Joyous Celebration: South Africa's Gospel Legacy

The Joyous Celebration is a gospel choir group that is based in South Africa and it traces its roots back to 1994 when it was formed simply as a one-time studio project to celebrate the country's first democratic elections, which saw the late Icon Nelson Mandela elected as the country's first Black President after gaining independence in the same year. The choir, which was first envisioned by three friends 23 years ago namely; Jabu Hlongwane, Mthunzi Namba, and Lindelani Mkhize has over the years metamorphosed to become an inspirational music extravaganza and a platform for grooming South African artists. Compared to Lakewood choir and New River choir, the Joyous Celebration is much of a musical and nurturing platform than the contemporary church choirs. This is because on regular basis the choir conducts vigorous auditions to recruit new members who normally stay with the choir on an average of one to five years. However, the likes of Ntokozo Mbambo who was a singer for the choir, Nqubeko Mbatha who is a former musical director, and Msizi Mashiane who is presently serving as a guitarist have stayed with the choir for a record-breaking 11 years each. The choir has also been the launching pad for some of South Africa's greatest solo musicians who after leaving the choir went on to establish their successful solo music careers that span beyond the borders of gospel music genre. Some of the successful local acts who honed their skill on the Joyous Celebration's platform include Swazi Dlamini, Ntokozo Mbambo, Khaya Mthethwa, Brenda Mtambo, Brian Temba, Nqubeko Mbatha, and Mahalia Buchanan.

The Joyous Celebration choir is such a musical extravaganza that normally attracts the attention of corporate sponsors that include major South African media companies, financial institutions such as Old Mutual and presently it is under the sponsorship of MTN South Africa. This is also another distinctive aspect of the choir since unlike the Lakewood Choir and the New River choir, the Joyous Celebration has little to no affiliation with a specific church and hence why there is need and even an opportunity for sponsorship. The usually composition of the choir is normally 30 to 35 singers who are complemented by a 6 to 8 piece band. The singers are further divided into 10 to 13 tenor singers, 8 to 10 contralto singers, and 8 to 10 soprano singers. The efficacy of the choir group has seen it steer the South African gospel music scene to new heights and as part of its tradition, it normally launches new albums on annual basis. In addition, the choir group also undertakes tours to promote their albums in far places such as in the UK when they came to perform at our local church in the summer of 2016. As such, the Joyous Celebration appears to be more of commercially inclined choir unlike the Lakewood choir and the New River choir, whose activities are normally centered around church’s functions/activities though on regular occasions both choirs go to perform at other affiliate churches in a bid to further spread the gospel through music. The Joyous Celebration’s compositions are originals, and interpretations as well as renditions of traditional and spiritual hymns. The other key facets of Joyous Celebrations choir that makes its unique from the New River choir and Lakewood choir, is the fact that most of their compositions/ songs are in local dialects, which is mostly the Afrikaans and Ndebele languages. This is despite the fact that the English language is recognized as the official language for government and commercial purposes. This in some ways limits its audience but it is overshadowed by the fact it is able to present a unique music that is culturally entrenched.

A performance by the Joyous Celebration is a clear demonstration of the rich South African culture that is expressed through music. The cultural inclination and demonstration are far beyond what can be delivered by the New River and Lakewood choirs whose composition and instrumentation bear great similarities, which is largely a demonstration of the Western culture that has been replicated by various choirs across different countries as part of the causations of globalization. In the writings by Blevins (2006), he stated that music and in particular, the earlier gospel music sang by African Americans during the times of hardships such as slavery and segregation were purely a demonstration of their culture. Blevins (2006) further adds that the earlier music by African Americans was aimed at encouraging each other through gospel music, that despite the hardship they still believed in God and the hope of gaining complete freedom from oppression. Adelstein (2016) equally started that the earlier American folk songs were composed by the lower class members of the society largely as a means through which to encourage each other to keep striving during the hard times when there were no humanistic labor laws in practices and the modern human resource management had not being implemented. To be specific, during these hard times the low-level factory workers were subjected to deplorable working conditions with little wages. Hence, why the earlier American folk songs were celebratory in nature perhaps to enable people to ease the burden they had through ‘happy' songs. These few examples show the connection between culture and origins of a music genre of which Whitaker (2006) claims that gospel music was an original creation by slaves who used it as solace and as a comfort to their troubles.

