MUSIC: Three Tune Tuesday 102 - 3 Songs by Johnny Clegg (The White Zulu)! - (3 Cover Performances!)

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Hello everybody on HIVE, and especially the Music Community. My name is Jasper and I'm writing (and singing) to you from Cape Town in South Africa!

This is my 37th week contributing to "Three Tune Tuesday", an initiative started by @ablaze. It is week 102 overall!

In all of my TTT entries I like to play the songs on guitar as well as share the original videos... and I have a new pattern for "Three Tune Tuesday" where I pick three songs by one of my favourite artists, that has inspired me - as I also write original songs.

I have done a lot of stuff my parents loved (Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Simon & Garfunkel) as well as my older sister (Radiohead). Perhaps you've started thinking that we South Africans don't have local musical heroes at all? Well that's not true! So today, let me tackle one!

Johnny Clegg - When Johnny Clegg was a young white teenager living in Johannesburg, South Africa, his stepfather ran away to Australia with his baby half-sister, leaving him and his mother behind. Obviously this was very traumatic, but it also left him without a father figure. He landed up being drawn to the masculinity and friendship of local Zulu migrants who had come up from the province of KwaZulu-Natal to his hometown of Johannesburg to find work.

Even though this all happened during the middle of the Apartheid era in South Africa, when racial segregation was heavily enforced by the Government and police, Johnny took the risk of learning the isiZulu language and culture, and started to learn the traditional Zulu guitar styles of maskandi and kwela, as well as the traditional Zulu styles of dancing and stick-fighting. After a bit of skepticism about what this white boy wanted, his Zulu friends realised that he was definitely in earnest about wanting to learn, and was a fantastic musician and dancer, and they accepted Johnny Clegg as an honourary Zulu.

He formed a band (Juluka) with a good friend, Sipho Mchunu, that perfectly blended Western Music with traditional Zulu music. In time, the music would become a celebrated symbol of the fight against Apartheid and racial segregation in South Africa!

Often the verses would be in English and the choruses in Zulu, like the first song I'm going to sing... The song "Impi" is a war song! Luckily we now only use the song to rile us up at rugby matches as an answer to New Zealand's haka or something like that!

But "Impi" actually commemorates a real battle that happened during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879, where a regiment of Zulu Warriors armed with short spears and cattle-hide shields were able to defeat a British regiment armed with modern (for the time) Martini Henry rifles and even a few cannons!

Here is the original:

In the next song, I attempt a Juluka song that seems to follow a traditional Zulu style even more closely, and the lyrics are entirely in isiZulu. It is called "Thula 'Mntanami" which means "Hush Child" because it is supposed to be used as a lullaby! The lyrics roughly translate to "hush child, mother will be coming soon, and she will be bringing sweets - they are tasty!"

Here's the original:

But I also want to show you a video of Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu coming together as old men much more recently to sing the song beautifully in the back of a mini-bus taxi!

Sipho Mchunu eventually retired to go work his farmstead in the (then) Zululand part of South Africa, and Johnny Clegg eventually became very successful with his second band (Savuka) that also had a multi-racial cast and blended Western and Zulu styles. He became famous in Europe too where the Frence referred to him as "le Zoulou Blanc" (the white Zulu).

Here's a song from that era, another rousing song that is often played at sports matches! "Great Heart"!

Here is the original:

Johnny Clegg has unfortunately recently passed away from cancer. I was lucky enough to see him in concert on a farewell tour, when he already knew his days were numbered. It was magical. I believe he received an Honourary Zulu funeral, and as a man will forever be a symbol of anti-racism and love.

So that's week 102 done and dusted! I hope you enjoyed the Johnny Clegg songs! Which song was your favourite? If you were already familiar with his work, did I miss an important one to you?

Some other songs I would highly recommend checking out are:
African Sky Blue
Deliwe
King of Time

And so, which artist will I do three covers of next week, for TTT number 102? I hope you tune in to find out and thank you so much for clicking/watching/reading this time!!

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