African jazz legend Thandi Klaasen saw and sang through it all; many years of hunger, oppression and an acid bomb thrown into her face.
When she surrendered to life, her memorial drew the finest of the last 50 years – many of whom listened to her rich voice as children.
On a chilly afternoon in Johannesburg, a hall of mourners – musicians, politicians, family and supporters of Klaasen – gathered at the Germiston City Hall, to tell her stories. Strangely, there was not even a single tear. It was a hall filled with clapping and laughter.
There were rows of chairs, in the middle front seated the family wearing white t-shirts with Klaasen’s face printed on them. Baroque floral arrangements flanked the stage, and scores of reporters filled the hallway.
Klaasen died of pancreatic cancer on January 15, at the age of 86 after being admitted to Thelle Mogoerane Hospital in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg, on December 9, 2016.
To the world, she was known as a music giant with a golden voice, a sense of humor and Tsotsi Taal, a township slang, the language of Sophiatown, where she was born. To her children, she was a mom who loved sharing her stories.
Her daughter Lorraine, also a musician, took to the podium sporting a hat and black and white brogues. The clothes were her mom’s favorite.
She started her five-minute eulogy by greeting the audience: “Sanibonani, dumelang, hoe gaan dit, hoezit?”, a way that Klaasen greeted people.
“My chest is so tight and it’s like somebody put a rope around my throat,” said Lorraine.
“Music made my mom very happy. It was not about how she sang the songs but how the audience reacted.”
Lorraine likened her mom to a rose that looks pretty, but if not watered, wilts and dies.
“Every time my mom visited me in Canada, I took her to schools, senior citizens’ homes and HIV/AIDS foundations; every place where my mom could speak and inspire people I took my mom and so she became alive. But when we came back home, I noticed she was withering away musically.”
It was the end of a story that began in 1931 when the world was in the throes of depression.
Born to a shoemaker father and a domestic worker mother, Klaasen started her career as a teenager, singing in churches for a handful of coins. She decided to become a singer after seeing a jazz group perform at her school.
Not many knew she was also a tap dancer.
Klaasen knew poverty, apartheid and hardship and poured it into her work.
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“I had no chance to say goodbye to romance
I had no time to leave it all behind
It was the place I knew
Where my dreams came true
Until they broke it down
Sophiatown”
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These are the lyrics from her popular song, Sophiatown, narrating a sad tale of how black people were removed from the cosmopolitan suburb of Johannesburg.
In 1977, the star was attacked with an acid bomb that disfigured her face and put her in hospital for a year. It is said that a rival hired thugs to assault the singer; to this day, no one knows who it was.
Klaasen used to say: “They have burned the face but not the voice.”
Sadly, the great voice is no more.
She was also well-known for her role in the international musical, King Kong, by composer Todd Matshikiza singing alongside great voices, such as Dorothy Masuka, Dolly Rathebe and Miriam Makeba.
Fellow musician Don Mattera, leaning on a stick, described Klaasen as a queen who never needed protection.
With a career that spanned over five decades, she has received a string of awards, including: The Woman of Distinction Award, in Canada in 1999, and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the South African Music Awards.
Many said they’ll remember Klaasen for her humor, feisty personality and conviviality.
“She had the special gift of making wine disappear in seconds,” said Nandi Ndlovu, a granddaughter, as the hall erupted in laughter.
Legendary musician Abigail Kubeka said Klaasen was a lady of style.
“I remember when she was still married to her husband, Lucas; she once told me that ‘hey Abi, I once cooked because Lucas had asked for a mutton curry’, and as you know she used to love her wine, so she cooked this mutton and it happened that a dish cloth fell into the pot and she wasn’t aware. So she dished up for the husband, so as he was eating with a fork, he noticed a dish cloth. He then asked ‘Thandi, what have you cooked?’.”
Her response was “Ag man, Lucas jy het gese jy soek mutton curry (no man, Lucas you said you wanted mutton curry)”, and then Lucas said “ja mutton curry maar die is ‘n dish cloth curry die (yes, mutton curry, but this is a dish cloth curry)”.
“Rest in peace, Thandi, and don’t cook mutton cloth or dish curry again,” Kubeka said, before getting back to her seat next to Masuka.
Kubeka described Klaasen as a courageous woman who stood up in the face of the apartheid regime.
“She was so brave you took her to London and she was Thandiwe all the way you like or not. She was never apologetic about who she was,” she said.
Zanele Dlamini, 38, who played a young Klaasen at the Market Theatre, a tribute to jazz legends, performed Sophiatown.
“When I first heard that she passed away I was hurt a lot. Playing mama Klaasen wasn’t easy but she helped me a lot even though she wasn’t fine health-wise. I last saw her in August, but before her death, I used to communicate with Lorraine, who told me she wasn’t talking anymore. I wanted her to see herself in me. Even though she was sick I wasn’t ready for her death,” said Dlamini.
“She lived her life; a life of tragedy and finally she’s in peace,” said Lorraine.
To these musicians, she lives on; her song will never die.

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Farewell To Romance

It is a windy day in Johannesburg, South Africa. Thick dark clouds assemble in the sky; the wind is as swift as rush hour. As we meet, Oliver Mtukudzi carries a brown bag, full of his life, on his shoulder. He carries the bag everywhere, just as he wears his trademark poor boy cap. Dressed in a black jacket and grey pants, he stands high up on the stairs to welcome us. He is in South Africa to promote his 65th album, Eheka! Nhai Yahwe, which features South African jazz legend Hugh Masekela. It’s a remarkable career stretching back some 41 years with songs that have enlivened parties all over the world with hits like Neria, Todii and Wasakara.
“I never decided to be in the music industry. It was in me. My mother said ‘you are a good singer but you will never surpass your birth cry. Your birth cry was so beautiful’. So I believe that’s when I started singing, from my first breath,” says Mtukudzi.
