Robin France Watson
approx
6000 words
+1-734-473-0212
robinfwatson@aol.com
http://members.aol.com/robinfw
Visions of a
An
interview and evening with Johnny Clegg.
by
Robin France Watson
They love him in
Seeing them on stage, you knew
apartheid was just plain wrong. When you were a part of the crowd at
their shows, the truth was evident before your eyes. The joy and energy
of the music was infectious. People got arrested at their concerts, the
events and songs got banned. These 'African ideas' were a threat to the
white regime. The songs & the society that developed around them
bridged cultural and racial divides. Color, language and ideas melted
together in a synergy that was instrumental in the genesis of post-apartheid
The last time I was lucky enough to
catch Johnny Clegg and Mandisa Dlanga on stage together, I was a freelance
journalist writing in
I remember still the crowds, riot
police patrolling among them, snarling dogs tightly leashed. Despite the
'security presence' there was a sense of destiny in the air. The
multiracial crowd shared food and jokes, the only hostility I could sense was
toward the cops but even that was subdued. Madiba Mandela was out
of prison and with him free at last, one knew that the rest of the country
could not be far behind. Mixed in with the heady scents of sweat and
foods and sweet smoke, I could smell the change wafting across the nation that
day.
A whole lot of water, clear and
muddy, has passed under the bridge in the last fourteen years. Today
The country has now seen three
successive, fully democratic and peaceful elections, a successful transfer of
the presidency from Mandela to Thabo Mbeki and despite the myriad issues facing
the nation including a 40% unemployment rate, more than 80 % of eligible voters
show up on polling day. Look at the 97% of the electorate, some of whom
stood in line for days to vote in the first fully democratic election in 1994,
and consider the potency of democracy next time you are sitting at home on
Election Day, wondering about the value of your vote.
Remember that scene in Rainman
where Dustin Hoffman & Tom Cruise are driving across the south western
desert past all those spinning wind turbines? Listen carefully to the
music in the background. Clegg's song Scatterlings plays:
"We are the Scatterlings
of
on the road to Pelamanga, beneath
the copper sky."
In
"The last time I saw you was at
Ellis Park," I say by way of introduction, my South African accent
thickening up a little, years of linguistic habit picked up in
Clegg looks at me closely, "For
the concert that was banned?"
"Yeah," I give him a long
look back.
"Geez, that was a long time
ago."
He is just off the phone to his son
Jesse, so I enquire after his family. Still married to Jenny, Clegg's
youngest child is now nine. Jesse is fifteen. Privately I wonder
where all that time went. Johnny barely looks a year older than the last
time I had seen him. The elemental vibrancy which saturates his sound
keeps him young. I smile as we look at each other, remembering the
anti-apartheid days, the lumps we'd all taken and how far we have all come.
I'd arranged through his tour manager for an interview later but as he heads
out to the bus, I ask,
"So where is Pelamanga?"
Clegg stares at me seriously,
"It's at the end of illusion."
He slips away to prepare, so I
wander back up to the stage where Brendan Ross (sax / keyboard) and Andy Innes
(guitar) are trying to get a South African zip drive to work with American
wiring. More on technology later.
Concorde Nkabinde comes out laughing
and smiling to check his bass sound, grinning from ear to ear I yell, "Sawubona,
Concorde!"
"Sawubona m'gani,"
comes the friendly reply. Blacks and whites speaking each other's
languages, offering understanding and acceptance, equality and dignity, that's
the promise of the ‘New South Africa’. That's why people are doing
their best to make the country work. Right now, I'm just happy to be
among my tribe again.
A soldering iron, an old adapter and
some duct tape fix the problem with the wiring. They have an old Dutch
saying in
The crowd rolls in, my friends among
them. They're turned onto the music and it's their first show. We
settle into our row, two back from the front, dead center. I give
instructions on camera operation. As Abdel Wright comes on to begin the
opening set, a hand rests on my shoulder and I look up at Greg Johnstone, tour
manager extraordinaire,
"You wanted that interview
right?" he asks dryly in his thick English accent. A competent tour
manager is good shepherd, negotiator, dictator and mother hen all rolled into
one. Greg's proved himself outstanding. I grab my recorder and
notes and scurry after him, praying that my mates don't screw up and actually
manage to get Abdel on video.
We jog out the back door and across
the lot to
"You're on in a half
hour," Greg warns.
- -
-
We settle onto a comfy built-in sofa
up front, Johnny & I, stretched out facing each other, sitting down in
Clegg waves me on, "No, of
course!"
