Langa Mavuso is shedding layers of sadness and making space for new joy

Words by Sizwe Shabalala

When Langa Mavuso speaks about his music journey, you are compelled to hold on to every word, the way you would when listening to your favourite song. When he sings, it’s like he has the ability to put feelings into lyrics and articulate all that you have no words for. In heavier times, it feels like his music can hold your broken pieces together. 

When Langa was 8 years old, he discovered he had been gifted with a special singing voice and at 9 years old, he decided being a musician is what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing. All of these realizations and commitments can be daunting for anyone that young however, when your dream aligns with your calling, the universe finds a way to work in your favour to help you achieve what you have set out for yourself.  

“My first professional job in the industry was being a session musician for Spoek Mathambo. I would do his vocals for his albums. Some songs made the cut and others didn’t but that experience taught me the importance of having a great work ethic.” 

“When I left UCT and started working for an Agency in corporate, I just wasn’t happy and so, I decided to risk it all and go all-in this time. I used all my money I had made working at an agency and put it into recording my first project in 2016. My first song was Sunday Blues and Twitter helped the song blow up and it reached the right people.”  

All great artists go through pivotal moments of change and growth in their careers in order to become and remain great for an extended period of time. When Langa was working on his debut project, Liminal Sketches in 2016, he says there was a certain level of panic he was experiencing but on the other side of that, it was also a time of learning many lessons.  

“A lot of the work I do is with the help of a very small team made up of my friends who help put things together. Putting out my first EP was because of the encouragement and support my friends were giving me. From finding clothes, to making posters and getting gigs, my friends and I just found a way to make it happen when we barely had anything.” 

It was during these times of panic and uncertainty where he discovered just how relentless and courageous he is. The moment someone tells him he can’t do something; he will make sure to do it better than they’ve ever imagined.  

“I realise now that this attitude and mentality is something I got from my mother. She has always been the type of person who makes things happen from nothing and I am that type of person because of her. I believe that African women can take very little and make it into something bigger and better. Because I have been raised by so many matriarchs, their essence lives through me. Whether we have a budget or not, it doesn’t matter because we can make it work.” 

When you listen to Langa’s music, love is the DNA that runs through all his songs. It’s about the loss of love, the yearning for love, the pain of love and beauty of love. It is love in all its various forms. “I think that’s what connects people to the music because it’s all about love; even when it’s sad or fun, it is still about love. That’s a universal experience we all have and even though it might be nuanced in our circumstances but, the feeling of it is what is universal. A lot of music is about feeling. Before they even know the words, listeners grab on to the feeling that the music brings — that’s where it all starts, with the feeling.”  

If music is what people turn to for comfort in trying times, then Langa’s music is like a bridge over our troubled waters, always there to carry us over. When you are fighting a war within yourself, his music is the Peace Sign. It is that soft place we turn to on our hard days. A lot of Langa’s music is about being vulnerable and opening himself up to these feelings that many people shy away from. Even when he is singing about happiness, there are undertones of sadness within the music.  

“I have had so much loss in my life of people that I love and it’s forced me to get to such an introspective place and I’ve needed to grow very quickly because of that loss. That’s why, even in my music, it’s reflections on things I’ve gone through. I am not afraid to tell these stories because I know that healing comes from facing your truth. So, for me, the process is about healing myself and once I put the music out, I let go because it no longer belongs to me and so, the healing energy I had created for myself is no longer just for me but it is also for the listener.”  

It can’t be easy to walk around with so much heavy emotion and that is why it is important to finds ways to release those emotions in a healthy way. As a musician, Langa finds comfort in knowing that he is able to use his gift as a form of therapy.  

“It’s hard to choose what I enjoy more between writing and performing because writing is such a therapeutic experience for me because there is something cathartic about going back and finding truth and healing in that. But also, when I’m on the stage, I am able to witness the grace that I’ve had in my life, in terms of being able to soldier through many things that should’ve stopped me from going forward. The stage and the audience heal me a lot because that’s where I am the most open and vulnerable but it all starts with writing.”  

It is true when they say no feeling is final; beauty and terror, joy and sadness, they all come and go. Langa embraces emotion, no matter if it is sad or happy. When he is in a dark place, he still tries to find ways to show up for his fans because he understands the need and urgency to heal others through his gift.   

