Known as the "Lion of Soweto", Nkabinde is the acknowledged exponent of the deep-voiced, basso profundo "groaning" style that came to symbolize mbaqanga music in the 1960s.

The Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens act was propelled into international stardom in the wake of Paul Simon's 1986 Graceland album.

Nkabinde himself joined the kwela group Alexandra Black Mambazo (from which the Ladysmith choir would later take its name), among the members his older brother Zeph and Aaron "Big Voice Jack" Lerole, the originator of the singing style later known as "groaning".

In the later 1950s, Nkabinde joined the "black music" division of EMI, led by prolific talent scout and producer Rupert Bopape, and began recording with female artists such as the Dark City Sisters and the Flying Jazz Queens.

In 1971, Nkabinde fell out with Bopape and left Gallo-Mavuthela, joining Satbel Record Company under producer Cambridge Matiwane.

Nkabinde and the original five Mahotella Queens – Hilda Tloubatla, Juliet Mazamisa, Ethel Mngomezulu, Nobesuthu Mbadu and Mildred Mangxola – were reunited with the Makgona Tsohle Band.

In their absence, Nkabinde managed, under various pseudonyms including "Mahlathini Nabo", to record a multitude of successful releases with the male vocal trio Amaswazi Emvelo.

By the early 1980s, Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu's band Juluka had taken mbaqanga to a new audience with performances in the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town.

West Nkosi, by now Gallo-Mavuthela's top producer and the most musically-astute of the Makgona Tsohle Band, regrouped Nkabinde with three of the Mahotella Queens (Hilda Tloubatla, Nobesuthu Mbadu and Mildred Mangxola) to fulfil the demand for African music overseas.

They began touring for long stretches across the world, particularly in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia, appearing in their own concerts and in events such as WOMAD.

They became further known to Western audiences through their 1989 collaborations with the experimental rock group Art of Noise on their album Below the Waste, particularly on the single "Yebo".