The song was “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),’’ which saturated world airwaves during the Cup. Not atrociously corny as sports anthems go, it was credited to Shakira featuring Freshlyground; and with its almost suspiciously perfect multiracial lineup, the Cape Town band offered a better image of harmonious post-apartheid South Africa than any tourism board advertisement could.
But if the World Cup effect may have helped raise Freshlyground’s profile and spur its current 17-date North American tour — which visits the Brighton Music Hall on Monday — “Radio Africa,’’ the band’s fourth and musically richest album to date, goes well beyond mass-market pop fare.
With members from South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, the band draws on instruments, language, and rhythms from all three countries. The winsome frontwoman Zolani Mahola sings in Xhosa and English. Simon Attwell, a white Zimbabwean, plays flute, kalimba, and the mbira or “thumb piano.’’ Julio Sigauque, from Mozambique, can unleash vicious Central African dancefloor guitar grooves.
Songs address lovers and parents, but also take on South Africa’s current scourges of unemployment, corruption, and crime.
“I had your baby in silence/ I never thought about the violence,’’ Mahola sings on one sorrowful, spare track that evokes love, abandonment, and maybe abuse. “Big Man’’ calls out politicians who have succumbed to materialism and corruption.