Defiant musician a champion for Mandela

JOHNNY Clegg, a South African musician who performed in defiance of racial barriers imposed by the apartheid system, has died aged 66 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

The British-born singer, sometimes called the “White Zulu”, died peacefully at home in Johannesburg.

Clegg’s multi-racial bands during white minority rule attracted an international following. He crafted hits inspired by Zulu and township harmonies, as well as folk and other influences.

One of his best-known songs is Asimbonanga, which means “We’ve never seen him” in Zulu. It refers to South Africans during apartheid when images of then-imprisoned Nelson Mandela were banned. The Grammy-nominated singer learned about Zulu music and dancing as a teenager when he socialised with a Zulu cleaner and street musician called Charlie Mzila.

Clegg later explored his idea of “crossover” music with the multiracial bands Juluka and Savuka at a time of bitter conflict in South Africa over white minority rule.

Clegg recorded songs he was arrested for and “never gave in to the pressure of the apartheid rules,” his manager Roddy Quin said. The apartheid-era censorship also restricted where he could perform.

The musician was performing as late as in 2017, high-kicking and stomping, with the cancer in remission during one last tour called The Final Journey.

At a concert in Johannesburg that year, Clegg said that “all of these entries into traditional culture gave me a way of understanding myself, helping me to shape a kind of African identity for myself, and freed me up to examine another way of looking at the world”.

In December, Clegg told South African news channel eNCA that the “toughest part of my journey will be the next two years”.

The performer had been diagnosed with cancer in 2015, and the gruelling treatment included two sixmonth sessions of chemotherapy.

In a 2017 interview, Clegg recalled how he performed Asimbonanga during a tour of Germany in 1997 and experienced a “huge shock” when Mandela, beaming and dancing, unexpectedly came out on stage behind him.

“It is music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world. And at peace with myself,” Mandela said to the audience.

He called on Clegg to resume the song and urged all in the audience to get up and dance. At the end of the song, Mandela and Clegg, holding hands, walked off stage.

“That was the pinnacle moment for me,” Clegg recalled. “It was just a complete and amazing gift from the universe.”