho. Mind you, I know very little Sesotho.”

The irony of this, as I put it to her, is that she has done herself a great favour in listening to her heart and instincts as Lefatse is assured a place in the South African jazz songbook.

In this album – in my opinion one of the best offerings of this year – Mdlalose chose to work with the best in the industry, including gifted young musician Ndumiso Manana and producer Bokani Dyer, arguably in the lead among his peers. Mdlalose firmly asserts herself as a leading vocalist who will be with us for a long time. She is generous, honest, driven and very talented.

Our current global and local politics have left many of us with doubts but Mdlalose reminds us that through art, and the hard work that it takes to make it, we can pause, reflect a little and be reminded that what ultimately matters are the people we are lucky to create homes with.

• Nthunya is a PhD candidate in literature at Wits University. He studied literature, history and philosophy at Rhodes University