JC:
"So, where did we leave off?"
RFW: "We were talking
about what has changed the most in
JC:
"I think that we've achieved some major accomplishments in the last 10
years. Just from a political point of view, I think that being able to
ease into a multi-racial, multi-cultural, unitary state after a period of fifty
years of division and homelands and you know... all that stuff, has been
a tremendous achievement."
Johnny takes his time. His face as
expressive as Jim Carey's, he chews through the issues as he answers.
"I think that we have done
extraordinarily well at the political level. I think that our real issue
is economics."
He takes that thoughtful pause
again.
"I think our issue now is in
finding a way to create employment - if we're really going to alleviate poverty
- and to deal with the challenges of an emerging democratic culture.
Also, what is our national character? How do we perceive ourselves as a
nation? Can we be a nation? These are the issues that are now
raising their heads. We've got 11 official languages. We are basically
trying to find a place for everybody in the constitution and the country.
There are certain minimal guarantees that have been offered out BUT, it is
really up to South Africans to make it work. And my real concern, and I
think most people's concern, is whether the country can survive and grow as an
economic entity for ALL of its peoples!
We have 40% unemployment which in a
political scientist's terms is a revolutionary figure. That causes
revolutions. But because there is such a huge promise still hanging in
the air in terms of black empowerment and in terms of slightly ameliorating the
conditions in the country, which has happened, there is an amazing willingness
and desire among the people to give the country time to work. In the
past decade we've also seen a massive exodus from the rural areas into the
urban areas, which has exacerbated the urban problems. The petty crime is
huge and these are all things which we're now going to have to deal with."
RFW: "How are conditions
in the country now? Are people becoming conditioned to violence?"
JC:
Ironically, "Ja, it seems everyone has had some experience of low level
crime and danger. Political violence isn't such a factor anymore.
But, look, you know, you survive, you adapt and move on. I think that
there is, like in
RFW: "Do you think this
is something South Africans have to deal with themselves or do you think this
is something that the outside world should be helping with? In other
words, how, working here, can we be useful over there? Would you even
like to see
JC:
"I don't believe in aid."
RFW: "ok."
JC:
"What I believe in is investment!" Clegg's emphatic and
positive.
RFW: "Right."
JC:
"Because investment means that South Africans have to get up and do
something themselves! If you put out the begging bowl and get given
something, it's only a temporary fix; the condition of poverty isn't ameliorated.
"Also there's a huge aid
trap. I mean, most development theorists are against aid now.
Because normally it comes with huge political strings attached to it and
secondly, it often comes with outdated or unresearched models which are foreign
to the country. Obviously each country's got its own specific ideas and
experiences and culture. For example, when you want to implement birth
control or a specialized farming model, it has to be researched and you have to
find a way that it can be made to work for the local people that have to
implement it.”
“So, I think that what we need is
investment. We need to build infrastructure. We need to get people
to see that
RFW: "Are there parallels
between where
JC:
"No. You know, the thing for me is that the American Revolution was
really about colonists. Colonists revolting against their brethren.
You know what I mean?
"You know,” Johnny laughs and
leans in close, his voice low and conspiratorial, "What has been one of
the most spectacular moments this year..." His voice trails off for a
moment. "If you had ever said to me when I was in the UDF
back in 1986, that the old National Party (NP) would join, actually
merge, with the ANC, I would have said, 'You're mad!’"
The UDF or United
Democratic Front was an umbrella organization for the various
anti-apartheid forces inside
RFW: "Yeah, I remember
that time well. I went into the army in '86. I won't forget it."
JC:
He sighs. "Ja, those were bad days, hey! But now that very
thing is on the table. They want to disband the NP and join with the
ANC!" There is incredulity in his voice. "Can you believe
it? That is such an irony! And it is something which changes the
whole base of where we've come from."
RFW: "Yeah, that entirely
shifts the dynamic of power in the country, rearranges the balances."
JC:
"Yes!
RFW: "But I think that's
a good thing! At least in terms of where I’d like to see the country
head."
JC:
"Yes! It's a great thing. It's incredible, in just ten years
to have come so far!"
RFW: "Is there a
downside?"
JC:
"Well, you know, there is in a way. We have children born
after 1990 who don't remember the apartheid days. They cannot understand
what life was like then and as a consequence, they are losing touch with some
of the traditional elements of their culture. Their interests seem to
tend towards hip hop nation, rather than traditional aspects of where they've
come from. That’s something of a universal problem, but I think that it
would be a tremendous loss. And just like in other emerging cultures,
upper class blacks in
RFW: "You had another
child since I saw you last."
