LAT / LONG: 29.53° S, 31.03° E DURBAN ‘It’s the sound that gets to you A CRASH first,’ says David ‘Qadashi’ Jenkins. ‘A loud crashing of drums before OF DRUMS you even see the dancers. We heard it while we were still on the street, walking towards the hostel. It was 2012 and I’d just moved to Durban from Empangeni. My mentor, Maqhinga Radebe, took me to the Dalton Hostels on Sydney Road to see them dancing. But, of course, you hear it first. That tumultuous crash, a tremendous sound produced on huge marching band drums. You can hear it as far away as Davenport Centre, which is a few blocks up – you’ll hear it on a Sunday if you listen out for it.’ Jenkins grew up in northern KwaZulu-Natal, where he fell in love with Zulu culture. He’s never looked back; his boyhood obsession with maskandi has evolved into a thriving music career. Yet, even after years spent studying Zulu music traditions, he says witnessing Umzansi war dancing left him breathless. ‘The closer we got, the louder those crashing drums grew and eventually we were in the presence of these potent, DURBAN powerful dancers – workers who stay at the hostels and who dance on Sundays. The drumming is the heart of the music, but with harmonies sung over that, incredible war songs running over this loud drum beat. There are up to 20 singers who stand in a semi-circle, and up to ten men dancing at a time. And they move back and forth, swapping out all the time. Umzansi BY is a style of Ingoma, a competitive song and dance performance; the other styles are Isishameni and isiBhaca, but Umzansi is by far the most dramatic, epitomising the idea of the dancer as a warrior, full of fierce energy. ‘It’s not the kind of dancing in which men wear full regalia skins like you’d see at Shakaland or one of these “cultural venues” for tourists. There’s a lot of movement, so they wear very little – a short tartan skirt with car tyre sandals and maybe a few skins. It’s legs being raised and stomped on to the ground as the dancers show off their Still your mind and tune into the rhythms of the city power. It’s a sign of masculinity, and there’s a near-trancelike EAR state these dancers enter. It gave me goosebumps – what Words: Keith Bain. Images: Gallo/Getty Images, supplied Images, Gallo/Getty Images: Bain. Keith Words: an honour to witness such a beautiful thing.’ 42 ba.com/southafrica ba.com/southafrica 43 DURBAN Since reopening in 2009, The recording. I thought it was the most beautiful sound because DURBAN’S Oyster Box in Umhlanga has it meant balmy summer nights, and it often meant that hosted honeymooning royalty there was a storm on the go. NOISIEST (Monaco’s Albert and Charlene), ‘Today we have a lot more ponds. If you hang around the British royalty (the princes), spa’s lily pond, you’ll probably hear them chorusing. And HOTEL Hollywood royalty and South we have frogs in the monkey pond outside the rooms that go African quasi-royalty. But it’s at it all night. I’ve had a couple of TripAdvisor moaners: “We the hotel’s long-stay guests (including legendary resident loved our stay, but the frogs and the roaring sea were a bit cat, Skabenga) who attract the most attention – and make much… it was all a bit noisy!” Most people love it, though; the most noise. ‘In the pre-renovation days, it was the old they say that, along with the smell of the frangipani and the Grill Room restaurant that was the centre of the hubbub,’ yesterday, today and tomorrows in our gardens, the frogs says GM Wayne Coetzer, who’s been at it for more than 16 add an element of Out of Africa nostalgia. They’re painted years. ‘In those days the restaurant wasn’t air-conditioned, reed frogs and produce a piercing, high-pitched noise, but but had sliding doors to a courtyard area with a lovely lily pleasant – somewhere between a croak and a whistle, in my pond. In the old days there were two types of people who opinion. When they all sing together it’s an amazing sound. came to dine. One group would phone up and say: “Please ‘Another quintessentially “Durban” sound we have don’t put us at the tables where the frogs are, because it’s happens at five o’clock. That’s when the Indian mynahs too noisy and we can’t hear each other talk!” Others would come to roost in the fig tree in the parking lot. It’s a hell of OLD SCHOOL say: “Please put us at that round table as you walk in on the a racket until the sun goes and then it’s dead quiet. For that left – the one near the pond, because we love the sound of half an hour, it’s like a market or a noisy gathering of old IS COOL the frogs.” Hilariously, these frogs would really set each friends. The fig tree has been here at least since the 1950s ‘Maskandi, is other off. One would start, and then the whole lot would and it’s massive. The tree also houses a number of fruit bats traditional Zulu suddenly be going at it together – one hell of a chorus. Some which aren’t noisy at all – but they can be quite messy.’ music fused with guests would ask us to “turn it off” thinking it was a tape oysterboxhotel.com western instruments. With time, it’s changed and evolved. But MYTH OF THE alongside the MYNAHS commercial styles, ‘Indian mynahs have you’ve got old school an indelible maskandi. My first connection with maskandi idol was Durban. They Phuzekhemisi, from supposedly arrived Umkomaas, south of on a ship from India. Durban. Among The story goes that it maskandi artists, the all started with a pair guitar introduction is of mynahs that were quite specific – it’s kept in a cage as when you show off ornamental pets your skills. When – the cage fell off a Phuzekhemisi plays horse cart as it was an introduction, you leaving Durban know it’s him. There harbour. The cage is something organic broke open and the and beautiful about pair flew off into the the way he plays. On city and the rest is the beachfront you history.’ – Guy occasionally come Buttery, guitarist and across really talented Standard Bank buskers, but one Young Artist Award place you can winner for music usually hear maskandi is The BAT Centre (batcentre. co.za), near the harbour. It has played a huge role in nurturing performers and it’s a cool setting, with the city MONKEY BUSINESS centre on one side The purple-crested touraco is rowdy; and ships on the as are Durban's vervet monkeys, all other.’ – David captured in a garden mural at The supplied Images, Gallo/Getty ‘Qadashi’ Jenkins Oyster Box 44 ba.com/southafrica ‘It’s a calling,’ says Mhlonipheni HEAR THE Mnomiya of his inescapable need to sing. One of 22 members of the VOICES OF Durban Gospel Choir, he says because he grew up in church and ANGELS comes from a singing family, he quite simply ‘had no choice but to sing’. Of course, there’s a rich tradition of choral singing across KwaZulu-Natal – the Zulu love of isigubudu, or harmony, is woven into the fabric of life and has given rise to the all-male isicathamiya groups that produced the likes of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and famously lured Paul Simon here in the 1980s. ‘For us – the people of KZN – singing comes naturally,’ Mnomiya says. ‘We sing when someone’s giving birth, we sing when someone dies. We sing when we’re happy, we sing when we’re sad. Through all of life, we sing. If I go home right now and I start singing, someone will come in with a harmony, and then someone else will join in, and so it will go, creating a song. I just presume it’s because we grew up like that.’ Fellow chorister Nomkosi Mazibuko agrees that it is something instilled. ‘It’s what I was born with and I had no choice but to sing. It’s a natural gift and naturally became my life. It’s a thing in KZN – when you’re a believer, you sing, whether we are Zionists, charismatics or followers Recognised as 2017’s Designer of the Year of Shembe. Music is our thing.’ What sets this particular THE SOUND OF at the annual Durban Fashion Fair, Terrence choir apart, though, is the coming together of singers from Bray has dressed models, celebrities, different backgrounds. ‘Typically Durban’s choirs are from THH-UNN- socialites and royalty. But the annual a specific church within the same community,’ explains dress-up jamboree he never fails to Mazibuko. ‘But we’re a diverse group. Some of us are Zionists, DERRRRR participate in is the Durban July, the city’s some are Shembe, some have traditional great big horseracing spectacle that happens gospel music backgrounds – but when this month for the 122nd time. For Bray it all comes together, it’s a beautiful mix and other designers, the event is not just and together we make magic.’ a gathering of almost 100,000 racing She also believes that there’s a soulfulness enthusiasts, bookies and air-kissers, but among Durban’s choral communities the city’s most iconic fashion event.