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Sample Track 1:
"Wenyukela" from Raise Your Spirit Higher -- Wenyukela
Sample Track 2:
"Wenza Ngani?" from Raise Your Spirit Higher -- Wenyukela
Sample Track 3:
"Music Knows No Boundaries" from Raise Your Spirit Higher -- Wenyukela
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Raise Your Spirit Higher -- Wenyukela
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Layer 2
CD Review
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Morning Call (Allentown, PA), CD Review >>

AFRO-POP Faith in action can be an awesome thing. Just look at Joseph Shabalala. Not even two years after his wife of 30 years was murdered by an unknown gunman, Shabalala and his troupe of singers known as Ladysmith Black Mambazo are back at it, singing of their South African homeland, people and Christian faith. "Raise Your Spirit Higher" is much in the same vein as previous Ladysmith discs, sung mostly in Zulu in the gentle, call-and-response "isicathamiya" tradition. (Think of "Homeless" from Paul Simon's "Graceland" disc.) Without musical accompaniment, "Raise Your Spirit Higher" can be repetitious, and the messages in English ("Don't drink and drive" and "Because I love you" they repeat, over and over) are positively innocent. But in an age polluted by the likes of Janet and Justin, Ladysmith Black Mambazo's message of brotherhood is as welcome as it is uplifting.

Tim Darragh
 02/07/04
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