Pianist and composer Sibusiso Mash Mashiloane is known to be both a virtuoso player and conductor with his live performances being the drawing card that has garnered his audiences across the world. On Friday 15 January he is releasing his 5th album titled ‘iHubo Labomdabu’, a solo piano album featuring music composed during the lockdown period.
“This album is informed by an imagination of my personal life experiences, political climate, and imposed life. We can infer that the music tells of social awareness and interprets our daily life as it has changed. I hope my album offers introspection, peace and love.” says Mashiloane.
The 11-track album starts at a fast pace; however, the pulses change throughout the project as it takes the listener into an imaginative journey. This solo piano album sounds meditative, like a prayer. It leaves headspace for the listener to decipher and interpret the music in their way.
Mashiloane, now synonymous with the South African Jazz scene and music stages across the globe, has produced four earlier albums that have since reached critical acclaim. He is a multi-award winning and nominated artist at prestigious ceremonies and events like the SAMAs, the AFRIMA awards and the International Urban Music Awards. At present, he is studying towards a PhD which befittingly aims, through the lens of South African Jazz, to focus on the nostalgia-seeped themes of home that Mashiloane can’t help but find himself instinctively returning to.
Mashiloane’s personal yet expansive exploration extend as deep into the roots to the highest treetop branches of vast knowledge systems that stretch far and wide. His music is steeped in rich, indigenous history and scholarship that doesn’t try to erase the West’s influences in shaping how we see ourselves and our individual and collective relationship to music.
“I have an aspirational view in raising awareness about the value of our works as Africans,” Mashiloane maintains, “and I aim to be one of the influences in a new generation of musicians, music collectors and live music audiences who will pride themselves about their African heritage.”