Albert Mazibuko remembers the first time Ladysmith Black Mambazo sang for Nelson Mandela.

It was in 1991 at a big birthday party for the South African leader.

"He walked up on the stage and danced with us," Mazibuko says. "He shook hands with us. He said, 'Keep up the good job, guys. Your music was an inspiration while I was in jail.'"

American audiences were introduced to Ladysmith Black Mambazo through Paul Simon's 1986 "Graceland" album, but the group had been a beacon to black South Africans since it was founded more than two decades earlier by Joseph Shabalala.

Since "Graceland," the group has become a cultural emissary to the world for South Africa. Ladysmith Black Mambazo will perform at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 24, at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater, 23 S. Central Ave., Medford. The performance is an early stop on a 10-week, coast-to-coast tour.

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Shabalala was a young farm boy who gone to work in the factories of apartheid-era South Africa.

"You worked for six months on the white man's farm, then you had a chance to go to town for six months to work for money," Mazibuko, 58, says in a telephone interview.

The name reflected Shabalala's ideals. Ladysmith was his rural hometown. Black meant oxen, the strongest farm animal. Mambazo is the Zulu word for an axe, emblematic of the group's ability to symbolically "chop down" musical rivals.

In those days South African vocal groups had frequent singing competitions, but the voices of Ladysmith Black Mambazo were so polished they were soon banned from the contests and allowed to continue performing only as entertainers.

Their first recording deal didn't come until 1970 in the wake of a well-received radio broadcast. When Simon incorporated the group's harmonies into "Graceland," the album became a landmark in the introduction of world music to mainstream audiences. Soon after, Simon produced the group's first official U.S. release, "Shaka Zulu," which won a Grammy in 1988.

The group has since scored eight more Grammy nominations. They won in 2005 for the album "Raise Your Spirit Higher."

Their newest CD, "Long Walk to Freedom," celebrates a dozen years of democracy in the Republic of South Africa since the end of apartheid there. The group is joined on the effort by Melissa Etheridge, Emmylou Harris, Taj Mahal, Natalie Merchant, Zap Mama and others. The album is a sort of greatest-hits effort.

"We picked the songs for that reason," Mazibuko says.

Some of the songs have stories. Shabalala wrote "Nmathemba" in 1965 after it came to him in a dream. Years later he wrote a play based on the song, and the group performed the parts in performances in Chicago and Boston.

"Mbube" is a Zulu song better known to the world as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" or "Wimoweh." It was arranged and recorded by the South African singer Solomon Linda in the 1930s but is much older.

"It is a wedding song," Mazibuko says. "When we'd see our girlfriend, we'd see them outside, maybe in the forest, never in the house. When the lion sleeps, it's good. We have free time to roam around."

He laughs at this explanation.

Mazibuko and his brother joined Shabalala in 1969 after the latter split with an earlier group of singers.

"He said the group he had failed to learn techniques," he says. "They sang so beautiful, but he didn't want only beautiful, but something to convey the message to people. It was too challenging for them. He came to us. We said 'OK.'"

He says when he first listened to American gospel music, a connection to African harmonies was obvious to him.

"It proves to me the music is coming from above," he says, "from God."

He can remember like yesterday the first time black South Africans were allowed to vote, in April of 1994.

"I didn't even drive," he says. "I walked to the place. I put my cross on the paper. It felt so wonderful, felt like heaven was down, it was so good, so happy."

By that time Ladysmith Black Mambazo had been in demand all over the world for several years, and it wasn't letting up.

"We thought after Paul Simon it would be for that period," he says, "but the invitations never stopped."

Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or bvarble@mailtribune.com.