Sixty-seven-year-old Joseph Shabalala had a dream come true in 1960s, after he heard a series of isicathamiya harmonies – as in traditional Zulu music – in his sleep. He formed the choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo to perform the harmonies and started recording albums in South Africa. The group rose to international stardom when Paul Simon knocked on Shabalala’s door with an invitation to collaborate on his Graceland album, which to date has sold millions of copies. Since then Ladysmith Black Mambazo has worked with Michael Jackson, Julia Fordham, Josh Groban, Sarah McLachlan and, um, the folks on Sesame Street. The rest may be history but Shabalala announced in early 2008 that if he were to retire, his son Thamsanqa Shabalala would take over leadership of the group – and a new chapter would begin. The 32-year-old Thamsanqa tells bc of his dream for the music.

Your father, Joseph, dreamed about harmonies for months before founding the group. Does he still do that?
Joseph stills tours with the group and he is our leader, songwriter, teacher, spiritual guide and inspiration. He is an amazing person. He still hears songs in his dreams. He’s always thinking of music, of melodies. He constantly calls to us to rehearse new sounds he hears in his mind.

Have you ever had similar experiences?
I do have dreams of music. However, I don’t use them for Mambazo, it’s Joseph’s group and I wouldn’t feel right in trying to add songs.

What is Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s creative process now then?
It still is all Joseph. As I said he always comes to us with new songs, new melodies that he wants us to work on. He has so many songs written that we have yet to record. So much to do and so little time.

Do you feel much pressure about taking over from Joseph?
There has been a bit of a misunderstanding about this. Joseph has chosen me to be the next leader of the group but this is more as a focus on who is in charge, not who will do all the work. After Joseph, the group is very even. All our opinions and ideas are respected and listened to equally. However, there needs to be one person, above the others, who will make any final decision that the group is torn about. With regards to singing, we will share this responsibility. Many in the group will lead the songs. Several of us will write the songs. It will be more of a partnership. I don’t think that day, when Joseph retires and leaves the group, will come soon. He has many years ahead of him.

When did you start singing? How does the group recruit new members?
I started singing as a very young child. Joseph had all his sons singing all the time… in the house, in the church, at events. We were raised singing. It is rare that we have new members: The Graceland era group had three people leave in 1993 and myself and two brothers, Thualni and Sibongiseni, joined the group. Then in 1998 another older member retired and another brother, Msizi, joined. Since then we had another retirement in 2007 and we brought in a young friend who is a member of our church and has been singing since he was very young.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s music spreads messages of love and peace – what current issues in the world today do you most care about personally and want to address in your music?
World peace is something that we have always strived for. Of course it is a difficult idea but we discover that when people meet each other and understand that we are all human, the idea of hurting and killing lessens. We work on bringing people together through music to meet and share experiences. This is always important to us.

Over the past years, tragedies have sadly taken place in your family – two of your uncles have been the victims of racial murders. How did you get over them?
We are deeply religious and we believe there is a reason for everything. God asks us to respect in times of pain. It’s easy to be a good person when your life is happy. What’s more important is being a good person when life is difficult. This is when your true self is judged. We must rise above bad experiences and then we will be stronger in spirit. We just keep working, spreading the music, spreading the message. You look deeper into what you are doing and it keeps you strong.

Are you ever surprised how big the group has become, and how, as a result, it has had to shoulder the responsibility to represent South Africa?
It is a surprise to us but in a good way. Who would think a singing group from the hills of South Africa would touch so many people all over the world? And to continue over 20 years after we worked with Paul Simon. It does cause us to represent South Africa very proudly. We know there is a responsibility to this and we are glad to take it on. Our country is a beautiful place with wonderful people and we think our history -– overcoming what we have and to work on issues together, not split up – is very important for the world to see. When we travel we know we are sharing our country with the world.

The latest album Ilembe: Honouring Shaka Zulu won another Grammy award. How would you describe the sound of this album as compared to the group’s previous work?
In 2002 we put out a CD of traditional singing called Raise Your Spirit Higher. It won a Grammy award also. After that we did take a break from recording new traditional songs. Our record label put out a project we did with a classical orchestra, No Boundaries, and a re-recording of older songs with some guest artists, Long Walk To Freedom. So Ilembe was our return to traditional songs. It felt good to us to do what we had been doing for many years. Sometimes the record companies want us to work on different things for different audiences but most of our fans love when we stay simple, just our group singing our traditional way. So Ilembe and its songs, many of which we will be singing in concert, is a wonderful collection of traditional Zulu singing.

What is your personal music taste like?
Many traditional singers from home and American R&B. No rap or hip-hop.

Catch Ladysmith Black Mambazo at Shatin Town Hall, 19 June at 8pm and HK City Hall, 20 June 8pm, tickets from URBTIX.