Dizu Plaatjies & Ibuyambo

Dizu Plaatjies was born in 1960, the son of a Xhosa traditional healer and grew up in the Cape Town township of Langa in South Africa. Behind his warm smile is a serious and spiritual person. He is the founder and former leader of South Africa’s internationally celebrated marimba group, Amampondo. The group took their name from the Xhosa tribe that Dizu is a member of.

Dizu´s compositions and arrangements of traditional songs appear on seven albums by his former group. After fifteen years of touring with Amampondo he recorded his first solo album in 2005, titled, Ibuyambo. The CD was released together with a stage show. This production featured Dizu with most of the players with whom he recorded the album, performing in their hallmark body paint and featuring dance and costumes inspired by traditional outfits of different peoples of the southern African region.

On this first solo album Dizu has liberally mixed various traditional African instruments and songs with his own original lyrics and melodies. For example on the title track, Ibuyambo, he has arranged a melody from Zimbabwe for marimbas associated with Mozambique and placed a Congolese choir over the instruments. On Equonce, he applies percussion elements of Hip-Hop music and the tongue clicks of the San people, to the rural chant from children’s game. In this way he has created a unique neo-traditional blend of sounds.