The Mail & Guardian | 07.04.2026 14:50
The news of the passing of Albert Mazibuko (77) arrives as I am playing Frank Apollo’s Yinhle in an endless loop. If you know anything about South African traditional sampling culture, you will realise that this song is a sample of Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Yinhle Lentombi. That song is from their sixth studio album Shintsha Sithothobala which was released in 1975. It is a strange coincidence. Perhaps, it is a gentle missive from the universe that one of the most important cultural workers in the world has transcended and has left his set of earthly descendants to make the world anew, with new stories, new idioms and a new set of sonic practices.
