A few years back when I was completing high education sitting in an Afrikaans class with a beautiful slender figure of AyandaMasondo who genuinely loved exposing her smooth and soulful voice by singing songs by Brenda Fassie and LettaMbuli. Every time I entered the Afrikaans class I would be filled with excitement anticipating hearing the beautiful voice of a girl who could have been one of South Africa’s brightest musical stars.
Quite recently while surfing the internet
for fresh musical talents across the globe, going through hundreds of
discologies andYoutube music, and one dark female with a smooth soulful voice
caught my attention.
The British soul and jazz artist Laura
Mvula’s song ‘Like the morning dew’
caught my musical attention and led me to downloading few more songs by this
stunning shy singer from the suburbs of Birmingham. The singer studied music
under the guardianship of classical composer Joe Cutler who then introduced her
to great music from music brains such asMessiaen and Michael Tippet and Pierre
Boulez.
Mvula formerly wrote and sang with Black
Voices an acapella band that was set up by her aunt and then went on to form a
neo-soul group called Judyshouse were she was the lead singer and writing
material for the group. Her music writing skills and sensational sweet soulful
voice afforded her the opportunity to go solo and release a stunning album
titled ‘Sing to the moon’ produced
by Tom Elmhurst.
What I found with her debut album which was
released in March is that it tells a cute story which at first I thought did
not resonate with me, but listening carefully it got a bit of my heart. If
Mvula did not take the route of spreading her music I don’t think we would have
been exposed to a great British Voice.
‘Sing
to the moon’ reached number nine on the UK Charts
and within the top 100 in seven countries together with reaching 173 on the US
Billboard 200. Such achievement in a relatively short time has certainly led
Mvula to catch an ear.
Ashley
Mokwena
@ashfonik
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