An intimate album for the times

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Bongeziwe Mabandla released his fourth studio album on 5 May, titled amaXesha (the times). The project probes our relationships with lovers, families, friends and, ultimately, with ourselves. 

Growing up in Tsolo, Eastern Cape, Mabandla says there was a consensus in his family that the arts was where he would thrive. 

“I think my mother and my family saw how much I was struggling at school, so from a very young age, they told me I need to be an artist. 

“My mother, in particular, was always encouraging me. I remember her telling me that, if I want this kind of life, I need to be dedicated and work very hard,” he says. 

He has had a strong impact on the alternative music scene since his debut album in 2012, Umlilo. 

He went on to release Mangaliso in 2017 and iimini in 2020, both of which won South African Music Awards for Best Alternative Album. Mabandla says amaXesha is almost a continuation of the latter.

Different from his previous albums, where his vocals took centre stage, amaXesha is fused with a wide range of genres, such as soul, R&B, jazz, pop and a significant amount of electronica.

It’s slightly jarring, considering the acoustic sound we have learned to expect from Mabandla, but not distasteful at all. 

If anything, his new body of work is thoroughly thought-out and vocals are well laid on fitting beats. 

He says a big chunk of the album was conceptualised during lockdown, which was a difficult time for people all over the world. 

“You can imagine writing during lockdown and coming up with concepts during a time of uncertainty. It was the first album where I did a lot of remote work. 

“Usually, Tiago Correia-Paulo, who produced the album, and myself are in the same room and we can easily interact,” says Mabandla. 

He says this had an effect on the sound of the album because there was little to no physical interaction with his team. 

There was a lot of cut and paste in the making of the album  because Mabandla was travelling and recording in places ranging from Mozambique to France, Holland, and South Africa.

“There was a lot of solitude work with this album. It was a challenge as there was no immediacy of being in the studio with your team. 

“Also, when we could be together, we would only meet for a couple of hours as we could not have long studio sessions at the time,” he says.   

Challenging as the formation of this project might have been, Mabandla says he got through a lot of it through his writing.

“One thing I enjoy about my work is definitely the writing; that’s where I put most of my focus. I love the description of images in lyrics and the colour of language. 

“I guess lockdown was the perfect time to be in my thoughts and write about things I was going through and things I was feeling.” 

His writing process involves penning songs people can relate to and are universal. 

“I want to say I write for myself but I definitely write about myself. Things that shape me, things that change me, things that confuse me, things that bring me joy and a lot of sadness,” he says.  

Mabandla says sometimes it scares him how exposed and vulnerable his music makes him. 

“With my last album iimini, there was a song called Khangela. I just knew when I was writing that song that, if I don’t go to a place of true honesty and bare myself, I would lose the realness and meaning of the song. Similarly, with this album, I knew that I can’t write an album and not go there,” he says.  

He says on amaXesha, the song Thula was revealing. 

“This is my most personal song on the album. I think with each album, there’s one song where I have to risk allowing people in. 

“I grew up very close to my mother and, recently, we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things. 

“The musical idea had come from a voice clip my mother had sent me singing and I just liked it,” Mabandla told Apple Music. 

He shared the clip with his producer-manager Correia-Paulo, who concluded that it had to be used for the album.  

“Then the idea of really speaking about the intimate parts of my relationship with my mother came … it was a very difficult song to write,” the musician says.

Correia-Paulo, who is also an instrumentalist, told Mail & Guardian they were confident about the album and the work they had put in, and ready to show it to the world. 

“It was very different from the last time we worked together because we usually make music really fast but this time we took our time.

“Covid did play a part, especially doing everything remotely, but I also wanted to think about what I want to do aesthetically,” he said.  

Because they had done things in an unorthodox way this time you can hear the overproduction and the album’s sound is quite different from Mabandla’s older projects.

“The sound that we were going for was contemporary. It is a little bit of a dark album and cold — there is something sorrowful about the sound of the album. 

“So, it is a mix of Bongeziwe’s intimacy and some thoroughness and a bit of it being manufactured. It is not as organic as iimini,” he says. 

Correia-Paulo says they managed to weave the songs together successfully, after years of writing and producing, which is the magic of the album, how the songs are listed. 

“One thing about my music is about figuring out life and finding hope and happiness. I hope that my music does that for people,” Mabandla says.