Sunday, 2 June 2024

Official Bio update



10/01/20

OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY

DIZU PLAATJIES, NEO TRADITIONAL BUT TRUE TO HIS ROOTS

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.

Since going solo he has done several international tours including shows in Canada, France, Germany, Algeria, Morocco, Oman, Holland, USA, and more. More recently he played the prestigious WOMAD in the UK, Sauti za Busara in Zanzibar and the Rainforest WMF in Borneo and his own headline concert at the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York.
 
His second solo recording, African Kings is a project using traditional instruments (Mbira, Uhadi, Umrhube, Akadinda – to name a few) and the maskandi style acoustic guitar. The production approach is more contemporary than his previous neo-traditional recordings. The album won a coveted SAMA award in May 2009 as the Best Alternative African Album.

            His latest album features a combination of African and western instruments. Featured are his Ibuyambo band members but also guest artists, guitarists Derek Gripper and Allou April from Cape Town, The French/Chillian duo, Sueno en la Fabrica and also from France the jazz ensemble L'Arbe Canapas, and from Holland star drummer Lucas van Merwijk. The album is a mixture of contemporary jazz-rock and traditional African compositions performed with the polish of a completely up to date production. It was recorded in South Africa and France and mixed in Germany. The record, as with the previous two albums was produced by Patrick Lee-Thorp, garnered a SAMA Award in May 2016 for the Best African Adult Album of the year.

        As teacher and he has recently visited the USA, Australia, and Norway and Finland to lead workshops. He has performed in the Czech Republic, where his collaboration with local folk artist Jiri Pavlica has made Dizu a major attraction in that country being awarded a gold record for their recordings together.
    
        His concerts are as a solo performer, duo or with his own band (known as Dizu Plaatjies and the Ibuyambo Ensemble) of percussionists and multi-instrumentalists covering repertoire from his work of over 25 years. There is singing, dancing and playing using many wonderful African instruments he has collected in his career.

        When not touring he spends his time teaching at the University of Cape Town’s Music College.

Issued by Mountain Records, PO Box 70, Observatory, 7935, South Africa.

Kindly credit this source if you use any part hereof.





Friday, 24 February 2023

INTERNATIONAL PAUSE

For a number of reasons the long time management of this artist, Patrick Lee-Thorp of LTE, has decided to make a pause in activities. This period began after the Kudu horns that Dizu travelled with for most of his international touring, went missing in Norway.  Patrick saw this as a bad omen. Thereafter there was a loss of momentum over the Covid pandemic.

Here the first part of the story of Dizu and his association with LTE. 

https://wifidead.blogspot.com/2022/12/dizu-plaatjies-making-new-records-and.html

Here is the second part.

https://wifidead.blogspot.com/2024/05/dizu-plaatjies-records-plans-and-dreams.html

Thursday, 30 May 2019

More international dates for July / August

We are in negotiation for two tours in the coming months. The nightmare process of visa applications is underway. This is a particular problem for African artists.
More news soon .....

International travels for 2019 start

As is often the case, the arrival on the northern hemisphere summer means Dizu hits the road. Today Dizu and four members of the Ibuyambo touch down in Taipei for 2 concerts in a special musical format. This is a percussion project as part of the Taiwan International Percussion Convention.

The first show is in the prestigious National Concert Hall in Taipei.

Dizu in no stranger to Taiwan having performed there several times with his first group Amampondo.

He was also there 2 years ago for the Taipei World Music Festival.

Thursday, 31 January 2019

2019 Dates firming

As announced Dizu will be returning to Taiwan this year. The deal is done for shows with his percussion ensemble - an adapted line-up from the usual Ibuyambo set up. The machine is rolling with the paperwork for visas and work permits.

Dizu live in Taipei 2017 (c) Songwrights Publishers

He has also got a couple of offers for dates in the European summer in Germany and Scandinavia.  If promoters would like to book the group in the month of July from the second week to the end of July, please get in touch.

Sunday, 11 November 2018

Finland 2018

For 10 days from the 3rd of November 2018, Dizu and Ibuyambo are in Finland for concerts and workshops.

We will post more stuff, but here what our hosts tell us is a great review from the first show on the 6th in Helsinki.

https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000005891393.html?fbclid=IwAR3iE9sGo3Fapp0cSH05BHOiWSPEzfQZRz4Q_GoHOm2rI1KF6BB-4pDxyX0