Born in 1952 in Highfield, a suburb in Harare, Zimbabwe, on September 22 at 3AM; music runs in his blood. Both his parents were musicians. They met at a choir competition and the competition never ended. They competed at home and the children were the judges.
“If we needed a favor from dad, then dad won and if we needed a favor from mum, mum won.”
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It wasn’t long before he followed.
“I made a three-string guitar for myself from a tin around 1969 or early 1970s with the help of a [relative]. I was always playing it. My father didn’t like it and he broke the guitar,” he recalls.
It wasn’t going to stop him. He made up songs as a child and sang everywhere.
“One day, I decided to perform for my parents standing on the table and they enjoyed it so much I didn’t get smacked for standing on the table. I remember my mother noticed I had been standing on the table, two or three days later. That’s how good it was,” he chuckles.
Mtukudzi followed his passion. In the 1970s, he joined Wagon Wheels, a band which included yet another Zimbabwean star, Thomas Mapfumo, the man who wrote Nyoka Musango and is known as the king of Chimurenga music.
“I love what I do. If I was doing a career, I would be worried about how much money I can make. I am yet to decide on a career to take on. This is not a career for me. I am just doing me. This is about understanding the purpose of a song, to bring life and hope to the people and to heal broken hearts. If you do it right, there is more in appreciation than getting paid.”
His skill is appreciated from Angola to Zimbabwe. He has won many awards; among them, the National Arts Merit Awards, Zimbabwe Music Awards, KORA Awards and South African Music Awards.
“All my songs are my favorites. If it’s not one of my favorites, I will just throw it away. You won’t get to hear it. It won’t make it to my album. Awards are an appreciation. They shouldn’t put any pressure on me, otherwise I will lose the purpose of the song,” he says.
The deep voice of Mtukudzi has brought music to the next generation. Taught by their father, his children Selmor and Sam Mtukudzi became music stars in their own right.
“One day, in March 2010, I was in Johannesburg and my son, Sam, was supposed to pick me up in Harare at the airport.”
Mtukudzi sent Sam a message telling him he was no longer coming. Unfortunately, the text didn’t go through. Sam drove to the airport to pick him up. And tragedy struck.
“I got a call that evening and they said he had been in an accident on his way home from the airport. They were taking him to the hospital and I was to come as soon as possible. They wouldn’t give me the details,” says Mtukudzi.
When he arrived at the airport all his close friends and family were there.
“I realized something was really wrong. They were all crying and I knew my son had passed on. I couldn’t believe it. My last words with him, we joked and now he was gone. I am still learning to live with it.”
This is a big loss for Mtukudzi. Sam performed and toured with his father.
“He was always on my left side when he was on stage with me. That alone, when I’m on stage, it makes me remember he is not there. Every time I am on stage, I feel the emptiness but it is also therapeutic because I feel him the most when I’m on stage.”
After Sam’s death, it was hard to sing again. In 2012, after two long years of grief, Mtukudzi released Sarawoga – in his mother tongue, it means “left alone”.
“Some of the songs in the album were meant to be in collaboration with my son so this was some kind of therapy for me. I didn’t want to throw away the work we had sweated on. I had to finish it off,” he says.
One of the songs in the album is Shamiso, named after Mtukudzi’s daughter.
“Sam was more of a friend than a son. One of the songs we were working on was Shamiso. She was getting married and we were going to sing the song at her wedding.”
It hasn’t been an easy journey. According to Mtukudzi, for as long as there are people, there is something to talk about and if there is something to talk about, then there is something to sing about.
“My music comes from the people, the environment and some of it from personal experiences. Things come up when I’m driving and I park on the side and write it down, you don’t budget time for a song. This is a tough industry. There are a lot of obstacles but you have to be strong. There is no shortcut, you just have to go all the way and remain true to yourself,” he says.
As Mtukudzi learns to live with the loss of his son, he is trying to break barriers. He is adapting a famous 1961 Zimbabwean book, Pfumo Reropa, spear of blood in chiShona, by Patrick Chakaipa.
“I’m not going to retire. I can’t run away from myself. I noticed that some of our literature is being thrown away. It is being ignored probably because there are no visuals to them, so I felt I should take one of the popular books at home and script it into motion picture to encourage our youngsters to be more interested in African literature.”
Through the loss and the pain, Mtukudzi is trying to build something of substance for Africa out of the ruins. Surely, that is a tribute to the loss of a loved son.

“Every Time I’m  On Stage, I Feel The  Emptiness”

South African cricket legend Makhaya Ntini believes racial quotas in the country’s cricket are “long overdue” and hopes to play the mentor’s role for up-and-coming black players to ease their transition into the international game.
Known as ‘The Mdingi Express’, Ntini was one of the finest fast bowlers of his generation, taking 390 test wickets in 101 matches, behind only Shaun Pollock (421) and Dale Steyn (416 and counting) on South Africa’s all-time list.
But now in a new phase of his life post-retirement, he is searching for ways to give back to the game and feels he has an almost unique role that he can play in the complex South African fold.
“I have always seen cricket as a fun game, something to be enjoyed before anything else,” Ntini tells FORBES AFRICA from Harare, where he has been helping Zimbabwe Cricket as acting coach of their senior national team.
“But it has also become an opportunity for young rural boys like myself to build a career and create opportunities for themselves that they might not find elsewhere. That is something we must take very seriously.”
<div id="attachment_5442" style="width: 213px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5442" class="size-medium wp-image-5442" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/000_Par3701327-203x300.jpg" alt="" width="203" height="300" />South African cricketer Makhaya Ntini gestures after the Twenty20 match between India and South Africa at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban on January 9, 2011. The match marked the last international appearance of South African fast bowler Ntini, who got a rousing reception from a crowd of about 47,000 but conceded 46 runs off four overs without taking a wicket. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER JOE / AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER JOE</div>
“I used to play Baker’s Mini-Cricket as a boy because it was something new, we never knew the game before it was introduced into the rural areas by [former Cricket South Africa president] Ali Bacher and [administrator] Khaya Majola.”
