Walter Dlamini

Walter Dlamini was a singer whose repertoire, the veteran DJ Max Mojapelo suggests, was somewhere in between Jacob “Mpharanyana” Radebe and The Movers’ Philip Malela. Walter’s soulful singing oozes charm and sensitivity, and it glides across the melodies of the other musicians with incredible ease. A native of Wattville, a township close to the city of Benoni, Walter had joined the music industry somewhere in the mid-1970s and began recording material for the Fire label. His music formed a part of the quiet move from what might be termed “traditional mbaqanga” to the more organ-led, American soul-infused sound of the late 1970s. It was a sound that had its roots within mbaqanga music, but one that closely aligned itself more with Afro wigs, flares and platform shoes than skins and tribal costume. When Walter came to Gallo-Mavuthela in 1978, the sound was being replicated there already by producers West Nkosi and Marks Mankwane and groomed to replace the traditional mbaqanga sound that the company itself had popularised more than a decade previously.