Johnny Clegg - Musician, Now also offering
Motivational Talk - Johannesburg
Jonathan "Johnny" Clegg (born 7 June 1953) is a
musician from South Africa, who has recorded and
performed with his bands Juluka and Savuka.
Sometimes called Le Zoulou Blanc ("The White Zulu"),
he is an important figure in South African popular
music history, with songs that mix Zulu with English
lyrics, and African with various Western European
(such as Celtic) music styles.
Johnny Clegg
By combining African music structures with Celtic
folk music and international rock sounds, Clegg -
together with Juluka, Savuka and as a solo artist -
pioneered a new and unique sound, establishing
himself as South Africa's biggest musical export.
JOHNNY CLEGG, born in Rochdale, England in 1953 was
raised in his mother's native land of Zimbabwe
before immigrating to South Africa at the age of
nine.
Equipped with his guitar, Johnny accompanied Mzila
to all the migrant labour haunts - from hostels to
rooftop shebeens. However, Johnny's
involvement with black musicians often led to him
being arrested for trespassing on government
property and for contravening the Group Areas Act
(an apartheid law forcing different races to keep to
their own residential and recreational areas). In
this difficult and complex political landscape,
Johnny managed to navigate a path, which enabled him
to enter the hidden world of the Zulu migrant
labourers. These men lived in a number of huge
barrack-like hostels around Johannesburg, serving
Johannesburg's insatiable appetite for cheap black
labour. During this period he developed a reputation
as a competent Zulu guitarist in the MASIKANDE
(from the Afrikaans Musikant) tradition.
By combining African music structures with Celtic
folk music and international rock sounds, Clegg -
together with Juluka, Savuka and as a solo artist -
pioneered a new and unique sound, establishing
himself as South Africa's biggest musical export.
Johnny Clegg
This reputation reached the ears of SIPHO MCHUNU, a
migrant Zulu worker who had come up to Johannesburg
in 1969 looking for work. Intrigued he challenged
Johnny to a guitar competition, sparking off a
friendship and musical partnership destined to alter
the face of South African music. Sipho was born in
Kranskop, Natal, in 1951. Although he had no musical
training as a young boy, he had made himself a
variety of musical instruments; his favourite being
a three stringed guitar fashioned out of a paraffin
tin. Soon he became extremely adept and well versed
in Zulu street guitar music. He later also formed a
traditional Zulu dance team and found a vast outlet
for his creative energies. Sipho investigated this
young white boy who danced and also played Zulu
street music and looked him up at his apartment one
day. A strong friendship developed out of this
meeting as for the first time Johnny was playing
with a street musician his own age. Johnny was
sixteen and Sipho eighteen.
Together they worked, often subjected to racial
abuse, threats of violence and police harassment. As
places where they could perform were limited by the
apartheid laws, they had to stick to the street and
private venues such as church and university halls.
When Johnny finished his schooling he went to
University, graduating with a BA (Hons) in Social
Anthropology and pursued an academic career for four
years lecturing at the University of the
Witwatersrand and the University of Natal.
Johnny Clegg
In 1976 Johnny and Sipho secured a major recording
deal and had their first hit sing entitled, Woza
Friday. A period of development followed, during
which Johnny worked on the concept of bringing
together English lyrics and Western melodies with
Zulu musical structures. The formation of JULUKA,
meaning 'sweat' in Zulu, was in total contravention
of the Cultural Segregation laws of the time, which
emphasised the separation of language, race and
culture. (Juluka was the name of Sipho's favourite
bull, because like all migrants, Sipho practiced
some cattle farming in the rural areas). Their music
was subjected to censorship and banning and their
only way to access an audience was through live
touring. In late 1979 their first album Universal
Men was released.
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Johnny Clegg - Musician, Now also offering
Motivational Talk - Johannesburg