“The sport was not played in school; we had no television to see it. It was not a game that was part of us. But when given the opportunity to play, it was new, it was exciting.
“There were a few role-models that we could really look up to though. Omar Henry was there when we returned to international cricket in 1991, and he was a wonderful player. Obviously there were wonderful cricketers out there playing, but we did not get to see them.”
Ntini says he feels that had official quotas been introduced at the time he was starting out with the national team, the Proteas would have had a wider pool of players to choose from and been stronger for it.
Cricket South Africa (CSA) has recently announced that an average minimum of six black players, of which two must be black African, will be selected for matches across all three formats of the game over a season.
This is in keeping with a decision years ago to enforce the same quotas at provincial level.
“From my take, it has been long overdue,” says Ntini. “If it had happened at the time of myself, Monde Zondeki, Victor Mpitsang, Garnett Kruger, Geoffrey Toyana, our cricket would have never have gone through the troubles it has.”
“The talent was there, but the quotas were only in the schools and provincial sides.”
“The likes of myself, Herschelle Gibbs, Ashwell Prince and Paul Adams – we had to work harder than anybody else to get recognized. We had to perform in every game to stick around [in the team].”
“We could not have a ‘bad day in the office’ like many other players or suddenly we would be under big pressure. We were looked at in a very different way.”
“I had to wait four years to play in England. I kept being told by [former captain] Hansie Cronje and [ex-coach] Bob Woolmer, ‘you are on a learning curve, you must wait for your chance’.”
“It seemed impossible that I could take the place of an Allan Donald, Jacques Kallis, Brian McMillan, Shaun Pollock or Lance Klusener. These were great players, but I think if I was born seven years later I would have achieved a lot more in the game.”
“Because of that I think we had a responsibility to perform. We had a responsibility in how we trained, how we played, how we gathered ourselves off the field. We needed to make sure that when we went on that field, we had the tools to give our best.”
No-one in their right mind would suggest that new young firebrand fast bowler Kagiso Rabada has benefitted from the recently introduced quota system, he has let his prodigious talent do the talking. The son of a doctor and schooled at the prestigious St Stithians College, Rabada did not have any of the early disadvantages that Ntini endured as a young boy.
But the latter insists he still needs to be mentored and guided along the way.
“He has chosen a narrow road as a career, but he has a wonderful family around him to ensure he does not get big-headed and to offer guidance. He keeps himself grounded,” says Ntini.
“But I can see he is hungry to achieve more than what I did and is not satisfied with what he has done already. He looks as though he is challenging himself all the time.”
But Ntini cautions that international sport is an unforgiving place and says he will always be a sympathetic shoulder for Rabada or any other cricketers making their way in the game, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“Sometimes they need people to sit them down and talk to them as brothers,” Ntini says. “I have realized that we lack that in our coaches. They can teach everything about cricket, but our brothers do not have someone that they can easily open up to with their struggles off the pitch.”
“I feel like I can offer advice, because these things can have a major impact on your career. We have coaches to teach cricket, but when the player is off the pitch and in his hotel room, they don’t have people to knock on the door to see how they are doing.”
“Can I open up to an [captain] AB de Villiers as a black cricketer and say, ‘I am struggling with this or that, my girlfriend has just left me, I am going through a divorce’, things like that which have a huge impact on a person?”
“AB will not be able to guide them, I don’t think, but I feel like I can be that person with all that I have been through. If I had the opportunity to be involved on that level, I would jump at it because I see it as a way of giving back to the game and to South African cricket.”
Ntini says he has enjoyed his stint with Zimbabwe Cricket, even if the side did receive some criticism during his tenure for crushing losses to India and New Zealand.
It is, perhaps, unfair to lay the blame for those defeats at the door of Ntini given how little cricket the Zimbabwe national teams plays. Whatever the result, he continues to flash his trademark smile.
“Enjoyment is an understatement, I am loving it [coaching],” he says. “I put my whole heart into it. Look at Zimbabwe cricket and cricketers, how much they have changed from where they were since I got here.”
“They tend to enjoy themselves now, they open up to us, they have the freedom of being able to be you, not the restriction of trying to impress me.”
But he says his heart remains in South Africa and if the right opportunity came to return home, he would jump at it.
“South Africa is my country, I will never run away,” he says.

The Role Model Waiting For A Role

On a rainy day in East London, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province, boxing legend Vuyani Bungu is at the Downtown Boxing Gym. Always wearing a charismatic smile on his face, he looks around the walls covered with pictures of local boxing greats; he spots a photo of himself posing with his entourage, holding a trophy. Bungu looks long and hard and says “the good old days”.
The contrast is as bleak as this winter’s day. Bungu’s best day was 16 years ago on a spring day in London. Bright lights shone that night and over 10,000 Londoners were cheering, some jeering, inside the Olympia London. With all the pre-match hype, viewers were glued to their screens around the world. “Viva Bungu Viva!” praised traditional poet Zolani Mkiva, who had flown in from the Eastern Cape as Bungu entered the ring after a year and a half on the sidelines. Outside the ring, Londoners greeted him with hostility.
In the blink of an eye the atmosphere came to life; Londoners shouted “Naseem! Naseem!” as the defending champion ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed hovered over the crowd on a leopard-print magic carpet on wires. He was welcomed by Puff Daddy, as the hip hop artist was then known, as he landed ringside; that’s as cool as it gets. The bell rang, Bungu fought with his famous slouch stance connecting with infrequent punches that were no match for Hamed’s reflexes. A powerful left jab from Hamed sent Bungu to the canvas and referee Joe Cortez stopped the fight in the fourth round. Bungu’s eight-year unbeaten run was over.
“Naseem caught me, never in the history of my boxing career had I been knocked out and not known where I was,” says Bungu.
For Bungu the fight was a painful end to a painful dance with his promoter as he reached the peak of his career.
