LUCKY DUBE

THE SHORT LIFE HISTORY OF LUCKY DUBE

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Before he was murdered during an attempted car hijacking in Johannesburg on October 18, Lucky Philip Dube, South Africa's world acclaimed reggae artiste, had put an indelible stamp on not only the minds of millions of music lovers across the globe but also on the psyche of those who cherish the virtues of equality, justice and the communality of the human race.

That he achieved the feat with a humble background, an austere education and a daunting socio-political milleau further accentuated his worth that in turn resulted in his preeminence in his chosen career.

His shift to reggae was both deliberate and philosophical. His words: "After listening to Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh, the message was loud and clear and through the music, I could talk to people all over the world. That's why I changed from mbaqanga music, which I only spoke to the Zulu-speaking people in South Africa I don't know politics. All I know is the truth and this is what I write about in my songs. I write about the real things that are happening to me and to the people around me."

If you had a chance to see Lucky Dube LIVE, you were blessed.  Each show delivered one of the most joyous and satisfying concert experiences you can ever imagine with Lucky's vibrant mix of Reggae and African Rhythms.  On a balmy night in October we got to see Lucky play to a club audience with the sounds of the ocean in the background.  Lucky and his band didn't often play in clubs but they were in Fort Lauderdale to be a part of a tribute concert to one of Lucky's main musical influences, Peter Tosh.  The tribute show never came off but Lucky honored the pick-up date that had been booked anyway and what a night it was.  There is a live DVD out that is very good but it does not do justice to being there.

BBC Review of Lucky's final album:

Lucky Dube, elder statesman of mbaqanga (traditional Zulu) music and ambassador of South African roots reggae music, returns with his thirteenth studio album and it’s as joyful an experience as he’s ever conjured.

Lucky says that he called the album Respect because that is what the world needs most right now. He says you can live with people even if you don’t believe in their beliefs, or even if you don’t like what they like; as long as you have respect for them. ('‘Shut Up’' is Lucky’s message to those who can’t say anything nice about others.) So love and respect go hand in hand in his eyes. A naïve sentiment? Not if Lucky’s vibe percolates into communities worldwide.

That pop warmth, radiating from low to upper register with echoes of Pete Tosh and Jimmy Cliff respectively, is still there. The arrangements are built around righteous verses from the non-smoking non-drinking Rastafarian, supported by a cast of talented local musicians: rootical high-amp rhythm section ('‘Shembe Is The Way'’), fanfares of iridecsent brass and multi-tracked female voices on the chorus (the title song is a great example of how traditional African sounds can evolve the reggae form). The guitar work adds just the right amount of zest (check the government-chastising ‘'Political Games'’) as does the secular favourite, the organ (‘Never Leave You’).

Whether reminding us to celebrate of life or warning us of evil along the way, there are few more galvanising and pleasurable listens than Lucky Dube and Respect, his biggest production yet, is testament to a fine voice and enduring power.  Review by Amar Patel (2007-06-21)

Lucky was one of Reggae Music's top artists of all time.

Reggae superstar Lucky Dube (pronounced Doo-Bay) was one of Reggae music’s best-selling artists and most outspoken performers. Motivated by first-hand experiences of apartheid’s oppression in South Africa , and inspired by the controversial lyrics of Peter Tosh, a youthful Lucky Dube made the switch from traditional Zulu Mbaquanga music to Reggae music. His first Reggae album, Rasta Never Die (1986), was banned from the radio by the then all-white South African government. But Lucky Dube was destined for success, and was to become one of South Africa ’s biggest artists, and a freedom fighter in his own right.

Slave, released in 1989, was Dube’s first international breakthrough.  He went on to record extensively, to amazing success. Some of his international accomplishments include touring with Peter Gabriel on the first American WOMAD (World Of Music Arts And Dance) festival in 1994, performing with Sting at Johannesburg's Ellis Park Stadium, receiving the World Music Award for Best Selling African Artist in 1996, winning over discerning Jamaican audiences at Reggae Sunplash (so successfully in fact, that he was invited to tour with the traveling version of this festival), and playing in front of audiences of up to 80,000 people.

