Uhambe Kahle (Goodbye) Lucky Dube

Early yesterday morning, South Africa's premier Reggae artist, Lucky Dube, was shot and killed, in a botched carjacking, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa.

He had just dropped his 15 year-old son and 16 year-old daughter at school, when he was mudered in front of them.

Lucky was so named by his mother, after his birth on August 3, 1964, following the unsuccessful pregnancies that she previously had.

Lucky's musical career started when he was eighteen, when he played traditional Zulu music,with his boyhood band, "The love Brothers".

However, he noticed that Reggae and the social consciousness that it carried, really appealed to his live concert audiences.

So with the rhythmic sounds of Hi-Five (South African pop music) as a backdrop, Dube was able to infuse these rhythms with Reggae, thus producing a distinctive sound (akin to the haunting rhythms of Jamaican Reggae artist, Peter Tosh) which rocketed Dube to fame, both in South Africa and the world.

[When Lucky Dube performed at the opening ceremony of the Cricket World Cup in Jamaica, in March of this year, his music brought back strong memories of Peter Tosh. (Peter Tosh played bass guitar for the Wailers - the back-up band for Bob Marley. He went on to become a popular Jamaican Reggae artist, after Bob Marley's death.)

Jamaicans have always loved Lucky, but I think we loved him even more, for giving us a special premier to his opening ceremony performance, at a concert in Trelawny, the night before.)]

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South Africans have expressed shock and anger at Lucky's death.

This incident has served to futher enrage them, due to the apparent refusal of South African President, Thabo Mbeke, to effectively deal with the worsening crime problem in South Africa.

In all, Lucky Dube recorded 22 albums in Zulu, English and Afrikaans over a 25-year period.

He was 43 years old. (You may read his biography here.)

He is survived by his wife, Zanele and their seven children.

We at Girl With a Purpose Blog offer our condolensces to Lucky Dube's family and to our extended family of South Africa, at the loss of one of South Africa's premier sons.

("Uhambe kahle" is Zulu, for the English word, "Goodbye".

Zulu is the prominent language of poor, black South Africans.)

The inset shows the videoclip of Lucky Dube's, "Prisoner", - one of his more popular songs. It was uploaded by Eternitylures, at YouTube.com.

Sources Include:

1)  Lucky Dube Biography, Wikipedia.com

2) Article, "Lucky Dube's murder throws Spotlight on crime in South Africa" by Jonathan Clayton, The Times

3) VideoClip, Lucky Dube's, "Prisoner", uploaded by eternitylures, YouTube.com.

Gillian