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“I sat for a year and a half not getting fights, you know promoters work in different ways, and then I got a chance to fight Paul Ingle for the IBF featherweight title in 2000,” he says.
While preparing for a fight with Ingle, his promoter Rodney Berman had negotiations with Hamed’s camp for a fight. Hamed’s representatives agreed, and replaced Ingle with their fighter.
“There was talk of fighting Naseem while I was still active, bear in mind in 2000 I was getting old and spent a year and a half not fighting. I got the fight; they fired my trainer and said he was drinking a lot,” says Bungu. “I knew very well the reason behind that but unfortunately I cannot dwell on it. I don’t want to go deep but it was not because he was drinking. Sometimes, these days, people sue you.”
Bungu says he wasn’t measured for the kit he wore for the Hamed fight. He kept quiet even as he couldn’t wear a protector because it didn’t fit his tight pants.
“That fight turned me off. I just went there because everything was already done,” says Bungu.
“Things went bad after the Naseem fight, you know when you come from a poor background like mine, in those particular years, I knew nothing about tax and the taxman caught me. I nearly lost everything. That’s when my marriage started to break. Tax caught me and took everything,” says Bungu.
Manager and trainer Mzimasi ‘Bra Mzi’ Mnguni had been with Bungu all his fighting life. He was at the iconic Sisa Dukashe stadium in Bungu’s hometown of Mdantsane when the boxer got his first professional fight and was nicknamed ‘The Beast’ by the crowd after they were reminded of the powerful punches of Ugandan John Mugabi who went by the same moniker.
With affection and respect, Bungu frequently refers to his mentor as ‘Bra Mzi’. However, Bungu was disappointed by Mnguni’s handling of his finances. Mnguni signed the deals while Bungu focused on his punches.
“When you don’t know something, and the people who are supposed to be telling you something are not willing to tell you, you feel like you are alone in a cage, they just leave you there. Though I don’t blame anyone, life goes on. I felt betrayed by them anyway,” says Bungu.
He never argued with the money that was put on his table after a fight. Bungu, with a record 13 IBF super bantamweight title defences, was never present during negotiations for a match. According to reports, he owed the taxman R900,000 ($67,000). Although he paid an accountant R20,000 ($1,500) to get him out of trouble, he was alone.
“People thought I was making millions, I never saw a million in my career. From my defences, if I can tell you I had R500,000 in my pocket I would be lying to you. That’s how boxing is, that’s the bad side of boxing.”
“After a fight, I would have R400,000, then deductions poured in, I was left with R200,000. Then you would hear sayings that there were no sponsors for a fight and all that, there were lot of excuses and I could not argue with them because it’s an area that I don’t know,” says Bungu.
Mnguni, however, says he always tried to get the best deal for Bungu.
“I paid [my fighters] according to the rates of South Africa, but once they got to international stages, I didn’t promote them. The only thing I did was negotiate on their behalf. I believe I tried to get the best for them,” says Mnguni.
In the gym, Bungu throws a few punches in the air and immediately catches his breath. Still wearing his charismatic smile, he gazes into the distance.
It all started in 1992 when stablemate and friend, Welcome Ncita, lost his IBF world title to American Kennedy McKinney and lost again in a rematch in 1994 in Texas. While in Texas, Ncita and Bungu, who was campaigning for fights abroad, were introduced to McKinney by their trainer. To Bungu’s astonishment, McKinney was helplessly drunk.
“I had a small prayer to myself and said, you know what God, we’re poor in South Africa, we can’t fall prey to someone who is wasting his talent, if one day I could get a chance to fight this guy, I would beat him,” recalls Bungu.
Four months later, Bungu received international recognition when he beat McKinney with a unanimous decision to win the international bantamweight title. The match was described by The Ring magazine as “the upset of the year”. Bungu received a call from South Africa’s newly-elected democratic president Nelson Mandela to mark the fact that he was the first boxing champion of a free South Africa.
“He wanted to see me, I couldn’t believe it. He said I am an asset of this country, that’s why I went on defending the title for this country 13 times,” says Bungu.
It all fell apart after the fight with Hamed in London. The next two years were spent without a fight, he divorced, and was in financial arrears; the beast was on its knees. Bungu’s last fight was in 2005 against Thomas Mashaba, in a tournament staged by Mnguni. He lost on points and decided it was a cue for him to bow out.
“I knew very well they were kicking me out of boxing, for me that was it. It was hard quitting because the people who you thought had your back weren’t on your side anymore. [My] manager and promoter just turned their back on me,” says Bungu.
Ncita was welcomed by scores of supporters in his hometown of East London when he became the first boxer from the Eastern Cape to win a world title. Ncita suffered the same treatment from his manager and promoter as Bungu.
“Their focus is to make as much money as they can and when your career is fading, they use someone else to make money. They don’t teach you to save it,” says Ncita
For Ncita, this all culminated before the McKinney fight.
“What happened there before the journey to that fight, it made me not be there psychologically. Physically I was ready for the fight, but psychologically I was not myself. I already took a decision before the fight, I told myself I am done with boxing,” says Ncita.
Mnguni says that Bungu and Ncita can only blame themselves for their financial difficulties.
“I used to say to both of them, if you were workers you would get this kind of money when you are 60 years old, but you guys get it at 25. I said they should give it to investors. To them it was like they should use it today, but it was for the next 40 years. To them it was like it is the end of the world.”
At some point, Ncita owned a Steers fast food franchise but financial difficulties forced him to sell after eight years.
In a quiet neighborhood in Rosebank, Johannesburg, Golden Gloves promoter Rodney Berman enjoys a strong cup of coffee in his office painted with boxing greats from Mdantsane, including Bungu and Ncita.
“In my 39-year boxing history, my two favorite fighters of all time are Welcome Ncita and Vuyani Bungu, not just because of their boxing ability but because of their humbleness,” says Berman.