His album, The Other Side,
  was his debut for the Heartbeat label and featured his unique blend of impassioned vocals, potent lyrics and roots reggae rhythms. In his lower registers, Lucky Dube’s voice is reminiscent of his reggae inspiration, Peter Tosh, but he can also unleash a powerful falsetto to rival any of the Motown singers. His passionate melodies, along with the band’s tight grooves and trademark fluty keyboards, have set the standard for reggae bands throughout Africa . As always with Lucky Dube’s music, the highest production values are utilized. The album was recorded in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the prestigious, state-of-the-art Downtown Studios (where prominent acts including Hugh Masekela, Ladysmith Black Mambazo—even Simply Red and Duran Duran have recorded).  The ten songs touch on a variety of subjects. “Number in the Book” encourages sexual responsibility in a time when AIDS statistics on the African continent are dreadfully high. The title track addresses the “grass is greener on the other side” phenomenon, and compares the lives of two men—one Jamaican, the other African—both longing to be in the other’s shoes.  “Soldier” tracks the guilt associated with killing, even if the killing is in the name of war, ordered by a general.  Interpersonal issues of a married couple—each suspecting the other of cheating—are dealt with on “Cool Down.” These issues come to a conclusion on “Divorce Party.”

Lucky Dube has been a modern day hero with a message that has touched millions of music fans around the world. He’s been hailed as “the shining star of African reggae” (Afropop Worldwide), and “South Africa’s biggest selling contemporary artist” (Mail & Guardian). New York's The Village Voice says, "The spirit of Lucky Dube's music and dance epitomizes the spirit of Black liberation."

Thousands of friends and fans of South African Reggae star LUCKY DUBE attended the legend's funeral on Sunday, October 28, 2007, when he was laid to rest in the KwaZulu-Natal province.  Dube was gunned down in a car hijacking ten days earlier after dropping his children off at a relative's house.  He was 43.  Mourners travelled from as far afield as Rwanda, Liberia and the U.S. to attend the memorial service and pay their last respects to Dube.  He was later buried in a private family ceremony. Police have so far arrested five men in connection with the brutal slaying.

Lucky Dube was a renowned world Super reggae star born on 3rd August in 1964, in a small town called ERMELO some kilometers away from the main capital Johannesburg in South Africa.  Lucky's mother saw many of her children pass away at an age of three or four months. When Lucky was born, his late parents feared giving him a name. People called him "Boy".  After six months, he was named Lucky Dube.  Dube in Zulu Language means Zebra.

He was a Zulu by ethnicity. He released his first Album in 1984. Lucky was in the music scene for 25 years and recorded 22 Albums.  Dube was the biggest-selling reggae singer in South Africa and has won over 20 awards locally and internationally.  He was a Rastafarian, philosopher, Pan Africanist and legend in his own right, who believed in peace, humanity and justice for the poor. He hated racism and contributed to the down fall of the Apartheid regime where thousands of productive citizens of South Africans died and some were made homeless. The music of the late Lucky Dube is a first class music with messages to the rich and poor, especially world leaders, and condemnation of acts of vandalism and abuse of power.

BOB MARLEY

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 Robert Nesta Marley Feature Section

BOB MARLEY AND THE WAILERS

 

The concert contained on this DVD took place at The Santa Barbara County Bowl in the autumn of 1979, when Bob was touring in support of his militant Survival album. And the resulting film is an epochal record of a Bob Marley performance; one that stands up as being easily an equal of the better known Live at the Rainbow show filmed on the Exodus tour in 1977.

For all intents and purposes, the Survival tour had kicked off on September 24 1979, when Bob and the Wailers had played a benefit concert for Rasta children in the National Heroes Arena in Kingston: 1979 was the United Nations’ International Year of the Child. At that ‘Heroes’ Park’ show, Bob introduced the audience to a pair of new songs from the imminent Survival album – “Ambush in the Night,” the story of the assassination attempt on his life by gunmen on December 3 1976, and “Zimbabwe,” in which he expressed his militant support of the freedom movement in the country still known as Rhodesia.

Reggae was gaining international respect; there was a feeling of growth, a
mood that this was the time to seize opportunities. In October 1979, Bob Marley and the Wailers began a seven-week tour of the United States - they were set to play forty-seven shows in forty-nine days, a colossal work rate.  The shows ended with an intensely militant trio of songs: “Get Up, Stand Up,” “War” and “Exodus.” On the road Bob was playing with the structure of a new number he was writing called “Redemption Song.”

These US dates began at the legendary Apollo Theater in Harlem. Here, in the venue where Marcus Garvey had preached, Bob and the group played seven concerts in four days. Interviewed by Neil Spencer for the British music magazine NME during those Apollo dates, Bob was asked, “What do you feel happiest about that you’ve achieved so far? That you’ve maybe woken people up?” “Yeah, me feel good that plenty people is aware that there is something happening,” Bob replied. “Man can check it out cos I know Rasta grow. I don’ t see it deteriorate, I watch them and they grow more and more. It might not be in the headlines every day but dem grow.”

