Consumer Guide Album

Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens: Music Inferno: The Indestructible Beat Tour 1988-1989 [Umsakazo/Gallo, 2023]
For 35 years, my go-to Mahlathini album not counting the classic multi-artist Indestructible Beat of Soweto comp itself (which you should buy first if for some reason you haven't already), has been the 10-track live Paris-Soweto. Recorded entirely in England and mostly in London, which gives Simon Nkabinde a chance to utilize the spoken English any Black South African knows enough to get a handle on, this belated 15-track sampler includes only six Paris-Soweto songs, and comes across somewhat sharper not just sonically but performance-wise--there's thumping and soaring, discipline and byplay, a whistle here and a saxophone there, queens adding byplay as well as support, and liner notes so encyclopedic they cry out for a magnifying glass. The epochal how-low-can-you-go groaner died at 61 in 1999. But he remains an artist to to be marveled at and a spiritual force to help you do so. A