With confidence, he states his partnership with Mnguni is the most successful in South Africa. He constantly gives credit to Mnguni for handling Bungu’s fight with Hamed. Berman says he never signed a written contract with Mnguni because their relationship is built on trust. He says had Bungu won the fight with Hamed, life would have been rosy for the boxer.
“Vuyani froze that night, if he had beaten Hamed he would have been the hottest property in world boxing,” says Berman.
He confirms the purse Bungu received after the fight was R2.5 million (around $190,000) and says he was convinced Bungu would have won the fight. Berman says he was never aware of the problems Bungu faced and he is unaware of the real reason his personal trainer Terry ‘Baba’ Stotts was fired.
“Nobody ever came to me and said ‘Rodney, I have these problems.’ I was never aware of anything,” says Berman.
“Vuyani was just a too nice a person, if you look at it logically he should have phoned me and said ‘Rodney I like Baba Stotts, this is the man I want to train me, I don’t want him fired’. Then it would have ended the whole story.”
Berman says he was aware of the financial difficulties Ncita and Bungu faced after they retired but refuses to believe Mnguni could steal money from his boxers.
“To bring up this stuff now against Mzi is a bit unfair, the right time to do it was when it was happening,” says Berman.
According to Berman, both boxers are using Mnguni as a scapegoat. He believes they blew their fortunes.
“I told them to invest their money and Welcome did it. Two minutes after Welcome invested, he came back and took it all out; they never tell you that side of the story.”
“Ask Vuyani how many times I begged him to let me help him invest his money,” says Berman
The estimated purse Bungu made from his title defences is R6 million (around $500,000) with all the necessary deductions.
Nothing is as hard as the road to the top. In 2012, Bungu and Ncita teamed up as promoters to assist emerging boxers from the Eastern Cape. Many saw this as a rivalry to their mentor Mnguni, and to add insult to injury, Berman is their ally.
Both Bungu and Ncita are based in East London trying to make the millions that slipped away. Bungu is a happily-married motivational speaker. He gives advice to the youngsters of Mdantsane as well as current boxers; cautioning them of the flaws he faced. Former IBF international bantamweight champion, and Mdantsane-born, Zolani Tete has embraced the advice given to him by the veterans.
“People like Vuyani used to say they don’t want what happened to them happen to us. He usually says what hit him the most was not paying tax. Today, before even receiving your cheque, you know you have to pay tax,” says Tete.
Both Hamed and McKinney have suffered the same straightened circumstances as the African boxers they fought. Hamed has doubled in weight since the fight in 2000 and is unrecognizable when he walks along the streets of London. He has also been in the news for the wrong reasons since his early retirement.
In 2006, Hamed was involved in a high-speed car crash that left the other motorist seriously injured, resulting in Hamed serving 16 weeks in jail and receiving a four-year driving ban. Meanwhile, McKinney is a boxing trainer in his hometown of Mississippi.
Sadly, Mnguni is ill after a car crash in November 2013 and a stroke in March 2014 that left him paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair. His gymnasium, Eyethu, which produced many world champions, is struggling.
Life after the ring has been difficult for everyone.

‘I Knew Nothing About Tax And The Taxman Caught Me’

This was the bizarre tour of a lifetime, arranged by world football legend Sir Stanley Matthews for youngsters he had trained in Soweto in defiance of apartheid laws.
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“At the airport I was riddled with nerves but tried to overcome them by busying myself shepherding my young charges and allaying their obvious fears. Large, forbidding men in light blue suits and dark glasses with inscrutable looks on their faces watched our every move but, uncomfortable as it was, they never approached us. At any given second I expected us to be rounded up, hustled into vans and taken away to one of South Africa’s infamous police stations but it never happened,” wrote Stanley in his autobiography.
“I couldn’t believe it and neither could Stan’s Men. We were on our way out of the country bound for Brazil, the first ever black football team to tour outside of South Africa.”
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Yet, apartheid followed the youngsters to Rio de Janeiro, in the shape of an intelligence man who sat at the back of the plane.
This strange journey was the work of one of the greatest English players ever. Matthews was the first European Footballer of the Year in 1956, who played top flight football until he was 50. They called him the ‘Wizard of the Dribble’ and he was loved the world over.
For the love of the game Matthews came to South Africa and defied the country’s segregation law to turn township talent into stars. This story is to be told this year in a United States documentary, called Matthews.
In the summer of 1975, Matthews spent months scouting talent from schools in Soweto, Johannesburg’s biggest township, and formed a team called Stan’s Men which he took on tour to Brazil. It was born of a question from a youngster on whether Matthews had ever played against Pelé. This led to an unheard of trip from South Africa. Matthews used his influence to get sponsors in the shape of Coca Cola and the Sunday Times, as well as passports for the boys, against the norms of the time.
“Sir Stan was a brave man, it was unlawful for white people to be in townships at that time but he was in Orlando every week to train us. He would come to our home to meet with our parents. Initially the parents thought we were crazy when we told them about going to Brazil but because Sir Stan was known to them they soon believed we were telling the truth,” says Hamilton Majola, then aged 17.
“During those days, Orlando Stadium was our mecca of football. For the Brazil tour, it was not easy, we trained hard. There were hundreds of talented footballers from all over Soweto but only 15 could be selected. Dedication and discipline were key to Sir Stan,” says Isaac Masigo, another youngster who boarded the plane for Brazil.
March 21, 1975, was the first day of the month-long tour to Brazil. It had taken weeks of hard training that created a good deal of excitement.
“On that Friday, learning in Soweto schools was disrupted… learners were running mad, so many children were bussed to Jan Smuts (OR Tambo International Airport) for our send-off… I will never forget that day, it was surreal,” says Masigo.
On the Boeing 707, destined for Brazil, the lads were anxious and smart. They dressed neatly in tailored navy suits with a gold badge, with Stan’s Men printed on it, blue shirts, navy ties, with red and white dots, and shiny black shoes. Upon arrival in Brazil, they were treated like stars and journalists flocked around them. They felt like stars staying at the Hotel Regina, in Rio, on the famous Copacabana Beach. Most had never seen the sea.
