From Hollywood exports and Grammy artists to award-winning ideas that can save the world, Africa is not only diverse in its people but also in its industries and creativity. For FORBES AFRICA hundredth issue (since the magazine’s inception in 2011), we decided to curate a list celebrating these very ideas, inventions, and influential role models that have spelt Africa’s growth over the last decade.



Singer, actor, philanthropist, activist, businesswoman, and humanitarian, are just some of the words associated with the Princess of Africa, Yvonne Chaka Chaka. She talks to FORBES AFRICA:



Q: So, just tell me a bit about yourself, and what led you to be going on this incredible journey?



A: Well, you know, growing up in Soweto, during Apartheid, I mean, I was born in 1965 and so growing up and so were to watching all the atrocities that with knowing that you are just an entity in this country, never allowed to vote, you know. And when my father passed on the government, took the house from my mum, because she was a black single woman and unmarried because her husband had died. Seeing her fight and seeing what that did to my family inspired me greatly in terms of where I wanted to be in life and I wanted to make a difference.



Q: And then, what was it like, for you to reach the heights of your career that you have? I mean, especially given your years of activism during apartheid, and now becoming this kind of meteoric power within Africa?



A: Well, I think just growing in that environment, seeing inequality, and knowing that there&#8217;s very little that we can do, but maybe just to, to get an education and be empowered, because that was the only thing that could have taken us out of our situation, to just get education, even though the education that was given to black people was minimum, but I thought, I&#8217;ll grab what I have and make do with it. So I became very lucky because when I completed my matric, I started singing, initially my mother wanted me to go and study law, I wanted to study to be a chartered accountant and when that didn&#8217;t happen, and I started singing,



That, for me was just a great platform. Because I thought, whoo, this is a great platform to start telling the world about my country, about what inspires me what I&#8217;d like to see, you know, in others, and what I can learn from others, and how to make South Africa a better place. So I was quite lucky that my very first debut single, sold about 25,000 brands in a week.



That was amazing and made me extremely popular. I don&#8217;t know, how did my manager do it for me to be very popular even outside South Africa during those times, and that&#8217;s when the name the princes of Africa came up, so I started traveling to places like Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and all those places. For me, it was Africa, lovely Africa accepted me, and Africa has laid out this red carpet for me. And I wanted to, to know, Africa better, I could have wanted to go to live in America, in Paris or anywhere else; but I was very happy to be to be known in Africa, because Africa opened its arms, you know, for me. And yeah, and I&#8217;m just so happy to be an African and a woman for that matter.



Q: So that brings me to my next question. What does being an African icon mean to you?



A: Woah… I don’t regard myself as an icon, I just regard myself as a servant because when people open their arms for you and when people give you a platform to be able to perform, what do you do in return? So for me these people allowed me into their homes without me even asking, that’s when I’m on television; when I perform at a stadium or any function, they leave what they’re doing and come to support me by watching my show.



So I just think sometimes we become taken away and think we are doing our fans a favor, when no they aren’t as it’s their love and support that makes us who we are. So I never take anything for granted. I appreciate every single moment that I’m granted by the people who have supported me through all these years because I would not be Yvonne Chaka Chaka, the princess of Africa without the support they have given me and my music.



So I don’t think I’m an icon, I just think I’m a servant and I’m asked by a higher authority to do this work and continue to serve my continent in the role that they have given me.



Q: And you also have the awards to show for it. Speaking of, what was it like for you getting the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum?



A: You know, 2012 was just a very amazing year for me. There was going to Davos for the first time, and I&#8217;ve been traveling all over, you know, and then I get invited to Davos for this honor.



So, I went to Davos, but already, oh, wow, I mean, icons and more. It was just something to be nominated, and, even if I didn&#8217;t win, the fact that I&#8217;m counted amongst these people, it matters to me.



