Guiding Star

Guiding Star Review

One of the hardest things to learn as a musician is not only to recognize inspiration, but when to trust and follow it. Over a musically and so-cially consequential career, South African singer-songwriter and poet-activist Vusi Mahlasela has successfully followed his muse. That trust in his gift is at the root of his latest album, Guiding Star. Mahlasela wrote and recorded this album as he toured the globe. Bearing the influences of various music and voices from throughout the world, Guiding Star features guest appearances from Dave Matthews (Sower of Words), band leader and Allman Brothers guitarist Derek Trucks (Tib-idi Waka), Australian didgeridoo star Xavier Rudd (Chamber of Justice), singer-songwriter Jem (Everytime) and longtime friends and touring mates Ladysmith Black Mambazo (Heaven In My Heart"). Mahlasela also drew on the talents of numerous South African guests, including the leg-endary Black Moses Ngwenya of the Soul Brothers, the children's choir from the Agnes Chidi School in his home Township, Mamelodi, and the KCC Gospel, among many others. Born Vusi Sidney Mahlasela Ka Zwane in 1965 in Lady Selborne, South Africa, Mahlasela became enchanted by music at an early age, building his first guitar out of tin and fishing line. Reared in Mamelodi Township, a vibrant artist community where he still resides, he gravitated toward poetry and songwriting as a teen, eventually joining youth organizations protesting South Africa's separatist, white government. After the end of Apartheid, Vusi performed at Nelson Mandela's inaugura-tion in 1994, and is now an ambassador to Mandela's 46664 Foundation, a campaign to help raise Global awareness of Aids/ HIV. Having released a string of albums in South Africa, it wasn't until the debut in 2003 of the documentary film Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony, a film that charts South Africans' longtime struggle for racial equality, that Americans first glimpsed and heard Mahlasela. Later that year, Ameri-cans did, with The Voice, a collection of the best songs from his catalog, all released for the first time in U.S. via the ATO Records label (co-owned by longtime fan and fellow South African Dave Matthews, who calls Mahlasela one of the most important influences of my life.).A single listen to Guiding Star, is all one needs to be assured that Mahlasela is a gifted performer. And with that gift comes responsibility, says Vusi: I know that I have something that is like a borrowed fire from God. And I have to use it in a very positive way.