They went to practise with Flamengo Football Club and met Arthur Antunes Coimbra, better known as Zico, who was to star in the World Cup for Brazil. This was one of the players they had only seen on the bioscope, a makeshift cinema back home; televisions didn’t come to South Africa until a year later.
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“Carlos Alberto Pereira, who coached Bafana Bafana in the 2010 World Cup, I met him in 1975. We played and took pictures with Brazilian stars. We trained with big teams like Flamengo, Fluminense, Vasco da Gama and Americana. The culture there was different from what we know in South Africa. The clubs there had coaches for different departments, kit manager, physiotherapist and that was not the case in Johannesburg. We trained from 6AM to noon. There they start training you from childhood, in South Africa we are playing games,” says Masigo.
The first game in Rio was a huge disappointment. The youngsters played alongside their coach Matthews, then aged 60, the first game against Gama Filho University and were drubbed 8-0.
“That was embarrassing; their ball was different from ours. Our dribbling skills couldn’t get us anywhere. They man marked so tight that we couldn’t manage a single goal. Brazilians meant business; our goalkeeper left the field with swollen hands. He cried. If it was not for Sir Stan things could have been worse,” says Majola.
One of the spectators was the white South African intelligence officer who tracked their every move.
“We were followed but we couldn’t see. The security police followed us from the airport to Brazil, they couldn’t trust black boys… One day, on our way to the hotel, a white Afrikaner man shocked us: ‘Ja (yes), you blacks of South Africa, you stay nice here’,” says Masigo.
Although the boys didn’t do anything to warrant jail back home; they broke the rules of Matthews when he wasn’t looking.
“After the training, when Sir Stan was resting, we were free to go the clubs and beach. There was this Copacabana Beach, the best beach in the world. It was women galore, I sweated as if I was running under the sun,” says Masigo.
The Brazilian women in swimwear mistook the African boys, kitted out in red-and-white tracksuits, for Americans, laughs Masigo.
Majola knows Matthews, a teetotaller and vegetarian, did not approve of these outings.
“Sir Stan taught us life values; from the beginning he said we mustn’t go for girls because they would destroy our football future. He warned us against alcohol,” says Majola.
Soon after Brazil, Matthews returned to England but he left a foundation in Soweto. The team continued playing friendly games, outside the country, in Swaziland and Botswana.
“When we returned from Brazil, the Sunday Times, which was one of our sponsors, reported on our tour and one of the headlines read ‘They are now internationals’. There was so much jealousy from other local teams as a result we were not allowed to affiliate to the local leagues. We played friendlies. Things started to get unfriendly. We can’t be pointing fingers now, maybe it was God’s will. The fact Sir Stan left his country and family to share his football skills with us, we had nothing to offer him in return,” says Majola.
“I had seen and experienced what football could do for an individual and I wanted others to realize not only the possibilities that football can bring, but to get in touch with the possibilities that lay within themselves, irrespective of how hard and demeaning their lives were. If I could enjoy such benefit from football, I was determined to show others such benefits existed for them as well,” wrote Matthews.
“It would have been easy for Sir Stan to start a commanding club with us but he was threatened against doing that. Every big company wanted to sponsor our team. We were treated well, we had sponsored transport to all our matches,” says Masigo.
The team dissolved and many went to other clubs. One, Vincent Tsie, Masigo’s only schoolmate on the Brazil trip, found the country’s laws unbearable after the Brazil trip and took off.
“After he saw the life in Brazil he refused to stay in the racist South Africa anymore. In 1976, he went to exile in Canada where he died,” says Masigo.
“I was also tempted to leave but I couldn’t do it because I was the eldest of my siblings and couldn’t leave them. I knew what happened to Kalamazoo (Steve Mokone, the first black South African in the European league who died in exile).” Masigo, now a pensioner, still lives in Orlando.
At 50, Matthews played his last professional game for Stoke City, the town of his birth. He died on February 23, 2002, aged 85. In February, Matthews would have been 101 years old.
His contribution to African football is timeless and will never be forgotten in Soweto.

Soweto To Rio  With A Spy On Your Tail

As a towering, grey-haired, ex-cricketer gets out of his sedan at Ottawa Primary School, the tiny girls in brown tunics and boys in white shirts and grey pants, race towards him chanting: “coach! coach! coach!” High fives all round. Joy fills the swarm of youngsters and the old man smiles.
This is the reception for cricketing legend Mike Procter at this school in Phoenix, an Indian suburb north-west of Durban. The Ottawa children are from a poverty-stricken township called Zwelitsha (the new world in Zulu), on the bushy hillside of the settlement. Procter drives 20 kilometers, from the swimming pools and sprinklers of Durban north, to coach at the school. He has done this for the past four years, four days a week and three hours a day.
It is 10AM and break-time. The school serves around 1,100 children their first meal of the day, probably the last of the day for many. They gobbled down their rice and mashed potatoes with one eye on the cricket pitch; the Grade Fives rush to the rough field outside the school for the first practice session. There are so many that hour-long sessions are held for each grade. Procter works with two coaches: Rodney Malamba and Rocky Mgobhozi; taking charge of children aged between five and 16.
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“We had one girl who picked up a bat for the first time and hit the ball on the off side. Mostly, kids just swipe at it, but she played almost a proper cricket shot. Rodney and I looked at each other. The hairs on our necks stood up,” says Procter.
When Procter came to the school, he built bowling nets but the sessions grew so popular. There were too many children for nets. They are disused with long grass growing around. On the football field, oblivious of the frustrations of the coaches, the boys and girls raced up and down the field and Mgobhozi knocks catches. He seemed happy with the improvement and eagerness.
Three weeks into the beginning of the first school term in January, Procter laments how the school had to go on teaching despite the failure of the government to deliver the quarterly food supply. The Mike Procter Foundation fed the children for two weeks. There was also help from England cricket fans touring South Africa for the test series. They gave £2,000 ($2,800) from their own pockets but this will last no more than six months.