JC:
"Ja. I talked to Jesse just before the concert. He was
complaining about exams at school. It's hard for them. I am away
from home for two months right now, which makes it tough on the family."
RFW: "Do you see
parallels between your roles as a father raising kids in
JC:
"Seriously! Raising children is a highly specialized business!"
RFW: Laughing loud,
"Oh yeah?!"
JC:
"Because most families are inherently dysfunctional, I believe. I
think that all families have a level of dysfunctionality because all human
beings accumulate damage at some point; emotional and psychological traumas happen
along the way. As a parent, that's why I believe people should have
children when they're much older, because it enables you to realize where not
to go, what not to say and also how to deal with certain things. And that
for me has been a ‘good mistake’ I made because I had my first kid when I was
38."
RFW: "I fully
agree. I'm 36, haven't had any yet.”
Johnny smiles, his eyes show
something somewhere between understanding and empathy.
RFW: "So, how's the
view?" He looks at me quizzically, then nods.
JC:
"From Pelamanga?" I smile as he thinks about his answer, glad
we're on the same wavelength.
"It's a bit of a cold place,
you know. When you come to the realization that what you have thought was
true in the world, isn't. It's a hard understanding to come to, but it's
an honest place. It is a place of self examination and new
perspective. It can be the beginning of change or it can take you to
despair. It will show you what you are made of."
I turn off the tape recorder and we
chat privately about old times, friends in common, what happened to whom.
Greg comes back hurried and insistent, "Come on Johnny, we've got to get
on!" As Johnstone leads him away by the arm, Clegg looks back over
his shoulder yelling "Robin, sorry man! We'll talk more later,
ok?"
I smile and wave, thinking to
myself, "Of course it's ok, Johnny Clegg, you just made my summer!"
- -
-
I rejoin my friends inside the concert
as Abdel finishes his last song and strategically place my sound gear near
Clegg's main monitor, 'for the record.' The band steps out to raucous
applause. As Johnny walks on, I hear calls in Zulu, Afrikaans, English
and French and recognize that I'm standing again in the human rainbow, just
like at all of his shows. He tinkers with his guitar as the crowd quiets,
steps up to the mike and softly sings, "Take my heart away..."
The crowd erupts into rapturous
applause and my own heart fills to bursting. There is something so much
more intense about music you love when it's live and that close and it's been
that long. I remember sending cassette tapes home from the army in '86 to
my sweetheart in
In this digital age of our
teleconnected and ever shrinking planet, how do we define ‘home’?
I can pull out my cell phone any second, speak a name and be connected almost
instantly to friends and family on several continents. Anytime of day and
night, someone I love is awake, somewhere in the world. Many of them I
haven't seen in years and yet we are still intimately engaged in each other's
lives. While I also have family and roots here in
It takes a while for the applause to
die down at the end. Clegg yells over the noise. "Thank you
and welcome!"
"Sawubona,
Johnny!" comes the call.
Clegg grins, "Sawubona!"
He holds up a replacement concertina hastily flown in just before the
show. The band had equipment stolen on the Canadian leg of the 2004 tour
and that had limited the set list for their previous concert in
He explains, "These
instruments, the guitar and concertina, were often taken and
reconfigured. So you would buy one for three or four hundred dollars, and
then you would pay another fifty dollars for somebody in the migrant labor
hostel to take it apart and change all the buttons around so it would play Zulu
music! That man's job is a 'concertina button changer’ and that's how he
pays his rent."
Clegg turns to the sound engineer as
he motions at the concertina handle, "Dave, I think this is going to come
off in a minute. D'you want to bring some more tape?" He turns
back to the crowd, "Excuse us. We have had a few technical difficulties,
as you can see." The crowd erupts as Dave Newton wraps the
contraption in a little more duct tape.
Unlike the massive outdoor show
earlier on the tour when the band played to 55 000 fans at the Montreal Jazz
Festival, the small town feel of Ann Arbor and the intimacy of the Ark
lend themselves more easily to conversation and tonight Johnny is open and
chatty. At the
No longer constrained by missing
equipment, the band ranges far and wide across Clegg’s song book. With
two guitars, bass, drums, concertina, keyboard and sax on stage, there's plenty
of music to pick from among Clegg's nineteen albums over the last three decades.
