In a career that spans over 50 years, South Africa’s Ladysmith Black Mambazo has garnered multiple GRAMMY ® awards, nominations and critical acclaim, and continues to sell out concerts in prestigious venues worldwide. Reviewing a recent performance at Carnegie Hall, Jon Pareles of The New York Times noted a distinctly Zulu quality of the group’s songs when he described them as “music that had survived sorrows to find benedictions in the aftermath.” The group’s forthcoming album, Always With Us (January 15), exemplifies this spiritual dimension, paying tribute to Nellie Shabalala, the late wife of Black Mambazo founder-leader Joseph Shabalala, by making a fully-produced cycle of songs featuring their own voices alongside vocals she recorded before her death in 2002. The group will tour the U.S. extensively in early 2014.