“The foundation is here to help with everything; it is not really about cricket but the development of a child. Once you have been with them you do realize that they are in need… We took 16 of these children to the South Africa and Australia test match at Kingsmead – something they have never experienced before,” says Procter, the South Africa’s former coach and selector.
The life Procter lived is a world away from the children he is trying to help. He went to the best schools and matriculated at Hilton College, a private boys’ boarding school in Durban.
“I had all the opportunities, I had everything I could ask for when I was their age. But they have absolutely nothing. Some of them have only one meal a day,” says Procter.
Malamba, a former Natal Cricket Union (now KZN Dolphins) fast bowler and Procter’s friend, brought him to the school in 2012. They coached together at Natal, where Malamba retired as a first-class cricketer in the 1980s. The Cape Town-born Malamba played club cricket in England. Since his return in 1987, Malamba, whose father, Ben, played professional cricket in the fifties, has been running his academy in Durban.
In his playing days, Procter was the sought after star all-rounder and devastating wicket taker who started his career with Natal in the early 1960s. Through apartheid, his international career was cut off in its prime as South Africa was isolated from world sport. He played seven tests for his country, against Australia, between 1967 and 1970. Aged 23, Procter went to play in England for Gloucestershire in county cricket for 13 years – supporters used to call the county Proctershire.
When South Africa was readmitted to international cricket, in 1991, Procter was appointed the national team coach, and then an International Cricket Council match referee. In 2009, Procter lost his job as the chairman of selectors of the Proteas, but started the foundation to introduce the sport to poor communities in Durban.
A business friend approached Procter with idea to adopt a school, to train cricketers, and promised to fund the project. He agreed and reached out to Malamba to recommend a school. Ottawa was identified and a first group of children started. But the businessman disappeared, leaving Procter disappointed and bereft.
“I broke the news to Rodney. He told me if we back off with the project, we will be breaking hearts of many children. Rodney said exactly what I was thinking. I was not prepared to abandon the children. The seed was already planted,” says Procter.
We caught up with the 50-year-old Malamba on the makeshift football field outside the school premises. A decade ago, Malamba saw the children walking to school and a few were run down by cars on to their way.
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“Life is like a house. You don’t build it from top to bottom, you begin with a formidable foundation. These kids here are not what they used to be when they first came to school, cricket has changed their attitude to life; they may not end up being cricketers but something in life. That’s how sport changes people’s lives,” says Malamba.
At the end of the last session, Malamba kneels down to pack the bats and wickets in his bag; young cricketers circle him, with some playing imaginary cricket shots in the air. Malamba is well aware; it takes time and patience to polish these diamonds. He sees his young, eager self in them and wants them to have the chance to change their lives.

Chief Destroyer Turns Gentle Coach

On the eve of his fiftieth birthday, Femi Anikulapo-Kuti was as cool and calm as ever, as easy going as any peace-filled man should be.
Clad in a simple t-shirt and tie-dyed cotton pants, he was chilling at home, lounging around his living room, dividing his attention between the news on a wall-mounted flat screen TV, his three constantly beeping three cellphones and an old, rustic trumpet he cuddled and blew intermittently. He looked like a big five-year-old boy at play, home alone, quietly doing his homework while waiting for lunch.
Speaking before his ‘Femi Kuti @ 50’ party on June 23 at The New Africa Shrine, his nightclub where Afrobeat fans gather weekly to watch, dance and worship at the feet of the musical maestro, he said: “I feel truly loved at a time like this. I feel really honored that my family, friends and my fans have decided to throw this big party for me. I think it is a sign of how much love I have.
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“I can’t complain. I have had an eventful life. I’ve learnt to understand the fact that life isn’t easy, so I don’t expect to take anything for granted. When I think of the suffering masses out there globally and even in my country, I can’t complain, my brother.”
At 50, Femi can truly be called his own man. Increasingly absent from media reviews of his songs are comparisons to his old man, the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, who created the Afrobeat music genre in the 1960s. Fela died of complications arising from HIV/AIDS in 1997, at 58, and was constantly a thorn in the flesh of the civilian and military authorities of his time.
Fela spoke truth to power with his music. Femi’s music is equally acerbic, except that his beats are faster and more energetic, appealing to a younger, broader spectrum of Nigerian, African and international audiences.
Afrobeat is Nigeria’s contribution to world music. It seems that the style and substance of this music genre—even from Fela or Femi wannabes—is well suited to preaching and about the ills of society. It could be down to genetics though, for the Ransome-Kuti family has always been radically outspoken—Femi’s father and uncles were constantly in and out of jail on account of their political activism and brushes with the law; his grandmother famously led riots and campaigned for gender rights and female taxation in the 1920s in her native Abeokuta town. But the question for Femi remains: he is certainly a chip off the old block but is he as good as the great Fela?
“Nobody gave me a chance in the beginning, especially when I left my father’s band to form Positive Force [his own band]. So I was determined to prove them wrong. And if you come from a big heritage as mine, with a big father and a big family and everybody says you are going to fail for whatever reason, you can imagine the pressure… so I started from rock bottom; the fear of ever being poor again motivates me now. Also when I started to understand the greatness of my father—he was so courageous, he was larger than life—I was like ‘Wow, will I be able to live up to this heritage?’ I had so many worries along those lines. The determination to excel and succeed inspires me. I don’t know how to relax anymore probably because of the fear of my beginning, and knowing the consequence of failure. So I’m always on the move, I’m always practicing.”
Femi and his band are constantly on tour, playing around the world. His weekly shows, The Sunday Jump, at the Shrine are always jam packed, especially when he is in town.
Yeni Kuti, Femi’s sister, choreographer and matriarch of the shrine, said: “This is the only place on African soil where you would find street urchins and students, working-class professionals, tourists, diplomats and expatriates swinging in harmony to the soulful, frenetic rhythm of Afrobeat music.”