He plays most of my favorites, many of them older songs, not the biggest hits,
each in turn takes me back.
In every country that experienced
some form of colonialism, the indigenous cultures would incorporate aspects of
the colonial power's culture into their own, adapting styles of dress, cooking
and music with a bit of local twisting. This hybrid becomes after a time
a cross-over culture of its own. Clegg draws his musical tradition from
those cross cultural roots. Zulu choruses, English verses and a blend of
western rock with African melody speak to the multi-cultured world citizen in
me.
"I saw the
I saw Mandela walk free.
I saw a dream whose time has
come.
Changed my history."
The band breaks into Gunship
Ghetto and closing my eyes, I'm back on the streets of
There was a lot less freedom under
apartheid than there is in
"I light a candle for the
innocent ones,
A candle for our love.
I say a prayer for some peace on
earth,
For the daughters and the sons.
And while your life unfolds
Like a cheap street fight,
You're just smiling in the dark,
Oh, what made you so strong?"
As the song ends, I yell out, “Bullets
for Bafazane,” my personal favorite. Johnny sneaks me a look and
smiles.
"Ok," he tells the crowd,
"This is the last story."
The place erupts in a chorus of
"NO!" They're loving every word and would stay all
night. Clegg tells the story of Bafazane, a proud Zulu
warrior. 'Bafazane' means "they spit at each other,"
it's a good warrior's name. The man is a long time personal friend of
Clegg's and has been his production manager for close on 25 years. But
he'd been a shinga (warrior) before that and when Johnny met him, was
getting by making Zulu dancing shoes out of discarded truck tires for migrant
laborers at a worker's hostel near Johannesburg.
The song was Juluka's first
major hit in
"He's got iron in his soul;
he's got a smile in his eyes,
He makes dancing shoes from
old car tires,
And it's the sky up above that
he loves."
Johnny and Mandy dance, the band
plays on, following Bafazane with the simple tribal melody of African
Sky Blue and the colonial commentary of Third World Child. The
evening begins to draw down. The show picks up that vibe that concerts
can get sometimes when you realize that all beautiful things will have their
end. Clegg launches into his last speech:
"This is a rare, more
futuristic song; it's from the new album, New World Survivor."
"Yes!" comes an
enthusiastic response.
"Somebody's heard of the new
album, that's amazing!" More laughter, "I'm astonished!"
"Well, to bring it down to its
bottom line, we're moving into an epoch that is being called Post-Human,
or in its gentler form Trans-Human." Nervous laughter this
time. Humanity doesn't sound like it's altogether ready for that.
"Essentially what they are
arguing is that within thirty to forty years, human beings will have made a
definite convergence with the technology we make. We'll be wired and
micro chipped to death, so that your five senses will be able to extend beyond the
organic base of the human body. This is a very important moment in the
evolution of our species, and how we deal with it has major political and
social implications. Spiritual too, I suppose."
"Anyway, your grandson, or your
son in fact, when he is in his 40s or whatever, will no longer have to worry
about it when someone breaks into his car, because the alarm will go off inside
his body! He will be his cell phone!”
I hear the laughter of people
recognizing their own behaviors.
"Convergence darling, that's
what they call it! What we are converging to, I'm not entirely certain,
and sometimes it's troubling because we trust what we know, we are afraid of
what we don't know. Civilization is only nine or ten thousand years
old. That is, groups of people living together under social laws and
regulations, with farming and investing in the future with certain
guarantees; the bargain that society creates for us. It's really very
short, this social contract, only 10 000 years old at the end of the day.
And now here we are in 2004, contemplating a whole new set of things."
"Now where does this come
from? It comes from our imagination. It comes from the very genetic
construction that we are going in and pulling out and looking at. We are
now evolving and stretching ourselves into a completely new... This is hardly a
bottom line hey!" The audience erupts again, loving him,
lapping it up.
"Sorry, I feel quite passionate
about this, please forgive me." They already had.
"So what do I feel? I
feel good. I feel strong. Whatever comes, I feel that this is where
we are supposed to go. I think that this is part of the natural evolution
of homo sapiens, a species that has gotten so conscious, and has got such a
powerful mind that it has gone inside its own body and pulled out and analyzed
its genetic structure and is now deciding what to do with it. Which
is an inevitable consequence of being Homo sapiens; and this is the new song, Into
the Picture."
