LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO

2024 Tour Dates Announced...USA & Canada Here We Come!!!

Check out our SHOWS page for more information

Available now "Songs From Lindiwe" plus "Live from London 2000" bundled together as one download. This classic concert recording features founding member Joseph Shabalala and many of LBM's famous songs such as "Hello My Baby", "Long Walk To Freedom", "Homeless" and many more . This bundle is only available here exclusively for our fans. Please visit our store page for samples and download info.

Hello to all of our Friends. 
We hope everyone is safe & staying healthy. We hope you are following the new ways to stay healthy. We certainly are. Lots of news to share as well as lots of Thank You's for many people who helped us during the final week of our recent USA tour as shows began to cancel & our travel arrangements became difficult. 

Our concerts in April for Belgium & Netherlands have been postponed until 2021. Our concerts in the UK & Ireland for June have been postponed until 2021 as well. We hope we will return to the USA for concerts in late July & August. 

The final week of our recent USA tour was certainly part scary, part strange, but filled with so much love & support. 
On March 11 we arrived in Cincinnati Ohio for a sold out concert at Memorial Hall. About 4 hrs before the show, the city Mayor announced all large gatherings had to be canceled, so the show that evening was suddenly not happening. However our concert presenter Josh Steele & all his staff were so helpful & supportive to us. It was a strange moment...a sold out show being suddenly canceled & the new reality was becoming very real. Thanks to Josh & the staff at Memorial Hall who were so wonderful to us. They've already re-scheduled our concert to August 1 this year. We are really looking forward to coming back to Cincinnati & singing for our friends. 

When we left Cincinnati we were still able to perform some concerts however several shows had to be postponed...our concert in Buffalo (re-scheduled for August), our two concerts at the Barns of Wolf Trap in Vienna Virginia as well as our concert in Santa Barbara California (re-scheduled for August 11, 2020). 

Our concert in Los Angeles at UCLA on March 19 went on but under very strange conditions. The concert presenter there could have simply canceled the concert but they wanted to support us. Since our other concerts had canceled they had us arrive there earlier than scheduled & we did the concert on March 16. They also decided to do our concert with no audience but they filmed it so they could share our performance with the people who planned to be at the show!! We want to give out HUGE Thank You's to Kristy Edmunds, Fred Frumberg, Zarina Rico & all the other people at CAP Performances at UCLA who gave us sooo much support. They had us staying at a wonderful hotel on campus & made sure we had food & were safe during our time in Los Angeles. We can't thank them all enough for their support to us. We greatly look forward to returning to UCLA to sing for all the wonderful people who couldn't be at our concert. 

So we are now home with our families, being careful to make certain we are all healthy. Everyone is doing well. Again, we hope all of you are staying safe. This will pass, 
we all know. With love & support, everyone will make it through these awful times. This is when we all need to be the best we can be. Share your love! We will see you soon!

WE ARE POSTPONING OUR CONCERTS THIS WEEK TO ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF OUR FOUNDER, JOSEPH SHABALALA.  

Our shows Feb 20 in Los Angeles, Feb 21 in Santa Barbara & all shows in Berkeley Feb 22 & 23 are being changed to later dates. We are flying to South Africa Wednesday Feb 19 & will return to USA Feb 24. All concerts from then on will be as planned. The Los Angeles show will now be March 19, Santa Barbara is March 20 & Berkeley will be in August. We sincerely apologize for these changes. Thank you all for your continued support & beautiful uplifting messages.  
You truly keep us going. 

Please keep checking back for further updates.

JOHANNESBURG - South Africans across the country will get an opportunity to celebrate the life of the late Joseph Shabalala this week. 

The Ladysmith Black Mambazo founder died on Tuesday at the age of 78. 

A memorial service will be held on Tuesday 18 February at the Ladysmith Indoor Sports Centre from 11am. 

READ: Ladysmith Black Mambazo founder Joseph Shabalala dies 

Durban fans will get a chance to pay their respects the following day, Wednesday, from 1pm. 

Johannesburg fans and artists will hold their service on Thursday. 

The official funeral service will be held on Saturday 22 February at the AG Magubane Stadium in Ladysmith.

