Johnny Clegg is a white South African who got into the fusion of African and Western music at a time in his country's history when it was difficult, if not dangerous, for blacks and whites to mix and cooperate in many ways, including artistic endeavours. He mixed western music styles and instuments with traditional (mainly Zulu) music and instruments. He wrote contempory songs with english and zulu lyrics (often mixed in the same song) and adapted traditional folk music to western styles. He has had 2 groups over the years, the first, Juluka, was not very well represented online untill a lot of albums were added to
Emusic's catalogue. His second group, Savuka has a few albums on MM/Sparks and I would recommend listening to the collection of their best known material on the album entitled 'In My African Dream' particularly tracks 1,2,10 and 16. There is also a CD floating around called 'Anthology' with the best of both groups that I highly recommend if you come accross it. Another great song is 'Impi' - not on sparks but available on
MP3sale.ru.
I am also a fan of groups like Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
If anyone has any recommends for this type of music, I would be glad to hear 'em
squash