Mango Groove (album)
| Mango Groove | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Mango Groove | ||||
| Released | 11 July 1989 | |||
| Recorded | June–December 1988 | |||
| Studio | Audio Lab | |||
| Length | 43:38 | |||
| Label | Tusk Music | |||
| Producer |
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| Mango Groove chronology | ||||
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Mango Groove is the self-titled debut album of South African pop fusion band Mango Groove. Seven of the eleven songs on the album were released as singles. The album sold extremely well, breaking national sales records and maintaining a high rank in the radio charts for a year. The band dedicated the album to Mickey Vilakazi, a bandmate who died in June 1988.
Although the material won multiple awards from the South African Broadcasting Corporation, including "Best Album", the SABC censored the music video for the song "Hellfire", which had an anti-apartheid message.
Of the 11 songs on the album, four were previously released as singles: "Two Hearts" in 1985; "Love Is (the Hardest Part)" in 1986; and "Do You Dream of Me?" and "Move Up" in 1987. After the album's release, three of the new songs were also released as singles: "Hellfire" and "Dance Sum More" in 1989, and "Special Star" in 1990. In addition, the version of "Two Hearts" on the album is not the one released in 1985, but a new recording made for the album.
The band made music videos for four of the singles: "Dance Some More", "Hellfire", "Move Up", and "Special Star". The dances in "Special Star" were choreographed by Wendy Ramokgadi, who went on to choreograph other Mango Groove videos and concerts—including the video for "Hometalk", the lead single (and title track) of Mango Groove's second album.
In the video for "Hellfire", Mango plays to black and white patrons in a nightclub in Sophiatown, a venerable black neighbourhood and cultural hotspot just outside of Johannesburg. The video begins, however, with an elderly black man packing his things—forced out of his Sophiatown home. At the end of the video, a caption explains that Sophiatown was demolished in 1954 to allow for the construction of a white suburb called Triomf (the Afrikaans word for triumph). These scenes the SABC censored, changing the context and meaning of the rest of the video. "Hellfire" was written by Mickey Vilakazi, who was the band's trombonist and eldest member until his death in 1988. The song's lyrics speak of an interracial love that is misunderstood and forbidden.
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