In irie-membrance of Lucky Dube.
On the 18th of October last year, the world woke up to a, “where were you when you heard it?” moment, with the tragic news of music icon Lucky Dube’s death at the hands of hijackers.
But, wait, before that, let’s think back to the that other moment back in the 80’s at a packed Ellis Park stadium, with a shirtless Lucky Dube covering more ground than 24 football players and their substitutes, the thousands of fans on their feet just about forgotten that they were there for the beautiful game- not the beautiful sound, at that precise moment the echoes of “I got you baby to make me feel alright” vibrated through out the stadium and into pop culture immortality.
For a while, it seemed like the only good things black people had in the 80’s were football… and Lucky Dube.
Some might have been more popular. Some cooler.
But Lucky Dube was possibly the most important artist of the 80’s.
He chose reggae, this is after a successful Mbanqanga career, to espouse the teaching of black consciousness and spread positive life-affirming messages that helped restore a dignity of a nation during its darkest hour.
But to paint him solely as a black messiah would be a great crime, after all, he did release an Afrikaans album at the height of his career, Lucky was more than that, for instance his take on an issue like apartheid was unique as it acknowledged that there are humans on both sides of the fence.
For him, any injustice whether apartheid or alcohol induced abuse as documented in his song “Slave”, was a brother hurting another brother issue. Nothing more.
We should all remember Lucky Dube the humanitarian, a dreadlocked, red, black and green social worker. His were not mere song titles but human conditions. The tragic way things were, and how they should be.
In the lament “Prisoner” he paints this ironic picture, “They won' t build no schools anymore, All they' ll build will be prison, prison”.
Indeed, we do silence our prophets.
The month of October has been marked as a Lucky Dube Remembrance month, a time where we remember his charmed life and celebrate the irrepressible work.
Listen out for the special radio days on the 17th and the 18th October to hear new exclusive, never heard before material, as well as the old moments like that electrifying Ellis Park performance. And those are the where were you moments we should be remembering.
End.
This is something I wrote for a friend of mine after he was let down by the professional. I literally had no time to write this. Mind you, I'm no journalist, I'm a mere copywriter (in truth I quit that three months ago), but I love writing.
My favourite writing is one which is insightful, dense, lucid, and presents an irrefutable argument, it's what I tried to do here. I have some criticism for this piece, for example the description of the stadium performance starts well but lacks meat and imagination in the middle, but it's done.
I'm looking at writing at least two opinion pieces a day, starting next week
First, is the man's memory served well here?
