Makhalemele, Mike
Kabuzela
The South African tenorist Mike Makhamalele was a graduate of the key early-seventies group The Drive (alongside Bheki Mseleku and Kaya Mahlangu); and a mainstay of the scene centred on the Pelican nightclub in Soweto. From 1975, he began to record under his own name, developing a sophisticated fusion sound in a musical lane which few of his contemporaries were travelling. Always attuned to other global fashions in black dance and pop music, under numerous studio aliases he released 7" covers of Fela's 'Shakara' and the Sugar Hill Gang's 'Rapper's Delight'; and in 1979 he entered the Gallo studios with producer Peter Ceronio to respond to the ascendant sound of disco. Named after a township dance craze, 'Kabuzela' was the result: four extended tracks of bouncing, upful disco jazz.