Sounds of Swaziland

I have always wanted a soundtrack to be continuously playing in the backdrop of my life. It’s not that strange…right? The desire to star in your own personal movie and experience heightened emotions with the perfect sequencing of melodies matching your individual situations and moods. I rely on my MP3 player way too much here in Swaziland. I am obsessed with keeping it charged at all times and keeping it in my bag with earphones in case I need to drown out the rest of the world. It comes in handy on my long walks to Mankayane or the school or to visit the Youth Club about 1 hour and 40 minutes from my house. But it also serves as a dangerous escape from the realities of Swaziland; an escape from my cultural immersion.

But, the other option is often to suffer through the sounds and styles of khombi remixes and out-of-tune gospel. It is true that Africa is a continent famous for beautiful tribal music. The drums and chantings carried across the ocean with the slave trade have influenced so much of our music today. Do you think I hear any of that? Well, rarely, at weddings and other ceremonies I do get to watch performances of drummers, dancers, and singers that often match the stereotypical African tribal music—strong beats with call and response led by the strongest vocalist. But, the rest of the time I am stuck with numerous remixes of Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” yet another techno cover of Joan Armatrading’s “The Weakness in Me,” and the ever-worsening gospel music that blares through the speakers in public transport (usually right next to my ear). And while I think it is cute that my bhuti’s son, Owethu, runs around singing One Republic’s newest song (at least in Swaziland) “Too Late to Apologize” without being able to properly pronounce “apologize,” I have a premonition that it is going to get on my nerves very soon. But, the worst song I have yet to hear is sung by West Life, a sorry excuse for an Irish boy band, which decided to steal Andrea Bocelli’s duet with Sarah Brightman—“Time to Say Good-bye”—and turn it into…well…a piece of crap. My sincerest apologies to Bocelli if he ever has to hear what was done to his song.

In the meantime, I suppose I have to create my own soundtrack with my MP3 player and recognize that I may never enjoy the noises emitting from the khombis and buses here in Swaziland. Cheers to advances in music technology!