A talent touched countless lives
IT WAS one of those gorgeous July winter’s days that can only be experienced in Durban. The
Tonight photographer and myself were soaking up the Vodacom Beach festival where myriad music events were happening, featuring some of Mzani’s biggest stars. We bumped into gospel super stars Lundi Tyamara and Sechaba Pali and their manager, Tshepo Nzimande.
Delighted at the opportunity, I asked them to walk to the end of the pier to do an impromptu photo shoot. As we were walking, I put my arm around Lundi’s tiny waist and said, pointing at the calm blue swells of the Indian Ocean: “This is so beautiful. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.” He looked at the sea and in a bored fashion, replied: “Hhmphf. I would rather be in Hillbrow.”
But that was Lundi for you. A decadent soul with the God-given voice of an angel. And did that man have a voice.
His journey from the frustrating town of Worcester to the big city lights of Jozi is one many have travelled. However, he was one of the few who made it. A couple of years into his career, he could count Rebecca Malope and Brenda Fassie as his best friends and at the time, he was just in his late teens.
He sold hundreds of thousands of CDs and enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame. But controversy followed this tortured soul.
One day he rushed into the Ghetto Ruff offices, which were on the same property as his Bula Music label, and hid behind the matriarch of the label, whispering frantically in her ear and giggling. I asked what was wrong. She started laughing as Lundi clung to her. Apparently there were rumours that he had made someone pregnant and the media were in the building looking for him. Lundi making a girl pregnant – preposterous!
That Lundi was gay was no secret. He never hid that off stage and it was not an issue, although his struggle with substance abuse was a cause of media interest.
My last interview with this sensitive soul took place at The Star building. He arrived looking as if he hadn’t slept. The photographer wanted an unusual picture, so we took him to the streets of the CBD. We found a big blue wall and he sat, or rather crouched, on a low wall beside it.
It was as if God, life, love and everything he believed in and needed had deserted him. He looked truly forsaken. It was disturbing. Weirdly enough, throughout his up-and- down career, he never seemed to age. He always looked like he had first time I saw him – an angelic teenager, one with a powerful voice. He had his dark side but it was his light that inspired millions around the country. That voice, oh that voice. So impassioned, so pained, so raw, so believing in redemption.
No one could touch him. This little man became a supreme giant on stage. This was where he was supposed to be, what he was born for. God was speaking to him and through him. Even atheists were caught by the other-worldly power captured in Lundi.
That is the singer South Africans will remember – with a voice that helped them through the darkest moments of their lives.
RIP Lundi. Your work here is done.