/ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/MUSIC-SWAZILAND: King Uses Pop Stars Against AIDS Epidemic

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

SWAZILAND, Apr 16 2002 (IPS) - American soul singer Erykah will headline an all-star cast of African and U.S. talent at an AIDS benefit concert organised by King Mswati.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, Mswati, whose 34th birthday this week is a national holiday in the small kingdom of fewer than one million people, is a pop music fan.

The royal treatment Erykah was given at the palace last week on her first tour of the country is indicative of the welcome that rock, reggae and gospel stars routinely receive when they visit Swaziland.

King Mswati’s trip to the United States two months ago was aimed at signing up talent for his AIDS concert. The visit was timed so the African monarch could attend the Grammy Awards at the Staple Centre in downtown Los Angeles, where the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences gave out its annual trophies to the chart toppers that Mswati is said to listen to at the palace.

Accompanying the king was his electronic praise singer, Quawe Mamba. In the 21st century, Africa praise singers use more than their voices to shout their monarch’s greatness to the world. (Indeed, Mamba was once hustled by security guards out of a state function in New York when his praises, which he shouted at the top of his lungs in the SiSwati language as King Mswati entered the room, were mistaken as some form of protest.)

Instead, today’s praise singer uses a microphone, and Mamba runs the king’s television studio at Lozitha Palace as well as a private TV channel that broadcasts Swazi programmes from the capital Mbabane.

It was Mamba, backstage at the Grammies, who got the “scoop” from the smooth singing group Destiny’s Child (“Survivor”) that they intend to perform at the King’s AIDS benefit, scheduling permitting.

The concert, tentatively scheduled for July, will feature his kingdom).

The king has in the past turned to concerts featuring international stars for fund-raising purposes.

His first venture was the King’s Trust Concert, featuring legendary rock guitarist Eric Clapton (“Tears in Heaven”), in 1989.

The concert was a smash success because fans from South Africa poured over the border to attend. At the time, South Africa was isolated by a cultural boycott imposed against its apartheid regime, and entertainment-starved youth were thrilled to see a genuine rock star at their doorstep. (South Africa surrounds landlocked Swaziland on three sides.)

But financial mismanagement ensured that the concert made little money, and more of the same sunk the second King’s Trust Concert. What was to have been an annual event to raise funds for poverty alleviation ended just like that.

A fund-raising concert earlier this year, sponsored by one of King Mswati’s wives, was so mismanaged that the South African groups hired for the show found the cheques they were issued dishonoured by their banks.

“If the king’s AIDS concert is not well-managed, it will be an embarrassment, and international performers will be reluctant to come here,” says entertainment writer Gugu Mabuza.

Meanwhile, Swazis are snatching up the UB40 tickets, and are thrilled at the prospect of U.S. artists coming to the kingdom.

“They are coming because they are honoured to be asked by a real king,” says Jabulani Dlamini, a taxi driver who blasts a tape of Destiny’s Child from his taxi speakers. “We owe the night to King Mswati.”