Albert Mazibuko knows a thing or two about music's healing power. He's been a member of Ladysmith Black Mambazo since 1969, longer than anyone else in the 10-man group except for founder Joseph Shabalala. Over nearly four decades, the group's gracefully weathered tragedy, triumph, controversy and the fickle whims of fame. Through it all, they have maintained an unflinching optimism.

“On [our] new album, Raise Your Spirit Higher , we say that we should stay above our problems,” he says via phone. “We don't allow our problems to bring us down.”

The group's distinctive style, known as isicathamiya, blends Zulu tradition with Christian spirituality. The deeply-stacked harmonies and gently insistent rhythms that grew out of the mining camps of South Africa have become instantly identifiable, thanks to Ladysmith's tireless touring and recording.

“It's a lot of traveling,” says Mazibuko. “But the music itself gives us a lot of energy.”

Shabalala formed the group in the early '60s in his hometown of Ladysmith. The fledgling group soon began to win so many isicathamiya competitions that they were barred from competing and could only attend as entertainers. Mazibuko joined the group in 1969.

“The rest joined in '75 and '76,” he says, “and Joseph's sons joined us in 1993 and 1998. The thing with the older members is sometimes they get tired, and they retire. But what is good about the different range in the group is that it gives a new energy each time. With a new member, they bring a quality that we didn't have, so they are always pushing us forward. Especially when Joseph's sons joined us. They were so powerful and enthusiastic and had a lot of energy because they are still young. We bring our wisdom and they bring the ideas and energy, and we put them together and it's very, very wonderful.”

Raise Your Spirit Higher is the group's first release of new material since 1997's Heavenly. One reason for the hiatus was the 2002 murder of Nellie Shabalala, Joseph's wife. It's not the first time the group has been affected by violence. Joseph's brother Headman was shot to death by a white security guard in 1991 in the waning days of apartheid.

“It was very hard, but the thing that helped us was that music brings a power in you that you didn't know you had,” says Mazibuko. “We sang a song at [Headman's] funeral. It was a new song that we had just recorded. He died two months after the recording. The song says, ‘We have conquered the devil.' When we sang the song, we were so moved. We discovered that music is something that we have to carry on, because if it dies in us, we are not going to live. It's something that sustains us and encourages us. When Nellie was murdered, at her funeral we sang the same song. It showed how music can make you strong.”

That strength is being passed on to a new generation of singers. On Raise Your Spirit Higher, Shabalala's teenage grandsons Gagamela and Babuyile sing “Tribute,” a short hip-hop track that encourages their grandfather to carry on in the face tragedy.

“They may be joining us on other recordings,” says Mazibuko. “But they are in school at the moment. They sing and dance in the Zulu style, but you know the influence of hip-hop on the young people. They watch TV all the time, and that's what they turn to. That's how they express themselves.”

The soft-spoken Mazibuko talks calmly but passionately about the role Ladysmith played in the fall of apartheid.

“I was so glad that I experienced the process,” he says. “It was like living in three different worlds — when there was apartheid, when change was beginning to take place, and then until freedom. Before, we had to be very careful about what we were singing. Fortunately, we were singing in our own language. The people who were not Zulu speakers, who spoke English and Afrikaans, could not understand us, so we could be very direct in encouraging people to fight for their freedom.”

But Mazibuko insists that the group's music was more a call for unity than a call to arms.

“Our mission was a little different, but it had a big effect on politicians and the people fighting for freedom,” he says. “Our mission was to encourage black people to unite and give them hope in whatever they wanted to achieve. They had to come together and listen to one another. Our music was more to encourage than to provoke people, which was very helpful to the people who had been exiled. When they came home, most of those I met said that they were using our music in the camps. Even those who were in jail, when they had a chance to listen to music, were playing our music because it gave them hope.”

The spirit of harmony and grace that imbues Ladysmith Black Mambazo's music grows out of the merging of Zulu and Christian elements in their lives.

“We have something that we say in Zulu — if a person comes to you for forgiveness, you have to forgive them,” Mazibuko says. “In Christianity, they don't have to come to you, you just forgive. You don't forget, but you forgive. Through prayer and singing, it's possible."