Madala Kunene is a South African guitarist, singer and composer who has been making music since he was seven years old. Kunene was born in 1951 in Mkhumbane, a vibrant community in the municipality of Durban. In 1959 the apartheid regime Kunene and most of his large family moved to the relatively new township Kwa Mashu. In his youth, the musician learned to play the guitar on a homemade instrument, which consisted of a tin can and herringbones. But Kunene is now performing on the largest festival stages around the globe. His masterful playing has earned him the title of "King of the Zulu Guitar". International collaborations, for example with the Swiss guitarist Max Lasser, made Kunene world-famous. "1959" was co-produced and recorded by Marius Botha and Neil Snyman. Originally it was planned to record the album with acoustic guitar and vocals alone. But because good and, above all, musically talented friends visited him constantly in the studio, the whole thing grew into a multicollaboration project in which around 20 people actively participated.
