Back to Soweto

Umsakazo Records is a UK-based label making a mark with lovingly reissued vintage township jive and mbaqanga from the likes of Makgona Tsohle Band, Mahotella Queens and Irene Mawela. Into this heritage mix comes newcomer Lucas Nwananga, who hails not from Soweto (where guitar jive emerged in the 60s) but Yorkshire – and who recorded the eight tracks on his debut at home during lockdown. It might seem an unlikely combination – a northern English-born musician taking on a historic and politically significant South African sound – but Nwananga has absorbed his forebearers with ease and grace.

In truth, there's no band in Lucas Nwananga & His Band. Nwananga plays all instruments on the record (lead and rhythm guitar, bass, brushed snare, melodica), channelling the spirit of the likes of Marks Mankwane and West Nkosi with restrained passion and all the care shown by his label to the reissues on their release roster. What shines through most brightly – on everything from the love song ‘Bakhala Ngawe Ntombi’ to the kinetic ‘Zwavhudi’ – is a sense of unbridled joy that echoes both the boiled-down essence of township jive and Nwananga's enduring feeling for the genre that he discovered in his younger years.