And I was very, very chuffed, I must say, you know, because, you know, the World Economic Forum, it&#8217;s the, it&#8217;s the highest sector in business, you know, and it&#8217;s serious people who go there, then you have precedents from different countries, and there&#8217;s few activists that go there and, civil society, you know, but I was very, very chuffed and, and really honored to have been given this award by the World Economic Forum and one of my favorite people was sitting right at the front then and kept on cheering for me, it was the Archbishop Tutu, and it was just so amazing



And, yeah, it was it was just that crazy moment for me and I kept on pinching myself, but it was just, amazing.



Q: There are a lot of black female African singers in the continent currently, but there are very few who own their own music label and their own production company, tell me what that experience has been like for you and kind of being part of the marginalized population when it comes to doing something like that.



A: You know, I was quite lucky when I started singing and I was found, you know, I guess I was at at the right place at the right time and the very first music, which was extremely popular, was written for me. And when I thought, when I saw that there was longevity in the music industry, because I was getting famous, and I was making money at the time, then because I came from a very poor family, and I thought, I&#8217;m not going back to the life that I lived.



I started investing in different things, you know, because I bought, I don&#8217;t know if in 1980 or in 1990, Yvonne Chaka Chaka will be there, or things like that. So every royalty I earned was, invested in some way, either through short term investment, like five years, or things like that. And when I thought I saw that, the, this is the real career that I really want to get into.



I decided, I want to leave a Gallo at the time and in1993, I started my own label, Chaka Chaka music. So I started writing my own songs, and I thought, I want to own my catalogue, because



most of those, most of those old, very popular songs, I don&#8217;t own them. They were written for me, and they owned by Universal Records, or Gallo, depending on who was buying what record company at that time, or buying what catalogue.



So that had taught me a lot, you know, and I look back, and I learned from artists like Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, and all the other big art. So for me, it was like I will pay for my own producers, I will pay my own studios and effects, I decided to build my own studio, you know, and I do everything in house.



Q: What has that experience been like for you?



A: It hasn&#8217;t been a very good experience, really, because, you know, I don&#8217;t have the manpower that the big record companies have. Sometimes people battle to get my music, I do have a license deal with Universal Records, because they have no recourse and they&#8217;re not going to benefit much. They don&#8217;t put the music in the shops.



You know, lo and behold, things have changed. You can put things now on mp3 people can download people don&#8217;t buy CDs anymore. So you can release a single and put your music, you know, on different platforms here and get that money. But even with that streaming that people rave about, there&#8217;s still no good policies, and what royalty should be paid and things like that. But I&#8217;m just happy that I can put my music in any platform, my own YouTube channel, and people can listen. And, I own it, the fact is that it&#8217;s mine and it&#8217;s my catalogue, and I own it. So there&#8217;s disadvantages and advantages, but you know, it is my IP I hold it, you know, and it&#8217;s mine, and if anybody wants to come and offer me, whatever, I would sell it at whatever price without any middleman.



Q: And I think your savviness as a businesswoman comes through there but not just there, I mean, you&#8217;re on the board of so many different companies, which sector has been interesting for you to be a part of and a bit of a learning experience?



A: Well, really, I love my humanitarian work. I really love it because, you know, working with, UNICEF, GAVI Global Fund, and all those NGOs, if I may call them all or centres, have opened my eyes, and broadened my horizon. You know, just going to different countries. I remember going to, I think it was Tanzania and somebody, you know, a woman had walked for like two hours as her child was sick and as she got to hospital the child was declared dead.



And I had a lump in throat. I thought, things that me and you take for granted could have saved this child. What really got to me most was, this woman did not want to leave the body behind. She said, I&#8217;m going to have to piggy back him dead as he is, and go back home, because what am I going to say to my husband.



That traumatized me so much, and so those are the things that I see happening around, and if I can do my little bit to help, I really try, I can&#8217;t be everything to everybody. So when I go, when I go and do all my humanitarian work, it&#8217;s good to be on the podium with the likes of the Bill Gates of the world and ministers or presidents but for me, it&#8217;s when I go to those people, you know who have absolutely nothing but make do with the little that they have.