The origins of the Joyous Celebration as stated in the earlier paragraphs of this section is also entwined with a significant period in the history and culture of South Africa, which was the rise to power of a democratically elected government led by Nelson Mandela, which was also a mark for the attainment of self-independence. The one-time studio project that led to the birth of the Joyous Celebration was meant to celebrate this new achievement in the South African history and hence why the word ‘celebration' is attached to the name of the choir, whose performance are largely a celebration of God's grace. Compared to most of the performances by New River Choir and Lakewood Choir, most songs composed by Joyous Celebration choir are normally of high tempo, which means they are energetic and evokes dancing among the audience. This is could be attributed to cultural expectations of celebrating God's grace and praise for his mercies. On the contrary, most of the songs composed by the New River choir and Lakewood are normally low pitched, thus enabling reflection and soul searching, whilst praising the Lord and showing gratitude for his mercies. The low temp songs by these two churches enable congregates to pray/ worship whilst the choir is singing and at times the lead singer can proceed to minister the Word whilst the background vocalist are singing. As for the Joyous Celebration choir, most of their performance as viewed on YouTube and even their live recordings on DVD are mostly designed for praising or celebrating the gospel. It is on very rare occasions that a singer would interject a performance in order to preach or minister the Word of God. Culture plays a critical part to the uniqueness of the Joyous Celebration, for example, the use of South African dialect instead of the globally recognized English language, which is also the official language of the country, is to enable the choir identify with the Black community in South Africa who for long had being enfranchised through the apartheid system. To be precise its earlier performances after its inception in 1994 largely targeted the community as they celebrated the ushering in of their own government, which marked the beginning of self-rule/governance. Moving forward, 23 years later, the choir has retained the use of South African dialect as a way to show its commitment to its origins, to celebrate the South African culture, and the independence of South Africa from colonialism. The use of local dialect has further enabled the choir to gain global accolades because it communicates to the rest of the World about the South African culture that is distinctively different and enriched, unlike the American and British cultures that are replicated across many parts of the World. For example, a layman watching the performance of New River Choir and the Lakewood choir on YouTube can argue that both choirs are based in the UK or in the United States, because of little to no difference in the use of language, the composition of songs, instrumentation, and pitch/tempo of the songs. Therefore, it is correct to state that culture plays a big part in differentiating gospel songs and it tends to show the cultural background of the singers as well as cultural influence underlying the composition of the song.

Whilst watching the performances of Joyous Celebration choir on YouTube on can easily be drawn to their energetic performance that is also demonstrated through the audience, this is despite not being able to understand the language being used. The songs have catchy verses and the musical tones are high pitched thus evoking a feeling of celebration and praise. This feeling is shared by many who comment on their video stating that despite not being able to understand the language they are able to get in tandem with the mood of worship that is manifested on the faces of the congregation. This means that culture does not act as a major hindrance towards embracing gospel music and this would explain why the Joyous Celebration Choir was able to receive an invitation from our local church to come and perform despite the fact that church leadership was aware nearly none of us would be able to understand the language.

The embodiment of culture in gospel music enables the effective spread of the gospel music and message across the local community that understands the language and even the culture that is portrayed in the gospel music. Moreover, it is able to connect with other people in different parts of the World who are curious about other cultures or those seek to know and understand other foreign cultures. For example, through the performance of the Joyous Celebration choir, we were able to learn about South African dialects and we even got to hear songs that have been performed by these dialects. Secondly, it was an exposure to the rich culture of South Africa of which many of us are willing to pay and visit the country as tourists just to gain experience of this same culture that was brought to us through music. Lastly, as Christians, we were able to take note of the fact that God is omnipresent and that we are all one in his presence despite our cultural and ethnic differences.

References

Adelstein, R. (2016). American Music: Folk city: New York and the American Folk Music Revival. Music Library Association. Notes, 73(2), 271-273.

Blevins, B. (2006) “The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly Autumn: 317-320.

Whitaker, M. (2006). “The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America.” The Journal of American History. 570