Ngxokolo, Michael

Mike Ngxokolo was born on 11 January 1931 in Korsten, Port Elizabeth. He belongs to the Nyawuza clan of the Mpondo. Ngxokolo learnt tonic solfa notation at school and staff notation from a tutor when he began playing the trombone. His bass voice was often heard in solo renderings at local concerts.

He usually composed when haunted by a melody (interview with his conductor friend, Simo Mjo, 2000).

His parents were born at Port Alfred, about 170 kilometres east of Port Elizabeth. Because this is a rural area and there are no factories, his family went to Port Elizabeth, where his mother got a job as a domestic worker, while his father made a living out of singing in clubs. Michael, or “Mike”, as he was called, graduated from Healdtown Institution, where he qualified as a teacher in 1950. In 1959 he taught at Ernest Skosana Primary in New Brighton, a post he held until 1982 when he joined SABC TV2. He used to tell me how bitter he was to have spent 23 years in an ordinary teaching post and younger teachers, some of whom he had taught, got promoted to Principal. (During his time, if a School Inspector thought that you did not deserve to be promoted, he would

make sure that you never were.) Within four years Mike got a letter from SABC informing him that he was being laid off because the company policy was that employees should work up to age 55. This devastated him because it was going to affect the amount of his pension. I remember how he wept openly when replying in his farewell party organised by the SABC at the Recreation Hall in Port Elizabeth. He was offered a temporary teaching post in the Humansdorp area, but his health had already started deteriorating. I can never forget how on one morning in 1993 on my way to school, I was listening to his song Amasiko Nezithethe on my car tape player and when I arrived there was a telephone call that “Mike” had passed on. Knowing how close we were, his family asked me to be one of the speakers at the funeral.

Mike was influenced at Healdtown by teachers like Caley (Moyer 1973). He was a precentor at St Stephen’s Anglican Church in Port Elizabeth (the church that Nzo wrote about in A! St Stephen). He used to say that he began composing when he wrote for the Healdtown Choristers. When he became a teacher, he began to compose serious music for choirs in tonic solfa. He bought himself the Associated Board Rudiments of Music from which he taught himself music theory. He was a trombone player and he used to boast that he taught himself to play this instrument. So this is how he was introduced to staff notation. When Mike died he was a leading member of the Port Elizabeth band Soul Jazz Men.

Ngxokolo was one of the best English teachers in the Eastern Cape, and also a member of the Serpent Players (directed by Athol Fugard), which produced actors such as John Kani and Winston Ntshona. He was a religious man who praised his Creator in almost all his songs. In Bunjalo Ubom he closes with the words “Masimbulele umenzi wethu ngazo zonke izinto, asinike zona” (Let us thank our Creator for all the things He has given us). This song, composed in 1967, is so popular with choirs that it is still sung today as a song of consolation

for bereaved families. Perhaps this is because of its message, based partly on words by Charles Dickens from A Tale of Two Cities (“It was the best of times, It was the worst of times…” ) which depicts the contrasts of life: today you are at your best and tomorrow you are at your worst, now you laugh, thereafter you cry, etc. Mike believed that all the gifts he had - as singer, composer, painter, actor, conductor, orator - he owed to His Creator. He used to say most of his works depict nature because he was forcing people to “notice nature” (as he once remarked at a music competition). Nature, too, was the work of God, hence in Ingumangaliso Imisebenzi Ka Thixo he marvels at the mountains, the rising sun, the seas, the flowers, the dew, the forests, the skies… the “works of God”.

Along with his faith went a keen sense of humour – often brought in as defence against “the worst of times”. In 1980 there was unrest in Port Elizabeth and schools were closed. All teachers were gathered at Kwa Ford Industrial School and grouped according to subjects. Although I was in the Xhosa subject group I used to frequent the English subject group where Ngxokolo was. He kept the teachers laughing when he would just at random take a chalk and go to the blackboard to draw a sketch of one member. A favourite joke of his (I shared it with the people who attended his funeral) was that one day he was proposing love to a lady and when he introduced himself as Mike Ngxokolo the lady got a fright and said “No, I can’t fall in love with you; I fear dying; your people die too much. I always look at the graves – “Lala Ngxokolo, Lala Ngxokolo…” . What is in fact inscribed on the graves is “Lala Ngoxolo” (Rest in peace), not

“Lala Ngxokolo” (Rest Ngxokolo).

Mike was Chairperson of the CATU Music Committee and his songs were prescribed for the annual music competitions. He always won these competitions with the Ernest Skosana Primary School choir, until in 1982 he

was beaten with his own song A! Zanzolo by a young teacher, L. Sidiki. He would joke about this incident and say “Le ntwana, indibonise izinto endingazanga ndazi ukuba zikho kweli culo lam” (This little boy has shown me things I never knew existed in this song of mine). In 1991 Amasiko Nezithethe was prescribed by the National Old Mutual Choir Festival and he was flown with his wife to Johannesburg, where he was introduced to an audience of about 3000 people at the Standard Bank Arena. This gesture was all he got by way of recognition during his lifetime (he said this himself). Like most composers, Ngxokolo wrote all his songs by hand, in his case very clear, beautiful handwriting, with “Ngu Mike Ngxokolo” inscribed on the top right hand side of page 1. When he wrote Akukho Nto ingenasiphelo (There’s nothing without an end) in 1981, it was as if he was foreshadowing his own end: “Ebutsheni bethu sikhula sinamandla, sibahle sinempilo nokufaneleka. Zakufika iimini zokuba siphumle... Lala… ngoxolo uphumle. (In our youth we grow strong, beautiful and healthy and with stature. When the days come that we must rest. Rest in peace) (bars 37-62).

He died on the 27^th of May 1993, and his funeral service was at St Michael’s Anglican Church in Port Elizabeth.