“Femi is a living legend. He has taken Fela’s legacy to another level,” Ayoola Sadare, an Afrobeat fan and convener of the annual Lagos Jazz Festival told FORBES AFRICA. “How many Nigerian artists have gone global successfully? How many Nigerian artists have received three Grammy nominations?”
“I know for sure that the difference between Femi and many other artists in Nigeria is consistency, dedication and sheer hard work,” Nseobong Okon-Ekong, entertainment editor of ThisDay newspaper told FORBES AFRICA.
“Very few are willing or prepared to do what it takes to achieve… Femi resumes at the shrine every morning after doing his school runs, he is always practicing with his band, always working on new stuff. That’s why he will keep being ahead of the pack.”
Beneath Femi’s affable mien is a fiery and politically astute mind constantly soliloquizing about the extant features of the global order and the sour political economy of his country: Africa’s most populous and fastest-developing market.
His greatest fear is the prospect of Nigeria falling apart, going to war. He says the global recession is frightening, trusting that Europe would eventually be propped up to rise above its present economic woes.
“You see, when Europe is telling us there is no money then we need to be worried. Africa has always understood no money; Africa has always understood poverty and all that. We need to be very frightened of the global corruption we face and the way politicians have made a nuisance of life generally.”
There is no peace in life now, he cries.
“Look at the current upheavals in the Middle East, terrorism, spats between America and Iran and all this talk about nuclear warfare, you just wonder whether there will ever be a time in our lives when we will ever discuss good things.
“I am worried about my children and their future. What kind of society would they be living in, in Nigeria? See the scandals, see the corruption; we are still discussing the things, the ills of society my father was discussing when I was in my teens. It’s incredible! See the poverty in the north, we have 150 million people so we need to be scared; see Somalia still talking about hunger, starvation, strife—all these things are really alarming.”
For someone with merely a secondary school education, it is amazing that Femi is arguably one of Nigeria’s foremost social commentators and critics. His articulation on and off the stage is impressive. His decision to quit school at 16 in favor of a full-time music career alarmed everyone—especially his mother and education-proud relatives—but pleased his father, who eventually owned up to being the source of the infamous counsel.
“The poor boy has learned enough academic nonsense, now he will begin to learn music and plenty of African sense,” Fela said then, defending the decision and, as always, promoting his penchant for homegrown knowledge.
“Yes, Fela was highly educated. He studied music in university in England but he believed school did not help him. He wanted to use me to prove a point and he said so himself before he died. He said that I did not need to go to school, read or write music to be a good musician. I think he just believed raw talent was better. How he came to that conclusion, I still don’t know. Only he knew why his formal education in music did not help him,” Says Femi.
In any case, Femi‘s lack of tertiary education did not mean the end of learning for the young man. His father exposed him to global cultures and imbued a disciplined work ethic in him.
“He expected me to still do my work, he expected me to go and practice every day and he gave me a lot of books to read. I was reading big books that my mates had no idea about their existence: I remember some of them like Stolen Legacy by George James, Black Man of the Nile which I read about four times, The Scramble for Africa, I just went crazy reading books.
“I was reading anything. Chinese history, the autobiography of Malcolm X… my father used to take me to this massive bookshop in Chicago and there I would just get lost reading books all day… I spent my entire days in this bookshop. I was reading about American history, African history, I was reading books on Egypt. In fact, I got a nickname there—Professor—because I wasn’t just reading books, I was questioning them, so if I didn’t agree with the author or something he said in a book, I would ask questions or question it… so I would always query things…we would argue and debate and just thrash out issues from the literature I was reading.”
His political and musical influences are somewhat obvious. Apart from his father, who insisted he listen to jazz, he also admired Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah. So his musical tutelage under his dad meant also listening to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, and generally American music from the 1940s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
“I didn’t like jazz in the beginning but my father insisted on me listening. Initially, it seemed so bitter in my ears but when I listened more and began to understand, I came to a crossroad where I had to decide whether I truly wanted to be a musician because I was amazed with what Dizzy and Charlie Parker were doing with their musical instruments. I thought it was impossible. It seemed like they were aliens. I couldn’t believe that any man could perform with such dexterity on their musical instruments. I was used to single note melodies and I just could not understand how they could be so creative, and I just came to a point when I told myself ‘Wow, I will never be able to play like this.’ That experience kind of gave me the inspiration to say to myself, ‘Okay, I cannot be a Charlie Parker or Dizzy Gillespie but I can still form my own voice and style musically.”
Clearly, his father’s eclectic ways were a key influence. He however credits his late mother for his cool headedness.
“It is not my fault the press don’t ask about her but if they bring it out she dominates my story. So yes, my father was the superstar, he did all the singing and the fighting but I know that if not for my mother, I would not be who I am today; our family would not be where it is today… my parents were an interesting pair… My mother loved my father. She said she fell in love with him from the moment she met him, but she knew he was a womanizer and she still loved him ‘till the day she died.”
Was her demise the saddest time of his life? Not exactly, he replies. The day his younger sister and his mother died were probably the worst days of his life, he says.
“The day my mother died I had a concert and I had to fulfill it because I had already spent the money. That was very tough…”
“My junior sister’s demise was very hard on me too but I had to brave the situation, being the first male child in the family, the responsibility of her burial arrangements fell on me, and I had to take very fast decisions to quickly console everybody, forgetting that I was also in pain, it took me a very long time to understand that I was in real grief and I still mourn her even now.
“Even my mother, sometimes I wake up and I want to go and say ‘good morning’ then I just realize that ‘Oh, she’s gone.’ I think those two loses of very close family members still haunt me.”
An unpretentious, modest man, any talk of his potential net worth almost annoys him.
“I am worth more than all the money in the world because money can’t buy love. You could be rich and nobody cares about you. People are going out of their way to try to make my party happen; they are trying to give me a happy birthday. Left to me, I would be very nonchalant about it, because I wouldn’t care whether I was 50 or not.”

Tag: legend

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