The dates at the Harlem Apollo had been specifically requested by Bob.
He was concerned, even distressed, that the black American audience remained  elusive; this tour had specifically targeted that market. In Chicago he paid a long visit to Johnson and Johnson Publications, the publishers of Essence and Ebony magazines; despite this, nothing appeared in these publications about Bob Marley. Black radio program directors still considered reggae to be ‘jungle music’ and that it didn’t fit into their formats. Kaya, the predecessor to Survival, had deliberately been a commercial album, in order to allow for albums like Survival to follow.

In the United States, however, getting the message across continued to be a struggle. Still, Bob relentlessly plugged the Wailers on every local radio station he could get to visit. He was also disguising the fact that for much of the time he was operating in a state of sheer exhaustion, so much so that keyboardist Tyrone Downie would accompany him on press interviews to answer the more mundane questions on Bob’s behalf.

By the end of this tour, many of those traveling with Bob were extremely worried about his health. Earlier that year in Kingston, I had seen for myself that Bob looked terribly tired and strained; conducting an interview with him in his yard at 56 Hope Road, I felt a measure of guilt for taking up so much of his precious time, even though then I didn’t realize how precious and finite it was. Bob looked terribly tired and strained.  During the Prophecies and Messages section of this DVD, you can see for yourself how drawn and thin Bob looks, as in one such press conference he expounds on matters Rastafari. All the same, he glows as he expounds on the truth > about Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, as he reminds his listeners that Marcus Garvey, the great Jamaican prophet of black consciousness, had said that we must look for a king from the east, and then in 1930, His Majesty was crowned. “It’s just the truth, you know,” smiles Bob. “Christ is always a lion, a lionheart.”

The articulate Tyrone Downie offers an explanation of why it is that
white people rather than black in the United States have been attracted to Rastafari: he claims that this is because their higher standard of living permits them the time to peruse such matters. But Bob bemoans the fact that black people are not working together; they have wisdom, knowledge and ‘overstanding’, he emphasizes, but they must unite, which was part of Bob's intention behind playing this tour.

Bob Marley had first played the beautiful natural amphitheatre of The Santa Barbara County Bowl in the late Spring of 1976. He was then promoting his Rastaman Vibration album, the Tuff Gong breakthrough record in the United States, a Top Ten hit, and a record that was almost as militant as Survival.

And this film begins with that song, a stirring rendition beneath the backdrop posters of Haile Selassie and Marcus Garvey. However, there are a bunch of tunes from the new record: “Ambush in the Night,” “Africa Unite,”  “One Drop,” “Zimbabwe,” and “Ride Natty Ride,” that last song an addition to the original video of the show, released in the early 1980s but long missing from the retail shelves. In fact, there are six additional numbers, pieced together by Don Letts, who oversaw this project, pulled in on account of his knowledge and friendship with Bob: as well as “Ride Natty Ride,” there’s “Is This Love,” “Wake Up And Live,” “Concrete Jungle,” “Them Bellyful,” “So Much Things To Say,” and a bonus track of “War” which segues into “No More Trouble;” although this last tune is only covered by one camera, this hardly diminishes at all the evidence that Bob Marley is performing at the peak of his powers.

Credit is due to the entire group: as the show begins in the bright Southern California sunlight, you see that there are a dozen musicians onstage; such long-time stalwarts are there as Seeco Patterson, the percussionist from Trench Town who had helped instruct Bob in the art of music-making as a youth coming up; by contrast with his traditional burru drum sound are the rock guitars of Junior Marvin and Al Anderson, heard to especially fine effect on Crazy Baldheads; meanwhile, the whole is driven along by the looping rock-steady beat of bass-player Family Man and his brother Carlton Barrett’s drumming. Every song is received rapturously, but the show takes a quantum leap as night falls and Bob and the Wailers burst into the masterfulness of “Exodus,” a work of epic poetry, replete with suitable lock-swirling from the Gong. By the time the show is concluding with the militant “Get Up Stand Up,” the entire auditorium is swaying along and mouthing the repeated lines of “Cos I never give up the fight,” a defiant statement of intent that brings this inspirational concert to a close.

A couple of days later, Bob and the Wailers played a benefit concert at the Roxy on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, ninety miles to the south of Santa Barbara; the show was in aid of the foundation run by Sugar Ray Robinson, the former heavyweight boxing champion, to give grants to assist sporting and artistic endeavors in schools in deprived sections of LA. An additional feature on this DVD are the thoughts of fans congregating outside that show; and from it you derive a sense of the impact Bob was creating at that time in the United States. “This is the most positive spiritual message on this planet,” says one girl.

And it is a message that lives on. Less than a year later Bob collapsed whilst jogging in Central Park with his friend Skill Cole, and was diagnosed as suffering from cancer. But although Bob himself may have passed on, his work indubitably has not: in the furthest backwaters of this planet, you can always hear a Bob Marley tune.
Jah Lives!