Mbongeni Ngema: A mirror to the nation
Mbongeni Ngema, who died late last month, was a towering figure in the arts, winning acclaim here and abroad. But his life also had all the contours and contradictions of a well-scripted drama. Alongside the many accolades, controversy was never far off.
In the arts, Ngema’s contributions were deep and varied, spanning the world of theatre, music and film. And while many of the accolades since his death focused on his contribution to the struggle against apartheid, the mantle of “struggle artist” would sit uncomfortably on him.
Rather, Ngema sought to tell the story of black life under apartheid, and after the supposed arrival of freedom and equality in 1994.
He did not shy away from engaging the political questions of the day, notably the land dispossession of black South Africans through colonialism and later apartheid laws, a theme he returned to often.
In the song African Solution, written at the height of violence between black political groupings, often fanned by the apartheid state, Ngema urged unity, calling out black leaders for fighting among themselves at great human cost instead of confronting the real enemy, the white government.
He also saw a connection between black South Africans and the African diaspora, where his idol was Muhammad Ali, whom he lionised in the album Magic at 4am. Ali, he said, was “the greatest hero of this century”.
But Ngema also sought to show that black people were not one-dimensional, and that, contrary to apartheid’s design, they laughed, loved and yearned to be happy like human beings everywhere.
The iconic Stimela SaseZola was, in fact, not a song about a train but a love song. Yet its allegory of the Welcome Dover stove, ubiquitous in townships across South Africa, was less about black people’s innate love for the brand than about a whole people deliberately denied electricity by apartheid. It is to Ngema’s artistic credit that he popularised, across the country’s length and breadth, a train that in reality never was.
He earned the opprobrium of many when he released Amandiya, which focused on the often fraught relationship between blacks and Indians in KwaZulu-Natal, accusing Indians of mistreating their black compatriots. Even Nelson Mandela, the great democrat, entered the fray, demanding that Ngema apologise for the song.
Yet Ngema was neither the first nor the last to broach the subject. Others, such as Zulu traditional musician Phuzekhemisi, had done the same.
While Ngema was castigated, and the song was denied airplay on many radio stations, the racial fault lines in KwaZulu-Natal remained, to come to the fore again during the 2021 unrest.
The backlash again raised the question of where the limits of artistic expression in a democracy such as ours are supposed to be, and the suitability of agenda-driven politicians and other self-interested thought police to sit in judgment of artistic works.
Much of Ngema’s music was in isiZulu, his home language. In a country where English remains the effective lingua franca, despite a lot of talk about decoloniality, many would have missed out on the opportunity to relish Ngema’s artistic brilliance — attested to by a Grammy award and multiple other global nominations.
In addition to a Sama Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018, Ngema was honoured more recently with the Satma Legacy Award.
In particular, the country owes Ngema a debt of gratitude for Sarafina! perhaps his best-known creative work, also adapted for the big screen, which immortalises the historic 1976 student uprisings.
The Market Theatre, where many of his iconic offerings, such as Woza Albert! and Asinamali, were given birth, said Ngema’s spirit “will forever be woven into the fabric of our nation’s artistic and cultural narrative”. His contributions to the Market Theatre during the struggle, it said, “will be remembered as a testament to the enduring power of storytelling”.
Dogged by recurrent rumours of abuse of women, was he a male chauvinist? Probably. It would be unsurprising in a country where patriarchal attitudes remain pervasive and continue to fuel the scourge of gender-based violence.
Yet, weeks before his death in a car accident, Ngema was honoured with a lifetime achievement award at a Gauteng social development department ceremony. The award, reported the SABC, was in recognition of his “positive contribution towards the arts, but also appreciating his change from being an abuser to a gender-based violence and femicide activist”.
Recognition by his country mattered to Ngema. On receiving the Gauteng award, he posted, almost prophetically, on his Instagram page: “It is very humbling when your contribution to the South African liberation [struggle] through the arts is recognised while you are still alive.”
As a person, Ngema may not have been perfect. As artists do, he mirrored the nation to itself, warts and all — and sometimes to the discomfort and anger of some.
With Amandiya, Ngema made many enemies who are, not unexpectedly, outraged by the accolades showered on him at his death. They would have preferred his every failing, including being implicated in the Sarafina 2 scandal of more than a decade ago, to be his epitaph. To ensure, in the words of Mark
Antony, that his every “evil” lives after him and his good deeds are interred with his bones.
That in a country presumably anchored on reconciliation and forgiveness.