A Conversation with Abel Selaocoe

Abel Selaocoe’s debut Where is Home / Hae K Kae (2022), a fusion of Western classical and traditional South African music, was an immediate success that firmly established Selaocoe as a major talent. On its follow-up, this year’s Hymns of Bantu, he tells us that he’s returning “to the home source” to find healing and joy in music that has complex, often painful, histories.

Born in 1992, Abel grew up in Sebokeng, a township south of Johannesburg in South Africa. He began learning cello with his brother at ACOSA (African Cultural Organisation of South Africa), a school founded by violinist and teacher Michael Masote. An idol for Abel, Masote was a formidable figure in the struggle against the apartheid regime’s efforts to co-opt art as a ‘whites only’ endeavour. He founded the first Black youth orchestra, now known as the Soweto Symphony Orchestra, which led to the formation of the acclaimed Soweto String Quartet. “I think of him as the Black godfather of classical music in South Africa”, Abel has said. “He was instrumental in influencing township people to explore art beyond our own culture.” Masote’s son, Kutlwano, was Abel’s first cello teacher.

After a rapid uptake of the instrument and its repertoire under the care of the Masotes, Abel won a music scholarship to Johannesburg’s prestigious private school, St John’s. Here, he honed his classical playing with an abundance of resources. Following school, he won a second scholarship, this time to study at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music. While continuing his classical cello studies in the UK, he reached out to musicians with influences beyond that canon. In a 2023 Songlines interview, he explained, “It’s like Olympian levels of training to be able to play some of the pieces we’re required to play [in classical training]. But in the focus of that, I think some of the essence of spirit has been lost. You don’t get asked at music college, ‘OK… who are you, and what are you going to share, and then I’ll find the tools for you to do that…’” Luckily, Abel met with the likes of the Manchester Collective, a classically-trained group with a similar urge to explore music outside of the Western standards. It was around this time that Abel co-founded Chesaba (a trio with Malian percussionist/djembé player Sidiki Dembélé and Irish bassist Alan Keary) and the Bantu Ensemble (with Keary, pianist Fred Thomas and percussionist Dudù Kouaté).

Since graduating from RNCM in July 2018, Abel’s work has gone from strength to strength. Where is Home / Hae Ke Kae captured the charm and joy of his live performances on record. Since its release, he has toured the world almost non-stop. Invariably, audiences have fallen in love with his shows, marked by Abel’s insistence on audience participation and the palpable connection between himself and his fellow musicians.

While Where is Home / Hae Ke Kae saw Abel search for somewhere to land, his new album, Hymns of Bantu, is a work in praise of his history, identity and that hybrid, self-created landing place. It’s “taking what once hurt and turning it around, since when I listen to South African hymnal music, it doesn’t ring of colonial hurt. It just rings of healing. Everything is in the process of healing and even if we don’t realise where this music came from, we make it our own and create something new that sustains everybody. I would like people to feel when they listen to Hymns of Bantu that there’s a fabric that binds all people together.” It’s devastatingly powerful, even more laced with South African motifs – from the Sotho, Tswana, Xhosa and Zulu songs and styles Abel grew up around – than Where is Home / Hae Ke Kae. Abel’s cello and voice take the lead, with the support of the Manchester Collective and other longtime collaborators. His voice moves from a soft lullaby on opener ‘Tsohle Tsohle’ (Everything, Everything) before building into the clicks, shouts and soaring chorus of the distinctly South African ‘Emmanuele’ (a hymn reworked to praise working people). Abel’s love for classical music is abundantly clear, too, sewn into every song and at the forefront of a few. ‘Sollima’ is tremendous: each note is carefully considered, even in the busier sections, and perfectly folded into the whole. ‘Voices of Bantu (Improvisation on Marin Marais’ Les Voix Humaines)’ sees Abel rework a baroque piece, with gentle singing over the cello. He moves back toward the sounds of ‘Tsohle Tsohle’ even as he keeps hold of the Marais.

Between his travels, collaborations and the launch of Hymns of Bantu, we caught up with Abel to ask him about this remarkable record and the influences and discoveries that led up to it.

How long was Hymns of Bantu in the making?

