Changing hands, but not changing its tune

WHEN Ladysmith Black Mambazo takes the stage at USC’s Bovard Auditorium on Tuesday, it will be a bittersweet moment for longtime fans. Last month, the group’s founder, director and songwriter, Joseph Shabalala, announced his imminent retirement after almost five decades.

“He doesn’t know when exactly he will stop,” says son Thami (short for Thamsanqa, and pronounced “Tommy”), speaking by phone from a recent tour stop. “But soon. This year.”

Shabalala founded his group in the early 1960s, its name evoking his hometown of Ladysmith, the black oxen he drove as a farmer and the Zulu word for ax. With its deep rural roots and razor-sharp harmonies, Mambazo became the superstar of isicathamiya, a Zulu a cappella style often compared to American gospel. Group members joined Paul Simon for 1986’s “Graceland” album, and they cemented their status as South Africa’s musical ambassadors by traveling with Nelson Mandela to Norway, where he received his Nobel Peace Prize.

Thami, the youngest of four Shabalala sons in Mambazo, says he will be the group’s new leader: “I don’t even know why my father chose me,” he adds. “He just said I must come and see him, and then he said that he was told in a dream, the first time I joined the group, that I’m the one who’s going to be his successor.”

At 33, Thami has been singing with the group for 15 years, but his experience was different from his father’s. In the 1950s and ‘60s, thousands of young men competed in singing contests, but by Thami’s day the older local styles were supplanted by reggae, disco and rap. “We were singing this music at home,” he recalls. “But it wasn’t normal by that time. The younger generation didn’t listen to it.”

By the 1990s, Joseph Shabalala realized that new blood was needed, and his sons helped revitalize Mambazo’s sound. “After we joined, the people our age started listening,” Thami says. “Because they saw, ‘OK, even the younger generation can sing it, so we can listen to it now.’ ”

At the young singers’ urging, Mambazo albums began including instrumental backing and guest stars such as Bonnie Raitt and Dolly Parton. Thami and a brother formed a guitar-backed trio, Shabalala Rhythm, and have had several national hits. But the ax hews closely to its roots, and the new Mambazo CD, “Ilembe: Honoring Shaka Zulu,” has the earthy power of those old oxen from Ladysmith. Joseph wrote all the songs, and Thami insists that “For now he’s teaching me, and I’m still learning.”

Nor does he expect to see any great changes in the future. “Mambazo has been around for 47 years,” he says. “And when it’s my time, I’m just wishing for another 47 years -- or more.”

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theguide@latimes.com

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LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO

WHERE: Bovard Auditorium, USC campus

WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday

PRICE: $20 (faculty/staff $10, students $5)

INFO: (213) 740-2167; www.usc.edu/spectrum