WE ARE POSTPONING OUR CONCERTS THIS WEEK TO ATTEND THE FUNERAL OF OUR FOUNDER, JOSEPH SHABALALA. 

Our shows Feb 20 in Los Angeles, Feb 21 in Santa Barbara & all shows in Berkeley Feb 22 & 23 are being changed to later dates. We are flying to South Africa Wednesday Feb 19 & will return to USA Feb 24. All concerts from then on will be as planned. The Los Angeles show will now be March 19, Santa Barbara is March 20 & Berkeley will be in August. We sincerely apologize for these changes. Thank you all for your continued support & beautiful uplifting messages. 
You truly keep us going.

Please keep checking back for further updates.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a Special Official Funeral Category 2 in honour of Mr Joseph Shabalala, the late founder of choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo. 

Mr. Shabalala, aged 78, passed away on 11 February 2020 following extended illness. 

The Special Official Funeral Category 2 entails ceremonial elements provided by the South African Police Service. The funeral will take place on Saturday, 22 February 2020. 

President Ramaphosa has ordered that the National Flag be flown at half-mast at every flag station in the country until the evening of 22 February 2020. Regulations require that no other flags should be displayed when the National Flag is flown at half-mast. 

President Ramaphosa has reiterated his sincerest condolences to the Shabalala family, members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and members of the arts and culture fraternities in South Africa and globally with whom Ladysmith Black Mambazo has collaborated for the better part of six decades. 

In 2008, this world-renowned and widely awarded  choral group received the National Order of Ikhamanga for putting South African cultural life on the world map through contributing to the field of South African indigenous music.

South African government pays tribute to singer whose group gained worldwide fame after collaborating for Paul Simon’s Graceland 

Joseph Shabalala, the bandleader who brought the South African vocal harmony group Ladysmith Black Mambazo to global success, has died aged 78.  

Shabalala died in hospital in Pretoria and the news was confirmed by the group’s manager, Xolani Majozi. No cause of death has been announced.  

“Our Founder, our Teacher and most importantly, our Father left us today for eternal peace,” the choir said on social media. “We celebrate and honour your kind heart and your extraordinary life. Through your music and the millions who you came in contact with, you shall live forever.” South African president Cyril Ramaphosa called him a “veteran choral maestro”.  

Shabalala started singing as a teenager with the groups Durban Choir and the Highlanders, before forming Ezimnyama in 1959. He later christened it Ladysmith Black Mambazo – Ladysmith for his hometown, Black for the local livestock, and Mambazo, the Zulu word for axe, as a metaphor for the group’s sharpness.  

Their exquisitely harmonised a cappella songs in Zulu became hugely popular in South Africa after the release of their debut album in 1973. The group’s members would go on to convert to Christianity and bring religious music into their repertoire. 

They came to global attention after they collaborated with Paul Simon on his 1986 album Graceland, co-writing the song Homeless – its melody based on a Zulu wedding song – and singing the backing to Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes. 

Over the years, they also collaborated with Dolly Parton, Josh Groban, Emmylou Harris and more; the group appeared in the Michael Jackson film Moonwalker. In 1993, they accompanied Nelson Mandelato his Nobel peace prize ceremony in Oslo. Their theme for England’s 1995 Rugby World Cup campaign, a version of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, reached No 15 in the UK singles charts, and a 1998 best-of compilation album reached No 2.  

Shabalala retired from Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 2014; four of his sons perform in the current lineup. The group have been nominated for 17 Grammy awards, winning 5, most recently for best world music album in 2017. 

In 2002, Shabalala’s wife, Nellie, a church pastor who had her own group, Women of Mambazo, was shot and killed in Durban. Joseph was injured in the attack as he pursued the gunman. Mboneni Mdunge was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.  

The South African government shared its condolences to his family and paid tribute to him on Twitter, writing in Xhosa: “Ulale ngoxolo Tata ugqatso lwakho ulufezile” – “Rest in peace, father, your race is complete”. Former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba said Shabalala “will be remembered as a giant of South African music and a pioneer of the industry”.  

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party said in a statement that the group’s “music spoke to the social realities of black cultural norms and traditions, and was able to bring to light the social conditions of black South Africans”.