As a musician, Matshikiza is celebrated for composing the score of the jazz musical King Kong, as well as numerous choral works in South African traditional style, notably "Hamba Kahle".
[2] Although jazz and composing remained his primary interests, to supplement the family income he worked briefly for Vanguard Booksellers in Johannesburg.
[6] Matshikiza also worked briefly for the Golden City Post,[2] a sister publication of Drum with whom it shared offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
[2] The work's premiere was commemorated with a Google Doodle on 25 September 2023,[8] although research had previously suggested that it was first performed not at the gala concert which took place at Johannesburg City Hall on that day in 1956, but on 13 October of the same year.
It attracted multi-racial audiences, and was performed in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, before opening at the Prince’s Theatre in London’s West End on 23 February 1961.
Matshikiza composed the music for Alan Paton’s play Mkhumbane, which opened to great success in Durban on 29 March 1960,[11] but closed after a few months due to police harassment.
[12] The a capella musical recounts the trials of a grass-roots community whose daily lives are affected by forced removal and the actions of gangsters.
Frustrated by the apartheid system, and enabled by plans afoot to stage the King Kong musical in London, Matshikiza moved with his wife and two children to England in August 1960.
He found it difficult to break into the English music scene, but collaborated with other musicians, playing piano in London jazz venues.
He continued to write for Drum magazine, to which he contributed a monthly column entitled "Todd in London", and worked for the BBC as a presenter and researcher.
In the early 1960s he participated in an international competition to write a national anthem for recently-independent Nigeria, and in a festival in Oran celebrating Algeria’s independence.