Suddenly, Zolani Mahola bursts into song. It’s her favourite verse from her band’s new song, BLCK GRLS.
“Girl they said you had to fake it to be somebody, I know they told you you would never make it. But I know you won’t sit down and take it, Cause you’ll grab that mould and have to break it.”
The 36-year-old Freshlyground singer reveals how the inspiration behind the band’s new song - the group’s album was released ahead of Freedom Day - stems from her own childhood and the “many boxes” she found herself inadvertently placed in.
Mostly, it’s a song about freedom - and fighting limitations. “It’s based on my experience of growing up as a black girl in a Port Elizabeth township in the early 1980s and 1990s with all the hamstrings to individuality inherent within that experience.”
She grew up at the tail end of apartheid in the impoverished township of New Brighton.
“My parents and family shielded us from the real horrors of the system, which held that my father’s social standing in his city and country was that of less than a dog, whereas in his culture he was seen as a man.
“I never saw my father as less than a powerful figure with agency in his community, but he’s never spoken about the bad old ‘yes baas days’, so I don’t know much about that other life. It was confusing and probably still is confusing for any child in South Africa.”
As a young black girl, Mahola, too, was forced to live her life in a certain way. “There were chores reserved only for girls. I was told I dressed in the wrong clothes, that I had to comb my hair, that I had too thick an African accent, that I was too fat and later that I was too thin!
“I was told these things by well-meaning people who were trying to get me to be a good ‘normal’ black South African girl. It took me a long time to realise that those concerns and limitations were about their own fears and insecurities.”
These experiences have remained with Mahola into adulthood - and are the roots for the song.
“It’s a song about throwing aside limitations and embracing the freedom to be whatever you want to be, regardless of what you look like, who you ‘appear’ to be or where you come from.”
BLCK GRLS, which was produced by well-known Swedish producer Tore Johansson, features on the group’s latest album Can’t Stop!
Can’t Stop is the band’s seventh studio album, as well as the intoxicating Mna Nalamagenge, a collaboration with The Soil. The album is a true-to-their-roots variety of fresh and funky material, spanning genres and featuring musical luminaries such as Karen Zoid and Oliver Mtukudzi.
“This album has been long in the making it’s been over five years since we released our last work, Take Me to the Dance, and we really spent a long while crafting this baby.
“It’s been a lot of fun, but also self-reflection on the state of the world, on relationships with society and other potentially harmful things.”
BLCK GRLS, she says, is a reclamation of one’s chosen “real” identity - “a rejection of who you’re supposed to be just because you were born black or a girl or in a township or in a palace, for that matter”.
The spirit of the song can inspire anyone. “It’s dressed up as an anthem for black girls, but it’s actually for anyone who wants to climb out of the box they’ve always felt they had to occupy.”
While many black girls can relate to her childhood experiences, there isn’t a universal experience of growing up as a black girl in South Africa.
“I grew up in a township so that means I grew up being very aware of a sense of community.
“After my mother’s death, I started going to a multiracial Catholic school and that was interesting, because suddenly I was in the minority as a black child and had to be bused in from the townships to the sprawling lawns of the priory.
“It was confusing to suddenly be in the path of so many things I never thought I wanted, and I adopted another culture in those 12 years of schooling.”
There’s always been a perception in South Africa that girls are only meant to do certain things - and this must change.
“Most South African societies have this in common, and I’d go further to say that most societies globally expect men to be the foragers and women to stay at home, being subservient to the so-called head of the home.
“Christianity has done a lot to reinforce this belief; which is not to say it didn’t exist in the first place.
“There’s definitely a lack of equality and equality is still a dirty word in many places.”
As a youngster, she didn’t harbour any ambition to become a musician. “I always enjoyed singing while washing the dishes or with my siblings, or during traditional ceremonies at home, but I never saw myself as a singer.”
Mahola holds on to a recurring fantasy that one day black skin will have the same value as white skin and being female will have the same value as being male.
“That’s kind of what I mean about grabbing the mould we have been set in by our society and families, and deciding to give yourself the value every human should have.”
While it took her a few months to write the lyrics for BLCK GRLS, she has been preparing for this song all her life.
“In some ways I’ve been writing the same song all my life.
“The words came to me on an airplane and refining it took a few months, but the idea was born before then. I was expressing my thoughts through melody and lyrics in the hopes that my truth would connect with another’s.
“When people listen to the song, I hope they feel a sense of freedom and untie themselves from the labels that others may be trying to force on them.
“Be yourself, is what this song is saying; because there is only one life and it’s up to you to live it authentically.”