It came together very quickly. We recorded it in a matter of days, but we had different patches, so we had three or four days, and then the next session was another three days, and then the whole album was done. But in terms of the music itself, some of the tunes are so old. ‘Tsohle Tsohle’, the first tune, is a classic in South Africa of hymnal tunes, church tunes. So some of those have just been ruminating in my life, in my heart, for a very long time. I’d probably say it took a few years to write some of the songs, because then I performed them on the road… But the recording process happened so quickly.

Did you feel some pressure putting it together after the success of Where is Home / Hae Ke Kae?

I had to take a different attitude because apparently there’s a whole second album panic… I don’t know what that is. But I decided that I would find a really meaningful topic and go for it. If you have a real urge to say something important, it doesn’t matter what you’ve said before. I think Where Is Home / Hae Ke Kae was a thing of its moment. And with Hymns of Bantu, I wanted to celebrate all the people at home who really influenced me. So, a kind of communal music-making, and hymnal music-making. A lot of South Africans from the township who speak my language, Sotho or Tswana, will recognise this music as one of their own, which is exciting.

You’re leaning more into the South African sound on this record. Was that intentional?

The reason is simply because I was going to the home source and going, “I’m going to use this tune that we’ve been singing since before I was born.” But also, it was really important to put myself in it. I’ve always said to many people, I’m a contemporary of my own influences. So, the things that affect me, improvisational worlds, spiritual jazz music, spiritual music of folk origin from different countries, all come into play, but very unconsciously, you know. I try to mix different places, but I take a very compositional role and then it turns into something that has my fabric.

How formative were hymns for you in your musical development and growing up?
Hymns are huge. Hymns are the first thing you sing when you’re in trouble at home. It’s the first thing you sing when you haven’t seen somebody for a long time. They take up so much of life’s pivotal moments in South Africa. They’re a balm or a medicine for many different ailments. And you can choose which hymn is the best prescription for the illness you have. So that’s how integral hymns have been in making music or actually living my life. Beyond making music… I’ve been thinking in such a classical way, playing the cello and learning classical music. But then dealing with the things I have in my personal life, I go to the library of hymns and go, “Where’s the answer here?”

Your solo work still sounds collaborative. How does the process of writing and arranging work for you in a solo project?

I often write things on my own, and this time around, I wrote a lot of the music on my own, but then I worked with my producer, Fred Thomas, and he was brilliant, because we had to write for a whole string orchestra where you have to be open to change and be okay with that. And I’m not one to hold onto ideas when new ones come. Even if it’s brought up by other people, because I think the whole point of Hymns of Bantu was also to bring musicians that had their own flavour, not necessarily just session musicians who do what I say, but [musicians] who would take what they see on paper, or what I teach them orally, and make it their own. That also happens in the percussion section. I mean, the percussionists in that group [Sidiki Dembélé and Dudù Kouaté] are incredible, and I just go, “You go!”

‘Dinaka’ is a very percussive instrumental and feels improvised. How did that one come about?

It was a one-hit-wonder. We improvised the whole thing and listened back and went, “We should leave it there…” The idea of ‘Dinaka’ came from this kind of music from the Pedi people in South Africa. And it’s some of their cultural music where they use two-tone drums. So, one drum is a tone higher, and the other is lower. So, just playing a rhythm between those two drums and then everything around is improvised. That’s what we tried to do. We have a very simple set rhythm, but everything else was fair game. Fred Thomas played prepared piano on that. And Dudù Kouaté was playing buckets, buckets without water in them, tools that we use in everyday life.

What is the story behind ‘Tshepo I’ and ‘II’?

Another integral part of the album is about universal truths, things that relate to everybody. I have this hunch that everybody in the world needs some sort of prayer some way, somehow. It’s not to do with religion, but it has to do with a human [instinct] – tshepo means faith in Sesotho, and faith is something that I don’t attach to religion or scripture, but to a human instinct. To understand that you are not in control of yesterday or tomorrow, you have to have faith that it all unfolds in your favour or in blessings of you. And I think that’s something that nobody can buy. You can’t buy tomorrow. So, it’s a celebration of that. Every time you have a problem, exercising faith doesn’t mean it necessarily changes things, but it’s a human survival instinct that soothes you as well.

How did you first discover Marais’ ‘Les Voix Humaines’ and start playing around with it?

