Johnny Clegg, who was born in Bacup, England, near Rochdale on June 7, 1953 and died in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 16, 2019, was a South African musician known as the “White Zulu.” In the late 20th century, his innovative, racially integrated music protested apartheid, the forced separation of Black and white peoples and traditions in South Africa.

 

Born in England, Clegg was reared in southern Africa. As a youth, he moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where his mother married a South African journalist. The household relocated to Johannesburg. His stepfather was a crime reporter and his mother was a cabaret vocalist with an interest in Black African culture; Clegg’s family was musical and politically liberal. As a young adult, Clegg studied anthropology at the University of Witwatersrand, where he later taught after obtaining a master’s degree. During his tenure at the university, he was able to cultivate both his academic and practical involve t with the local Zulu population’s arts and culture. In the 1970s, he gave up his teaching position to pursue musical endeavors with the ultimate goal of fusing European and black South African artistic traditions.

Clegg subsequently formed a friendship with Sipho Mchunu, a Zulu migrant laborer and Johannesburg street musician. Clegg learned the Zulu language, traditional music, and lively dance styles from Mchunu, which he subsequently incorporated into his performances. Clegg and Mchunu performed as a duet for several years before forming Juluka (Zulu for “sweat”). In 1979, Juluka released the album Universal , which depicted the lives of migrant laborers who reside and work in the city but are separated from their families and homes. The album was a stylistic fusion of Zulu music and numerous European traditions. Later albums had a similar composition.The group’s third album, Ubuhle Bemvelo (1982), was performed exclusively in Zulu.

 

During the early 1980s, Juluka gained not only a large local audience, but also an enthusiastic international following, especially in France, where Clegg was affectionately dubbed “Le Zoulou Blanc” (“The White Zulu”). During the apartheid era, when music performed by mixed (Black and white) ensembles or that blended Black and white styles was banned from South African radio, Juluka’s success was especially noteworthy. Consequently, Juluka’s music was disseminated predominantly through live performances, which frequently resulted in encounters with the police, particularly in South Africa. The group’s appeal was in fact based on both its innovative and engaging music and its explicit and implicit political state t against apartheid, a system that was increasingly denounced internationally.

In 1985, Mchunu quit Juluka and Johannesburg to return to his native KwaZulu state (now KwaZulu-Natal), and Clegg founded a new group called Savuka (Zulu for “We Have Risen”). Savuka consisted of both black and white South African musicians, but their music was significantly influenced by Western popular music genres such as rock, jazz, blues, reggae, and funk. Billboard magazine named Heat, Dust & Dreams (1993) greatest world-music album of 1994. Savuka disbanded in 1993, and Clegg and Mchunu reunited in 1997 to record a single album, Crocodile Love.

Subsequently, Clegg embarked on a solo career and released several albums, such as New World Survivor (2002), A South African Story (2003), and One Life (2007). He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2015. In 2017, following treat t, he released the EP King of Time. 2018 marked the conclusion of Clegg’s retire t tour, which he dubbed the Final Journey.