Dominican University presents Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Dominican University’s Performing Arts Center will present world renowned recording artists Ladysmith Black Mambazo on Saturday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Lund Auditorium, 7900 W. Division Street, River Forest.

Celebrating over 50 years of performing, Ladysmith Black Mambazo gained international fame for its work on musician Paul Simon’s 1986 album, Graceland. Since then, the group has become recognized as a global cultural ambassador for post-apartheid South Africa. Led by its indomitable founder, Joseph Shabalala, the group has been nominated for 13—and received three—Grammy Awards. Its current album, Live: Singing for Peace Around the World, has been nominated for a 2013 Grammy as Best World Music album.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo, named in honor of Shabalala’s hometown of Ladysmith, was founded in 1960 as a male chorus singing in the South African vocal styles of isicathamiya harmony and mbube. The group started out singing in competitions in hostels in Durban and Johannesburg. By 1981 the group had become so popular that it was allowed by South Africa’s apartheid government to travel to Germany as part of a South African folk music festival.

In 1985, Paul Simon discovered the group while traveling through South Africa looking for artists to accompany his Graceland album. Simon took the group to London to record the album and then brought the musicians to New York City to perform “Diamonds on the Sole of Her Shoes,” one of the hits from the album, on a segment of the popular television show, Saturday Night Live. Simon later served as producer of Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s first U.S.-released album, Shaka Zulu, which won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Recording in 1988.

A favorite of the late Nelson Mandela, Ladysmith Black Mambazo accompanied Mandela to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo, Norway in 1993 and sang at his presidential inauguration in South Africa in 1994 as well as his funeral in Cape Town in December 2013.

A documentary film about the group, On Tiptoe: Gentle Steps to Freedom, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject) in 2001. In 2006, the group released an album titled Long Walk to Freedom which included accompaniment by such renowned American artists as Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal and Melissa Etheridge. The album garnered the group its 13th Grammy nomination.

Tickets for Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s performance start at $23. To order tickets, call Dominican University’s box office at 708-488-5000.