I’m always looking at other iterations of the cello. I look at African violins, Tanzanian violins or West African violins. But I also look on the other side; I look at viola da gamba, and this piece is written for viola da gamba. I’m always trying to get inspired by the brothers and sisters of the instrument. So, that’s how I found it. And then I started to imagine if Marin Marais wrote this in the [1700s], what was happening at the same time in South Africa? Who was writing music at that time? What kind of music would it have been? And then I was like, how do I put those two together? How do I praise the ancestors of both worlds? That’s what the lyrics speak about, that, even though so far away, the worlds seem connected.

You’ve said this is an album of healing rather than hurt regarding South Africa’s colonial history. Was there a point when you used music to process hurt?

I wouldn’t even call it hurt; I would call it understanding what to do. We are all in the world still trying to figure out [how to] live in peace with each other. Our cultures are much more connected than ever, much more visible to each other. We’re influencing each other way more than before because we’re connected through the internet and live next to each other. I live next to a Muslim family. I live close to a Caribbean place where I eat food all the time. The influences are forever there and [we’re] just trying to understand how we can all live in one space. And also understand how we’re influencing each other. That’s for me what was important in [thinking]: what did colonialism do? What are the effects of it, and how do I call myself African if I have the throat singing but still have four-part harmony? Those two things are from the same place but have been affected by different situations.

I also think that, for instance, me playing cello and playing African music is not a formal collaboration between the two worlds; it’s something that is intertwined with how I’ve grown up. I did both things as a child, and I began to relate them, instead of learning one much later in my life and then trying to put it into the other.

You talk about Michael Masote in your press release. I’m sorry to read that he passed away in 2017. What role did he play in your community and in your life?

When I was a young boy looking up at him, he told the entire story of how and what I’m becoming by being himself. He was such an amazing musician, an amazing violinist, but also, sometimes we’d [perform] The Crucifixion and the Messiah, and he’d be singing some of the baritone parts. I’d be like, “wow!”. He wrote all of the libretto, the sung bits of the Messiah, [into ten] official languages in South Africa. And that’s so boundary-breaking and so daring. He made it very natural to understand that connecting with other cultures isn’t unnatural. It’s just about finding the way to do it. He was the king of versatility and open-mindedness, but also respectful to the bits that made him.

I read a story about him learning to conduct. He paid the janitor at Johannesburg’s city hall to borrow his coat. Wearing this and pretending to sweep the floors, Masote watched the National Symphony Orchestra’s rehearsals and studied the conductor’s movements. He sounds inspirational.

I miss him very much. There are so many stories because he grew up in a very different time, of apartheid, and he’s the most wonderfully rebellious human who stands for freedom and the human spirit. He’s just the perfect example of this human force. [It’s] amazing to think about that, somebody who’s been influenced by so many different things and had to rebel to learn an art that was said not to be theirs. But to use that whole idea and look down the line of how many people he’s affected, including myself, doing very different things: The Soweto String Quartet, other people playing classical music in such a different and honest way. I’m so happy for his existence.

Another of your influences is your brother. You learned cello with him, and he helped put together your audition when you applied to St. John’s. When you return home, do you play together, or has it changed now that it’s become your career?

Music often serves a human function rather than playing it for the sake of playing it. So often when I see him, we’ll play once, and he might not even play bassoon, but he’ll play bass or something, and we’ll sing together, but, you know, we tend to live life more than play together. But it’s a very interesting question because he’s still influencing how I think. Again, he was one of those people who, taking inspiration from Michael Masote, decided that he would bring all township bands together in the township who didn’t know how to read music. He taught them how to read music and began writing a lot of hymnal music for them. Those things influenced how I came back to the UK and put together my groups and who I wanted to work with.

You haven’t performed much in South Africa. What’s the connection to your music like at home?

I yearn very much to take my music home. It’s about finding the right moment, but it’s also, on a personal level, figuring out how I fit in when I’m back home. There’s so much to negotiate in terms of the cello being a classical instrument and crossing the border into other music, be it improvisation and jazz or African music. And somehow, that line is so much easier to tread across the world than in South Africa. But it’s opening up, and I’m really looking forward to going home and just playing for the sake of playing. I haven’t done it enough – I need to go back.

Lastly, have you considered how you will be touring Hymns of Bantu?

The live experience is often very different from a recording experience. We will be playing the launch at London’s Troxy on March 26, and I have to think about how that comes across to a live audience. It is exciting to always be able to create without trying to stay the same as the recording. I think melodies can stay the same, but the arrangements and music should have a life of their own in different places.