A Nation Divided, but Under a Groove

"We're still so divided," Mahola said. "It's so scary how much people have absorbed, and how much we don't talk about it. I do think that everybody wants to get together, but they don't know how to do it."

At times, music has provided a way. Johnny Clegg, a white singer and guitarist who pioneered multiracial groups and whose music was banned from the radio, became so engrossed in Zulu culture in the 1970s that, backed by a mostly black band, he often appeared on stage dressed as a tribal warrior. During the 1980s and 1990s, the multiracial band Mango Groove was popular with black and white audiences, though performance venues often were segregated.

What's new about Freshlyground is the apparent ease of their collaboration. For the band members in their twenties, apartheid is a matter for the history books, and playing together has never been an intentionally political act.

The older members, such as bassist Josh Hawks, 35, who faced police harassment while playing in a mixed-race band in the early 1990s, and Peter Cohen, 44, who played with Mango Groove, said they were enjoying the freedom to play, unhindered, for South Africans of all races.

"They want to feel we can live in harmony," Cohen said. "There's a bit of a Kodak moment happening for people."

Freshlyground formed in 2002 as a nameless jam band when keyboardist Aron Turest-Swartz, 26, started playing with a flutist, a violinist and a guitarist. All were white, and the music showed little hint of developing a breakout sound. Then Turest-Swartz saw Mahola, a fellow drama student, in a musical stage performance. Soon after, at a small gig, the still unnamed-band invited her on stage.

"She just took the mike and started improvising," Turest-Swartz recalled. "It was amazing."

Mahola's arrival transformed the band. Most members agree they would never have caught on without her talents and her willingness to sing with white musicians. But Mahola said she always felt natural.

"I get bored with being with the same type of people, eating the same kind of food," she said. "I like to mix things."

Soon the group began looking for a name and asked fans to vote on various possibilities at performances. The winning suggestion, by Turest-Swartz, was inspired by a pepper mill label.

The name has since led some fans to suspect that the mixed nature of the band was a marketing gimmick. But at that point, although Mahola sang half the songs in Xhosa, one of the country's 11 official languages, they were considered a white band that happened to have a black singer.

Then, in 2003, the original guitarist was replaced by Julio Sigauque, 30, a music student from neighboring Mozambique. He increasingly added African licks to the band's songs and gave Freshlyground a new look on stage.