Johnny Clegg
South African musician
Died when: 66 years 39 days (793 months)Star Sign: Gemini
Jonathan Paul Clegg, OBE OIS (7 June 1953 – 16 July 2019) was a South African musician, singer-songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and anti-apartheid activist, some of whose work was in musicology focused on the music of indigenous South African peoples.
His band Juluka began as a duo with Sipho Mchunu, and was the first group in the South African apartheid-era with a white man and a black man.
The pair performed and recorded, later with an expanded lineup.In 1986 Clegg founded the band Savuka, and also recorded as a solo act, occasionally reuniting with his earlier band partners.
Sometimes called Le Zoulou Blanc (French: [l? zulu bl?~], for "The White Zulu"), he was an important figure in South African popular music and a prominent white figure in the resistance to apartheid, becoming for a period the subject of investigation by the security branch of the South African Police.
His songs mixed English with Zulu lyrics, and also combined idioms of traditional African music with those of modern Western styles.
