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General Discussion / Gito Baloi RIP
« on: April 11, 2004, 01:58:00 PM »
Defeated and with tears flowing freely, Gito Baloi´s wife sat on a dirty downtown pavement, keeping a vigil next to his lifeless body in in the early hours of Sunday.
Surrounded by crying friends, Erika Hibbert was too distraught to speak. She had just lost the love of her life.
Close friend Dave Reynolds this week spoke about the awful dash downtown in the middle of the night and how he found Hibbert already at her husband´s side.
"What do you say to someone who has lost her husband like that? It was one of those moments [in which] you had nothing to say," he said.
Baloi, 39, escaped the violence of the then war-torn Mozambique in the 1980s to make a life and successful career for himself in South Africa.
But the man who Reynolds described as being "not afraid of anything" became a victim of the crime that dogs downtown Joburg.
He was shot three times in the neck for his wallet at about 1.30am last Sunday.
The ba**ist and singer for the internationally successful group Tananas - whose last album was called Alive in Joburg - had a deep love for the city and was a trustee of the Performing Arts Project of the Inner City Initiative, aimed at using culture to revive the downtown area.
"He knew no borders," said Francois Venter, co-ordinator of the project.
"He lived in Soweto, Berea, Yeoville and then Troyeville. He did not restrict his movement in the city and was as comfortable in Saxonwold as he would be in deep Soweto."
At an emotional memorial service on Wednesday evening at the Newtown Music Hall, a poem by Baloi´s friend Steve Faulkner was read out: "Last night a man was lost to us / On the streets of a city he marvelled at..."
During the service, attended by a huge number of Joburg´s art and music community, Hibbert sat hugging their daughter Tiva, burying her face in her hands.
Radio and TV personality Tim Modise hosted the event which was attended by entertainers including Jennifer Ferguson, Tananas guitarist Steve Newman, ba**ist Victor Masondo and representatives of the Mozambican government.
Friends reminisced about a man who cooked, washed the dishes and took his children to school.
In tribute to their slain friend, Newman played a haunting guitar piece while singer Mercy Phakela sang a Xhosa hymn.
Other performers included young Mozambican group 340ml, who had been given a break when "Uncle Gito" had allowed them to use his studio.
Hibbert, too distressed to speak to the media as she prepared for the funeral in Maputo yesterday, was holed up in the family´s Troyeville house. Friends said she had difficulty sleeping and was being comforted by relatives and her daughters Lorha, 9, and Tiva, 7.
"Gito wanted people to feel his music and to live with love," she wrote in a message read out at the memorial.
The death of Baloi has caused outrage at the lawlessness of downtown Joburg. Nugget Street has none of the closed-circuit TV cameras that have been credited for bringing crime levels down in other parts of the inner city.
Neville Harkman of Cue Incident, which operates the cameras, said it was Baloi´s misfortune to be at a place that did not have cameras. "This tragic death shows it´s absolutely necessary to roll the cameras out."
He described the Nugget Street area as "not properly managed".
"Crime flourishes and illegal activities such as drug deals are rife," he said.
Kenny Fihla, chief executive of Business Against Crime, said his organisation was saddened by Baloi´s " vicious and violent" killing.
Baloi´s killers are still on the loose. Police spokesman Captain Schalk Bornman said investigations were continuing.
"No one has been arrested, but the Special Task Team is busy with investigations and we´ll know when there´s a breakthrough."
In the meantime, friends and family have set up the Gito Baloi Memorial Trust Fund to help secure the future of his daughters.
"Gito started with little and never begged for money. Musicians are not highly paid and don´t have benefits such as medical aids," said Reynolds.
However, Baloi has left his children and the Southern African music community with a legacy of music by which to remember him - an album, as yet unnamed, is scheduled for release later this month.
sundaytimes
What a loss !!! R.I.P.
fah
Surrounded by crying friends, Erika Hibbert was too distraught to speak. She had just lost the love of her life.
Close friend Dave Reynolds this week spoke about the awful dash downtown in the middle of the night and how he found Hibbert already at her husband´s side.
"What do you say to someone who has lost her husband like that? It was one of those moments [in which] you had nothing to say," he said.
Baloi, 39, escaped the violence of the then war-torn Mozambique in the 1980s to make a life and successful career for himself in South Africa.
But the man who Reynolds described as being "not afraid of anything" became a victim of the crime that dogs downtown Joburg.
He was shot three times in the neck for his wallet at about 1.30am last Sunday.
The ba**ist and singer for the internationally successful group Tananas - whose last album was called Alive in Joburg - had a deep love for the city and was a trustee of the Performing Arts Project of the Inner City Initiative, aimed at using culture to revive the downtown area.
"He knew no borders," said Francois Venter, co-ordinator of the project.
"He lived in Soweto, Berea, Yeoville and then Troyeville. He did not restrict his movement in the city and was as comfortable in Saxonwold as he would be in deep Soweto."
At an emotional memorial service on Wednesday evening at the Newtown Music Hall, a poem by Baloi´s friend Steve Faulkner was read out: "Last night a man was lost to us / On the streets of a city he marvelled at..."
During the service, attended by a huge number of Joburg´s art and music community, Hibbert sat hugging their daughter Tiva, burying her face in her hands.
Radio and TV personality Tim Modise hosted the event which was attended by entertainers including Jennifer Ferguson, Tananas guitarist Steve Newman, ba**ist Victor Masondo and representatives of the Mozambican government.
Friends reminisced about a man who cooked, washed the dishes and took his children to school.
In tribute to their slain friend, Newman played a haunting guitar piece while singer Mercy Phakela sang a Xhosa hymn.
Other performers included young Mozambican group 340ml, who had been given a break when "Uncle Gito" had allowed them to use his studio.
Hibbert, too distressed to speak to the media as she prepared for the funeral in Maputo yesterday, was holed up in the family´s Troyeville house. Friends said she had difficulty sleeping and was being comforted by relatives and her daughters Lorha, 9, and Tiva, 7.
"Gito wanted people to feel his music and to live with love," she wrote in a message read out at the memorial.
The death of Baloi has caused outrage at the lawlessness of downtown Joburg. Nugget Street has none of the closed-circuit TV cameras that have been credited for bringing crime levels down in other parts of the inner city.
Neville Harkman of Cue Incident, which operates the cameras, said it was Baloi´s misfortune to be at a place that did not have cameras. "This tragic death shows it´s absolutely necessary to roll the cameras out."
He described the Nugget Street area as "not properly managed".
"Crime flourishes and illegal activities such as drug deals are rife," he said.
Kenny Fihla, chief executive of Business Against Crime, said his organisation was saddened by Baloi´s " vicious and violent" killing.
Baloi´s killers are still on the loose. Police spokesman Captain Schalk Bornman said investigations were continuing.
"No one has been arrested, but the Special Task Team is busy with investigations and we´ll know when there´s a breakthrough."
In the meantime, friends and family have set up the Gito Baloi Memorial Trust Fund to help secure the future of his daughters.
"Gito started with little and never begged for money. Musicians are not highly paid and don´t have benefits such as medical aids," said Reynolds.
However, Baloi has left his children and the Southern African music community with a legacy of music by which to remember him - an album, as yet unnamed, is scheduled for release later this month.
sundaytimes
What a loss !!! R.I.P.
fah
