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 oseph Shabalala and I were driving through Durban, South Africa, into an industrial section of the city where, on weekends, black men far from their villages gathered in windowless meeting halls to make a kind of music I'd never head before."The tradition in South Africa has always been that when boys became men, they would leave their families and go to the city and work, as I did when I was young," Joseph was telling me as we climbed the stairs of the Durban YMCA. The men, he said, live in hostels that resemble something between a dormitory and a prison. Years ago there was nothing to do at night and on weekends, no radio or television, so these men formed choirs and competed for prizes all over the city every Saturday night. These competitions continue today.
 That evening, we went to six. The choirs consisted of ten to fifteen men: manual laborers now decked out in suits, ties, and gleaming polished shoes. Each group had only ten minutes to perform. They would begin in a circle in the back of the hall, singing slowly, then uncoil like a snake in twos, shuffling their feet in unison down the center of the hall, gradually lifting hands and stamping their feet on the old, dark hardwood floors as they passed the three dour contest judges. These competitions begin at midnight and continue until noon on Sunday. That night in the YMCA, about three to four hundred people were there: women seated, men standing along the walls. As each choir got up to sing, their women rose from their folding chairs and danced around the room to the ancient, profound acapella harmonies. The music of Ladysmith Black Mambazo springs from the best tradition of these choirs.
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