Confessing beautiful problems

I am here to make a shocking confession.

I have a serious problem. This problem started a long time ago. But I will not bore you with the detail. What I want to say right now is that this M-LP is destroying me.

I was going through my “things” yesterday. I was pleasantly shocked to discover that my problem has not gone away.

It had been over a year since I’d last seen them. About two times in my life I have been made aware of how silly and attention-seeking I am. Even Ausi Mmatshilo Motsei slammed me with this truth on facebook when, on two occasions, she told me to stop whining about losing my CD copy of Afrocentric (Jimmy Dludlu). ‘Get yourself a new copy, Fusi,’ she said.

A certain sleek, progressive and funny man by the name of Abuti Nymbeleni Tshindane told me to get a life. He didn’t quite put it that way. He said that I must get myself an iPod and all my problems about CDs that go missing will be a problem of the past.

I still don’t have the iPod, which means that my problems are still with me. I guess I love my problem. So I am here to confess exactly that.

And to say that I jumped with joy yesterday when I opened a box to find the CDs which I thought I had lost over 2 years ago. You will not believe this. I found Jimmy Dludlu in there. There was Sakhile. There was Paul Hanmer, Wessel van Rensburg (that track called “song for E”, Laaawd help me) and Oliver Mtukudzi. There is “motseredende” in that album; imagine how serious this problem I am having is.

To reunite with my long-lost darlings, I decided to play ‘Tales from the South’ by Themba Mkhize. No, wait! You are younger than 30, or you are older enough but you think Jonas Gwangwa and Judith Sephuma are the only greats in the land, do not judge me as yet. Instead, hang around for a brief intro to what you’ve been sorely missing...

I said I have re-united with Tales from the South today. Ngwaneso, it was “Ngaliwe” (first track) which rocked me through a morning of peace. Yet I knew that track number 9, “Inner peace,” in which Sibongile Khumalo lets her voice glide over Themba’s hypnotic keyboard and Vusi Khumalo’s drums like a butterfly sampling breath-taking flowers, was in the offing. But I am a person who is mostly in no rush, as you are about to see.

But getting past songs like “Ilanga” in which Kelly Petlane’s flute and Fana Zulu’s bass make me want to drive to Cape Town at a speed of 60, for no apparent reason, was to be an entertaining problem indeed. Not to mention “Ikhwezi”. Ngwaneso, Bra Hugh Masekela is involved there. He is there to blow me away with his flugen horn, while Themba Mkhize’s keyboards take the magical back seat typical of his (I think) shy demeanour.

Next on the list for the entire day is Afrocentric by Jimmy Dludlu. Oh, the excitement I am in right now. God I love my Music-Loving Problem! To think that Themba Mkhize is still waiting to offer me his brilliance through ‘Lost and Found’ (which I think rings true of my M-LP) and ‘Hands On.’ That song which makes you weep non-stop when you think of our past is there – “shosholoza.”

But I will have to get past that beautiful “east meets south” number before I greet Jimmy Dludlu, whose “inyoni iyaphapha” reminds me of my lone and long travel to Venda, not to mention “river of dreams” which frees a poetic Duma ka Ndlovu to tell us what a genius Moses Taiwa Molelekwa was.

I am enjoying my music-loving problem. I hope that you are not shocked.