By Barrett Holman Leak
SAN DIEGO — One of my all-time favorite albums is Talking Heads’ 1980 “Remain in Light.” It was not only best-selling but it was powerful. It was catchy. It forced your feet to dance. The melodies, the beat, were infectious and I later got the same vibe from Paul Simon’s 1987 album “Graceland” where he was joined by South African musicians such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
Then a few years later (West African) Beninese musician Angélique Kpasseloko Hinto Hounsinou Kandjo Manta Zogbin Kidjo, (known as Angélique Kidjo) did an entire cover, song for song of “Remain in Light” and the beat popped out of it in full clarity. That beat was what I heard Saturday night, June 22, from South African musician Sharon Katz and Peace Train.
South African music is not subtle about the beat. It hits the beats and in rapid succession. You’ve got to dance. Sharon Katz on electric guitar, her very popular Cuban bassist Ignacio Arango, and her drummer hit all the notes and bounced to the next ones. It was funky, joyous, and rhythmically bubbling through your body. Audience members came up and sang with her. She fingered her frets with ease and playfulness, taking us on a musical journey.
The YouTube clip above will give you a feeling for the joy that Sharon Katz and her band imparts. It’s a medley of past performances, similar in mood to the set she played Monday evening, at Bunny Chow Restaurant in the North Park neighborhood.
Taking time between sets, we chatted about her beginnings and the 30-year trek she has been on with Peace Train. Her story starts in The Holocaust. Members of her family were murdered in The Holocaust and others fled to South Africa. Her parents continued to help other family members flee the extermination but very much in secret.
She was a quiet little girl in an unassuming Jewish family in South Africa. Little did anyone know she would grow up to make Afropop music that helped Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.
Born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, during the apartheid era, Katz spent her teenage years defying the apartheid laws by sneaking into Black townships near her home to visit activists, musicians and actors — like her friend John Kani, who is a Tony Award winning actor and musician famous for roles in films such as the blockbuster Black Panther. In these secret visits, she also met the renowned playwright Athol Fugard, as a teenager.
She learned from these secret hangouts to play the resilient music of freedom: After earning a Master’s Degree in Music Therapy from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she began working in schools, prisons and mental health programs of Philadelphia. Then she returned to her South African homeland in 1992 just as the country was transitioning from apartheid to the new democracy under the leadership of Nelson Mandela.
Katz took the indestructible beat of Soweto and created a 500-voice multicultural choir to perform and spread a message of unity in the country. The choir performed for Nelson Mandela and rode throughout South Africa with 150 singers and musicians on a train they called, “The Peace Train,” living together and performing Katz’s original musical production to help prepare the country for peaceful elections.
Since 1993, Katz has continued spreading a message of reconciliation and peace around the globe through various cultural collaborations, performances, residencies, seminars, workshops. She has made music with Miriam Makeba, Bonnie Raitt and many others.
The South African restaurant Bunny Chow is located on El Cajon Boulevard, nestled between Cafe Madeleine and Medina restaurants. Brightly and warmly colored in earthy oranges, red, browns and yellows, it makes you feel you are in South Africa, The menu is ample and the selections fit for vegetarians and omnivores. It was a hot evening and the place was filled to capacity inside with people overflowing onto the patio. Katz and her band played and invited us to the dance floor. Her first set began with “We Can Be The Change,” one of her most popular anthems. Her second set, after our interview, was an eponymous tribute to Nelson Mandela, titled “Mandela”.
Her goal is to bring people together through her music and inspire them to change the world for the better, because her #1 Jewish value is tikkun olam – repairing the world.
Having lived with her wife in Tijuana, Mexico, and currently in San Diego, Katz is a four-time awardee of the San Diego Foundation for her global peace work, including doing music therapy with victims of torture.
You can read more about Sharon Katz and what she is doing on her website
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Barrett Holman Leak is an author, educator and community organizer.