“For some reason, when I am in pain, I am able to draw the most amount of emotion. My best performances come from my saddest days and my saddest days in performing, bring the greatest healing because people vibrate and create an energy of love and embrace for me. I feel the biggest hug just from the applause and the love; that brings me the greatest joy because I know that I am in service and I know that my purpose is to be of service. I believe that everyone’s purpose should be to try and better this world, not for themselves but for the rest of the world, for the rest of the human race, for the rest of the planet we exist in.”  

There’s a saying that says, "Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth." When Langa speaks about being a vessel for truth and being of service to others, you get the sense that his rent on earth is paid up for the next 100 years and beyond.   

When you listen to Langa’s music or listen to his interviews, you can tell that there is a level of spirituality present that helps him navigate this world and he attributes that to his faith and the unwavering commitment to pray for discernment in everything he does.   

“I pray a lot and I think I’ve gotten to a place where I trust my God and my guides to always be honest with me. I know that when I am the most sober in mind, body and spirit, the truth comes without confusion. It’s when there is distraction where I find that I struggle to discern and the discernment for me, comes from prayer.”  

For him, being grounded and truthful comes from surrounding himself with people who continue to love him in a way that allows him to never get lost in the world and the industry he works in, which can easily be distracting and confusing. “That’s how I decide who stays in my life because if you can’t tell me the truth then you don’t really love me. Love is essentially wanting the best for someone more than they want for themselves and helping them realise their potential through honesty and accountability. It’s not always comfortable or easy but it will never not be worth it. That’s what love is for me.”  

While most of his music, especially in the last album, deals with the tragic side of love, through acceptance and understanding, Langa is intentional with creating and finding joy these days.  

“Life will always throw things at you but I think joy is not a temporary feeling like happiness; happiness can be bought. I can go to the store and buy something that makes me happy for a short while but I think joy is a longer feeling. I feel like it’s something that comes from a place of acceptance and a place of understanding. True joy, for me, is not about being in a happy place, it’s about being in a place of acceptance and peace.”  

Like most musicians around the globe, Langa was also affected by COVID and the initial lockdown. He says the album was basically done by the time COVID happened and so, it gave him the opportunity to really think about how he wanted to put it out and what the narrative would be. That downtime and silence allowed him to find clarity of mind.  

“Johannesburg is the biggest distraction of life. There’s nothing naturally beautiful here and so, we create beauty for ourselves with things. That’s why people are so monetary and materialistic in this city. If you go to Cape Town, you see a lot people not care about the materialistic things because they live in a naturally beautiful place within the grandeur, grace and beauty of God; that’s why they are able to be more connected to themselves. Johannesburg is the opposite and so, we are forced to distract ourselves from the ugliness through other things.”  

With the world slowly opening up again now, Langa says he is excited to be back on the road to tour this exceptional debut album. The tour is called, ‘Songs for the Sun’ and he says it is his gift to his family – the people of kwa-Langa. 

“I take my surname very seriously. Langa means sun and the sun is a life-giving source. It is the biggest star in our orbit and we move around it and so, me giving thanks to it is to surrender and be grateful. These songs are for the sun because the warmth, the love, the healing comes from them. That’s what this tour is about. It’s about giving thanks…it’s my thanksgiving through music.” 

In addition to the tour, Langa says he is also preparing to release an audio-visual piece tied to the album. Essentially, this audio-visual album is a way of saying, ‘thank you’ to his supporters. “I am always trying to find ways to do things better and with this visual piece, I can truly say, we’re elevating. I am not concerned with what everyone else is doing, I’m concerned with how I can better myself. I’ve always put my own standard on things. I am the standard; I am the bar for myself.” 

While his debut album touched on very sad and heavy themes, Langa is currently working on new music, including a new album and EP, which focuses on messages of gratitude.  

“Earlier I said the matriarchs in my life are such an integral part of my life and so, I’m creating something to say thank you to all of them. I wrote a song for my mom and on there I say, ‘When days are grim and I am filled with sin, and I can’t stop running, and my heart is pumping, I know a place I can run to, I just need my mother.’”  

Even though we can never truly shake off our past, we can heal and find ways to not let it control or define us. There is a new dawn on the horizon for Langa now. He is at a point where he is shedding layers of sadness and making space for new joy. It’s true when they say, peace is not the absence of war but comfort of knowing that everything will be okay despite the casualty. 

“I’m not sad anymore but there’ll always be a tinge of sadness in me. My heart has been broken for many years but I am so grateful for the healing I go through every day and so, even if the sadness exists, I know that the glory of healing, of love, of joy, is something I am worthy of. Even when that sadness exists, I will always seek the light.”