 | King Leruo Molotlegi of South Africa (front row, center) invited the Yale group Shades to sing at his coronation after hearing them perform his favorite song. While visiting their hotel, he asked them to help develop singing programs in his nation. |
While on a tour this summer, members of the undergraduate a cappella group Shades sang at an event that was fit for a king, and even found themselves treated a bit like royalty.
Indeed, the newly enthroned King Leruo Molotlegi of South Africa was all ears when Shades took the stage in the 45,000-seat soccer stadium in Rustenberg as one of the performing groups at the monarch's coronation on Aug. 16.
Also in attendance at the royal affair were such noted individuals as former South African President Nelson Mandela, former Botswana President Sir Ketumile Masire and South African First Lady Zanele Mbeki, as well as numerous members of royal families in South Africa.
This was not the first time that Shades -- a co-educational, racially and ethnically diverse group specializing in the performance of African-American music -- had sung for King Molotlegi, but it was the group's first tour to Africa and its first performance at a royal event.
The 35-year-old Molotlegi, a trained architect, was enthroned as king of South Africa's Royal Bafokeng Nation. The community has about 300,000 members who live on land bearing some of the world's richest platinum mines, making it the wealthiest ethnic group in South Africa. The new monarch is the 36th descendent in an 800-year-old line of Bafokeng kings.
The invitation to perform at his enthronement ceremony came when the soon-to-be king heard Shades perform earlier in the year.
Peter Hasegawa '05, then the tour manager and now the singing group's business manager, had wanted Shades to tour South Africa. He discussed the possibility with anthropologist Susan Cook '00 Ph.D., who was then teaching at Brown University and who had connections with the Bafokeng royal family through her anthropology research at Yale. Cook, who is now a senior adviser to the king, invited Shades to perform for Molotlegi during his visit to Brown in October 2002. One of the songs the group sang is the rhythm-and-blues number "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" (done in the style of the group Az Yet).
"After singing a few songs, we couldn't really gauge the King's reaction at all," says Hasegawa of Shades' initial performance for Molotlegi. "His face was blank and he was looking down. Then, after conferring with the king, Susan said, '"Hard to Say" is the king's favorite song. He wants you to sing it again.'"
"After we did that, he stood up in the front of the group and asked if we would perform at his enthronement ceremony," continues Hasegawa. "When one of us said we weren't sure what all of the group members' plans were over the summer, he looked around at each of us and asked, 'Is there anyone here who is busy this summer? I want you to be there' [at the ceremony]. Of course, this is a king who is asking, so none of us said we were busy."
After launching a fundraising campaign, members of the group raised enough money for their airfare to South Africa. The Bafokeng kingdom covered their lodging, food and other expenses in the country.
The current 12 members of Shades, along with two alumni of the group who accompanied them on the trip, spent two weeks in South Africa. During their first week there, the singers were busy rehearsing for the enthronement ceremony, at which they sang the rhythm-and blues songs "If You Love Me" and "Jam Tonight"; "More Than a Paycheck," a song about the plight of miners; the African-American folk song "No Mirrors"; the spiritual "Mary"; the African-American national anthem "Lift Every Voice and Sing"; a medley of Motown songs; "Amen/We Shall Overcome," a medley of two anthems of the civil rights movement; and, of course, the king's favorite, "Hard to Say."
"We sang for about 45 minutes and had the most prominently featured spots of all the performing groups on the program," says Hasegawa. "We were the last group to perform before the king entered the stadium and then we sang to close the official ceremony. The king waited for us to sing 'Lift Every Voice and Sing' before exiting the stadium."
Furthermore, he says, Shades was the only group that performed live and sang more than one song; the other musical groups, which included a children's choir, an adult choir and a marimba band -- all lip- synced their words to a recording.
"A stadium is a hard environment to sing in because you get a lot of reverberation," explains Hasegawa. "But for us, it was an amazing experience. This was Shades -- accustomed to performing at campus events, schools in the New Haven area and at a range of local community functions -- singing songs like 'Amen/We Shall Overcome' while our voices are being amplified in these massive, massive speakers. You could hear the sound outside the stadium. Performing at an event of that magnitude was a huge leap forward, and a big thrill, for our group."
The climax of the coronation ceremony, Hasegawa says, was when the king was vested with the symbols of office (including the implements of war: a battle axe and a spear) and was draped in a leopard skin, complete with head and limbs, signifying his royalty. "The ceremony incorporated various traditions within the community; for example, all of the people the king's own age are vested with the title of 'adviser' to him," Hasegawa recounts.
During their second week in South Africa, Shades members visited and performed for children at schools in the area and at a day care center for the orphans of parents who died of AIDS. They also did a bit of sightseeing, including taking a trip to Johannesburg and visiting a game preserve. Shades also performed on a popular talk show in the country called "The Felicia Show," which is similar to "Oprah." Throughout their time there, the Yale students were accompanied by several assistants provided by the kingdom and were treated to a series of elegant meals, Hasegawa says.
Members of the group were also treated to one late-night visit by the newly enthroned king. He arrived at the Yale students' hotel one evening after 9 p.m. The students were tired from a full day of rehearsing in anticipation of their appearance on "The Felicia Show" and were also cold: South Africa was having an uncharacteristically cool winter, according to Hasegawa, and the hotel had no heat.
"We were all standing up, cold and nervous, and King Molotlegi said, 'You don't have heat? Can we get some blankets?' So we went and got comforters from our beds. Soon enough, the king was sitting on the couch in the middle of us, while we were all wrapped up in comforters," recalls the Yale junior.
The king then bestowed yet another honor on the members of Shades. He told them that he is an architect and a leader, but that they have one skill that he does not possess: the ability to identify and nurture singing talent in young people.
He expressed his interest in supporting the development of youth in his own kingdom and then invited all current members of Shades -- as well as those who are newly tapped for the group this fall and any alumni -- to return to South Africa, all expenses paid, to hold auditions for a youth singing group.
"He basically is asking us to run auditions in his country just as we would for prospective members of Shades," explains Hasegawa, "and then to let him know where the talent is in his community. I think several members of our group are interested in doing that. Then there will be a choir in the Bafokeng community that is, in a manner, modeled after Shades."
"For us, that invitation showed us how much the king appreciated our singing," he adds. "It is quite a tribute."
-- By Susan Gonzalez
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