"Sometimes it is hard to believe it has been 10 years already," muses Joseph Shabalala on the fall of apartheid. "[For years] it seemed something very far, and then it happened like quick!

"We were born in that thing. Our parents told us don't make noise or we'll be in chains. We were children, we didn't understand so we questioned it. "Did they buy this land?' and the parents said, "No they didn't buy it, but they own it.'" Public toilets and restaurants for whites only were the rule of the day when Shabalala was growing up, and the kids were taught that breaking the rules would be dealt with severely. It's hard to believe that a sound as sweet as Ladysmith Black Mambazo's could sprout up in such harsh territory.

It flourished. Ladysmith Black Mambazo is without a doubt the best-known group from South Africa. The voices of its 10 members blend so perfectly, their intonation and delivery so precise, the sound seems to be produced by some otherworldly instrument.

The group first caught the world's ear with their rich backing vocals on Paul Simon's Graceland album in the mid-'80s. It was the break LBM needed. Despite the fact that most lyrics were in Zulu, the message was clear. Could men who sang so celestially, danced with such delicacy, inspire anything but admiration? They beamed with goodwill and their art was a loud cry against apartheid. Yet they went almost another 10 years -- lionized outside South Africa and deprived inside -- before apartheid fell.

Philadelphia's adopted daughter, South African-born singer, songwriter and bandleader Sharon Katz, recalls the times building up to the great day. "All the members of LBM rode on the original Peace Train Tour with us in December 1993. In our concerts along that tour, they actually sang backup vocals for me as well as performed some of their own songs at each show. It was wonderful! We all lived on the train together and worked together to promote a multicultural vision of what the New South Africa could be -- and finally did become -- four months after the Peace Train Tour."

After the abolition of apartheid it was hard to grasp it was finally over. "Mandela gave us a beautiful speech when we were doing those big shows for the AIDS," says Shabalala. "Artists from all over joined us on stage. Looking out at the big crowds who came to those shows you could actually begin to believe it happened."

"Now you can see vividly that it is freedom. You can do whatever you want to do, no prohibitions. We can stay wherever we can afford."

South Africa still has a long way to go, though. "Other people who say "Where is freedom?' they are without a job. The economy is a huge problem." Never ones to ignore a challenge, LBM has launched the Mambazo Foundation for South African Music and Culture, an organization dedicated to teaching South African children the proud history they were denied by apartheid.

"The foundation is working very hard, raising money, sending clothes, books, computers, to be distributed not just in Derban or Ladysmith -- all over the country," reports Shabalala. "We hope to build schools to teach tradition."

Over the years of leading LBM, Shabalala has watched the tide shift. First the other groups resented his reshaping of the traditional sound. Now they admire it and his success and his determination to see a vision through to completion. Plus, he says, "The old people are very happy, because the roots are earning respect."

In LBM's early years, young people weren't interested in Zulu. Now Shabalala happily says, "When my sons started joining me [musically] it caught the kids' attention." Now the younger generation is learning to embrace Zulu as well as English.

Shabalala is still learning, too. The new CD, Raise Your Spirit Higher (Heads Up), is mostly traditional isicathamiya (is-cot-a-ME-Ya) singing with his personal stamp upon it. But one cut features his grandchildren in a rap. "Tribute" was written in memory of Nellie Shabalala, murdered in 2002. Shabalala says that the loss of his partner of 30 years tested him, but finally brought him to the CD's theme: The only way to survive adversity is to resist it with renewed spirit.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo plays Feb. 28, 8 p.m., $29.50, Keswick Theatre, Easton Rd. and Keswick Ave., Glenside, 215-572-7650.