Thandi Ntuli: Reclaiming The Rainbow

Thandi Ntuli is in her music room at home in Johannesburg. It is late afternoon and sunlight bursts through narrow windows onto some boho chic furniture. Ntuli brushes a cloth over her laptop screen and comes into focus, beaming a smile of welcome, wearing a long orange dress. "I'm right in the city," she says. "There's a lot of energy, people moving by and most of our main transport passes through here. During the week it's very hustle and bustle, but gets quieter at weekends. There are some beautiful parks in the city too."

Ntuli can expect more hustle and bustle with the launch of her fourth studio album, Rainbow Revisited (International Anthem, 2023). Most of her remarkable work has been self-released so far, partly down to a lack of South African printing presses. "I've had issues previously with the idea of being on a label," she says. "International Anthem feels like the right fit, as a lot of their musicians come from the jazz tradition but are also experimental. It's gratifying to find a label that feels like a home."

Rainbow Revisited finds Ntuli on vocals and keys, in collaboration with Carlos Niño on cymbals, percussion and... plants. Ntuli says, "He's very much into natural percussive elements and outdoor performance spaces. Even in our online chats he'll send pictures of himself hiking, in a forest, or by a lake. Nature is a huge inspiration for his art. Working with Carlos is the most 'new age' thing I've ever experienced! We met on Instagram after he saw a video of my soundcheck before a Johannesburg concert. Eventually in 2019 I was invited to play the Lincoln Centre in New York and L.A.'s Ford Theatre. Carlos asked if he could join the L.A. gig and I'd been listening to his work, especially Carlos Niño & Friends. I expected our album together to have lots of additions, which is where Shabaka Hutchings was meant to come in on clarinet. But it never worked out, so we invited him to contribute the artwork instead. I'm glad we could include him in some way."

Niño's parts were added after Ntuli's even though it sounds like the two are playing live together. He creates mantric atmospheres and percussive washes, lending his own narrative shades to Ntuli's story. The record's title refers to the Rainbow Nation phrase coined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu during South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy. Ntuli had twice recorded pieces entitled "Rainbow," a three-minute skit on her Exiled album, plus a far longer version recorded live at Jazzwerkstatt in Switzerland. Niño seized upon this track and invited Ntuli to elaborate upon it for their work together.

Rainbow Revisited is an album of playful energy, alight with a sacred flame. Ntuli's mostly scat vocals send out emotional vibrations, a reduction of language to noises inspired by nature, love, fear and the harmonies of worship. Her piano style often shifts beyond normal confines, swinging both ahead of itself yet also behind. She says, "This comes naturally, in the sense that rhythm is usually my inspiration. Our traditional music here is very polyrhythmic. At any given point I'm hearing more than one pulse and flowing between them all." She moves across to a keyboard, topped with a record player and speakers, then plays a section from her number "Rainbow Revisited" whilst softly beat-boxing. "I move from playing it simply as chords, then start playing with all my fingers, building on the basic rhythm. That main pulse is always within me, even if I don't hit on the downbeat," she explains, one hand slicing the air. "African music has a rhythmic movement which really excites me, whereas Western classical or jazz is more focused on harmonics."

As for her vocal turns, Ntuli says, "The emphasis with scat is conveying emotion, whereas sung singing gets fixed on accuracy of note and melody. Scat offers sounds that aren't so writable, but they still bring a message through. Scat doesn't limit you in term of expression or pronunciation either. Also, this idea of the rainbow is not globally understood to have political baggage. I didn't want it to sound pretty in nature terms, but to express this angst I've felt in the South African collective around the word." Ntuli believes her generation struggles with a lack of identity and culture. "When I wrote "Rainbow" it was about those promises made at the start of South Africa's democracy. Ironically, a rainbow is something beautiful to behold, but as a word in South Africa it feels charged with betrayal, with no intentional work to dismantle apartheid's legacy. As much as the laws may have changed in terms of access, there's still a perpetuation of separatism. This album is coming out almost thirty years after the inception of Rainbow Nation. It's quite a milestone. The rainbow in mythology has a hopeful energy. We need to reclaim that aspect."

One number on the album speaks to a reclamation of heritage that Ntuli wished for in the context of Rainbow Revisited. "Nomayoyo" was written by her late grandfather who died when Ntuli was very young. "He wrote a lot of songs, some in the South African choral tradition and some humorous ones for his school students. I always felt "Nomayoyo" would work beautifully for piano and vocal. The song is a metaphor about shaking someone awake, while a thief is coming into their house. The word 'Nomayoyo' itself is an exclamation or a cry for help. African music can often be gentle to the ear like this piece, despite some of the subject matters."

Ntuli's previous studio work, the majestic Blk Elijah & The Children Of Meroë, came out in the shadows of her sister and grandmother dying. She describes it as an album where she started using her voice to create a vision. "What things did people use in times of slavery or apartheid to get them through?" she ponders. "Community and music speak to a sense of hope and vision to tide us over. Think of all the wonderful music that came out of the 1970s during that awful decade of uncertainty. It inspired people to embrace Black consciousness and their African heritage, to be bold and loud about what makes them happy to be alive. That's what I hope my music might do for people as well." Blues was the main starting point for Blk Elijah, something that Ntuli describes as a universal music. "We associate it with an American tradition, but maybe it has origins in West Africa too. Blues is based on the pentatonic scale also found in folk music. In the American tradition it has represented pain, suffering and storytelling, letting people put their experiences in a safe place. In other parts of the world, blues is the sound of folk music and about containing memories. I'm attracted to music that speaks of one's identity."

Away from her studio, Ntuli has been training to teach yoga and meditation, which helps her understand that the creative process doesn't entirely come from herself. "Often I don't 'get' the music I've written until later on, when it's released. There's a level of understanding that I'm in the service of this art and this craft. I did grow up a Catholic but have always been into different aspects of other faiths. Learning about African spirituality helps bring the divinity into yourself."

A recent release that inspired her was the album When The Poems Do What They Do (Drink Sum Wtr, 2023), by American jazz poet Aja Monet. Elsewhere, she has been reading the work of Malidoma Patrice Somé who writes about healing and life among the Garre people of West Africa. She says, "My main research interest now comes from the post-pandemic need for community building where art has a big role to play. Any other downtime I get is spent in nature going for a hike. There's a place called Hennops in Pretoria about a forty-minute drive from here. There are some great trails to explore there. I like anything that gets me outdoors whether it's mountains, oceans or rivers."

Comments