Barry van Zyl taps on a cymbal and
the band breaks into Clegg's latest tune. Just like in 1990, I get chills
down my spine and emotion wells up. Our world has changed so much these
past years, sweeping us all along with it. Johnny’s older, but the
vibrancy and enthusiasm still ring out clarion clear. His engagement with
life and his vision of the possible still have the power to move one, or
many. At 53, the man, the music and the message still sound strong.
“Do you see the picture?
Do you feel strong?
Can you see that river?
Flowing on and on.”
... Blue electric oceans,
Information streams,
Webs and nets in motion,
Connecting you and me."
His subject has become less
political and more universal. The music always was. The revolution
is now digital rather than South African but Clegg’s still standing at the
leading edge of change and speaking to our collective future. He's still
conscious of the power of music to move people to politics. The
concertina handle comes loose and Dave runs on stage with more duct tape.
"And this is an extension of that sentiment..." Clegg jokes as the
emergency solution gets applied to the problem one last time. They’ll
have it fixed properly tomorrow. You can bet on that.
- -
-
"Sometimes I feel that you
really you know me"
Of all the reasons I give when asked
why I choose to live in
The show over, I head backstage,
dispatching our group to latch onto various Africans as they dispersed around
the neighborhood. The Fleetwood and Old Town refuse to feed
our happy & hungry band of 18 at short notice, so Barry van Zyl, Mandy
Dlanga and I negotiate with the large and jolly owner of the Parthenon Greek
Restaurant on Main at Liberty who kindly agrees to keep his kitchen open
and sets us up outside on the patio on Main Street. I call down to my
friends and use technology to do a body count and place entree orders before
the kitchen closes.
A steady stream of stragglers show
up by twos and threes, eventually Johnny and Andy arrive. Seeing me at
the far end of the table curled up next to Mandy, Clegg exclaims, "Rob!
I was wondering where you went! Was that you ordering me
food?" I raise my phone and wave it at him. He smiles,
satisfied. "Good work, young man!"
“Young and not so young,” I think
quietly. “Thanks Johnny," I smile, then again quietly,
"Anytime!"
As the food arrives I excuse myself
to Mandy and Barry, wander down to the other end of our impromptu banquet table
and squeeze in between my friends to talk one more time with the man whose
music kept my chin up on some of the darkest of the old days. We get the
occasional interruption from concert goers, but they're brief, stopping only to
reflect the joy of the evening and thank the man for that beautiful music of
his. We talk long and deep, anthropology (Clegg has a master's degree),
sociology, genetics,
"Drink my beer in a state of
fear," I joke, quoting his own words back at him. Johnny laughs and
turns to Andy Innes. "He's quoting Berlin Wall now!"
Clegg says, motioning at me and referencing an old anti-apartheid song.
"That takes you back a while,
hey!"
Clegg negotiates with the Parthenon's
owner, seeking his customary triple espresso. We settle for sweet rich
Greek coffees which disappear fast. Suddenly it's really late, the
tour bus leaves promptly at two. Even the best of days must end. We
settle on and around the bus on a beautiful, muggy summer night. It's
almost 2am and still 70 degrees out. I laugh as Concorde, Barry and Dave
compare the finer points of this year’s tour bus over their past experiences;
it’s not the sort of conversation one hears every day around A2.
The driver arrives and with the band's July 4th Milwaukee Summer Fest show
waiting, we bid last farewells but few goodbyes. The show will go
on. They'll be back in a year and until then we carry them with their
music in our hearts.
"I don't know where you are.
My eyes are fixed upon your
star.
I know that at the journey's
end,
I will see your face
again."
Hamba kahle, Johnny, m'gani.
I'll see and hear you again.
THE END
-
- o - x - o - -
Copyright © 2004. All
rights reserved.
Author:
Robin France Watson
Contact:
RobinFWatson@aol.com
+1-734-473-0212
All quoted
song lyrics: Copyright © Johnny Clegg
website: www.johhnyclegg.com
Glossary:
Say it like
this:
Means:
Sawubona
- suh’woo’boh’nuh
- ‘hello” or ‘good
to see you’
M’gani
-
mm’gah’ni
- ‘my friend’
Hamba Kahle
- huh’m’bah’
kuh’shleh
- “fare well”
Ja
-
yaah
- “yes” or “yeah”
Juluka
- Joo’loo’kuh
- “sweat”
UDF
-
The United Democratic
Front (An umbrella organization for the various anti-apartheid
forces while the African National Congress was still banned)
NP
- National Party
(The Party of Apartheid)
ANC
- African National
Congress