SELLO LAWRENCE

Sello Lawrence Sihlabeni is a self-taught musician born in Cape Town, South Africa. He started playing in the eighties in the ghettos of South Africa, a keyboard player of the band Spears (Of The Nation). Played with the Regulars as well as the Sons of Selassie from Cape Town. "There used to be this club called the Base, at the Shortmarket Street, remember!"

"80's, South Africa, political riots and violence, strikes and consumer boycotts, school boycotts, gangster war, state of emergency, you name it. But you still have to be focused as a youth. Luckily Jah music was there, drama and theater was there, so you keep yourself busy and don't loose track. Many of the youths fell into gansterism those days, but RASTA was there, REGGAE MUSIC chant down babylon, so I found myself. Dem used to sell us incomplete reggae albums or just scratch dem from the center, so you can't enjoy the music, it's alwasy jumping you know. I never knew there was a song called 'Apartheid' on the album 'Equal Rights' from Peter Tosh until I found it again in Europe. Babylon trying to keep us down, trying to keep the truth away from the people."

In the 90's Sello came to Europe, with the band Makwerhu from South Africa. They played a mixture of Afro Beats and Reggae, with influences of High Life and Rumba. Makwerhu travelled extensively throughout Europe and neighbouring countries, playing a lot of Festivals. Among others, the famous Africa Festival in Würzburg, Germany. On their last appearence, Papa Manu Dibango came up on stage and started jamming with the band.

In 1998 Makwerhu took a pause from the big stage, some went back to Africa. Sello stayed in Europe. Between 2000 - 2001 he recorded with LESIEM at the famous HANSA STUDIO (David Bowie) in Berlin. From there on he went on tour with Vitamin X, a Ghanese Reggae/Afro Band, with which he appeared on a number of festivals, including the Chiemsee Reggae Festival in Germany, sharing the stage with artists like Bunny Wailer, Third World, Alpha Blondy, Misty in Roots, Ziggy Marley and The Melody Makers etc.

Sello Lawrence invested all his assets in studio equipment, learning from scratch how to do RECORDINGS as wel as MASTERING. His first solo album " NEW NATION " was released in 2006 -2007, available physically and digitally on his label BERLIN CAPE TOWN RECORDS.

His latest album titled "Salute The Leaders" is now also available on the label.

Sello is a multi-instrumantalist, he rocks the bass and drum, the keys and guitars, sings and harmonizes the vocals, so he does most of the studio work in his albums, while now and then bringing in special musicians with a special taste for special spices.