So for me, there is proper empowerment, when you go to people, listen to them, not tell them what needs to be done, listen to them, because they know they have problems, all they want is a hand up, not a handout.



So when you empowered them it will level the playing field for people where the environment is conducive for them to function, they would do that. And when people are healthy, when they are educated, they know how to fend for themselves. So that sector really has really, really made me love that sector.



Q: Working in that sector has also led to collaborations with other people who have the same feeling as you I’m sure, who for you has been one of your favorite people to work with or collaborate with bat on stage or in studio?



A: I mean, I&#8217;ve performed with different people really, from Bono to Beyoncé. I think everybody are doing their bit. You know, I mean, there&#8217;s a lot of people out there, who, who would do a lot about education, you know, something about the health sector, excuse me, the health sector, others would want to see girls, you know, having sanitary pads. So all the people that have worked with, I must say, they&#8217;ve been amazing, because they do their little bit, wherever. And I think it&#8217;s important that we all do our little bit in our small corners.



I’ve also gotten to work with a lot of young people like Berita, and Lira and we’ve just rereleased Umqombothi with Amanda Black And it&#8217;s just been so amazing to work with young people just to hear from them, what inspires them? And how would they do things now, you know, because during our time, there was no social media, you know, you just had to sing, go to the go to the shows. And, and that was it, there was really nothing. It was just newspapers, magazines, and television. So now, our young people have got all these platforms, to expand their talent and showcase their talent. And they can be watched by people everywhere in the world, and it&#8217;s very, very good.



Q: You also have such an array of experiences to your name, most recently your Motherland tour documentary, what was that like?



A: Motherland tour for me, I was quite lucky.



Because I worked so well, with different organizations like a Global Fund, GAVI, malaria people, and it was easy for them to to fund the motherland tour because I did not want to be a Goodwill Ambassador that just goes there and give cheques and go.



I wanted to know, if they said, we&#8217;re supposed to go to Uganda, or Kenya or Malawi, I really wanted to know, what am I there for, what are the pre people&#8217;s problems? What are the challenges they go through? How do we help them to help themselves, so I really wanted to get engaged.



And I think they just liked that mind-set. I think at first they could not understand they could not believe, you know, they just thought that I would just come and look pretty to have makeup and tick a box off and be done, but I wanted to be there for the people for real.



You know, for me for the things that I&#8217;ve been asked to be a goodwill ambassador, I thought it&#8217;s a great platform to then do what is right. Go to those people don&#8217;t only go there when there&#8217;s cameras, but go there for real, ask questions, learn from them, help with their struggles and challenges, open doors for them, you know, if they can&#8217;t get to the Minister, or the First Lady, or the president? And I&#8217;m able to do that, why wouldn&#8217;t I do that? And in the past 15 years doing all of that, that&#8217;s exactly what I&#8217;ve done. And that culminated to doing the motherland tour, you know, because it was the stories of these African women who are really trying to do good in their communities. So we documented that as I was traveling from Sierra Leone, Ghana, and all those other places.



Q: My last question, what is the mantra or motto that you live by?



You know, my mantra is that we&#8217;re born with nothing. And when we&#8217;re born, we&#8217;re here to demonstrate what we&#8217;ve been asked to come and do. So each and every one of us has some form of good. And when we die, we take absolutely nothing. So there&#8217;s no need to be selfish, greedy, or wanting to kill one another. Because you know what, we can&#8217;t take everything that we&#8217;re fighting for and what makes us greedy or selfish with us when we die. So we just die with absolutely nothing. So let&#8217;s just enjoy the life whatsoever in life. And that&#8217;s it. 



<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2021/04/01/the-100th-issue-100-innovations-inventions-icons-from-africa/">For more on the 100 Innovations, Inventions &amp; Icons From Africa (Forbes Africa)</a>

The DStv Mzansi Viewers’ Choice Awards 2020 in South Africa

THE 100th ISSUE:  A Conversation With the Princess of Africa, Yvonne Chaka Chaka

Trumpeter, flugelhorn-player, singer, composer and activist Hugh Ramapolo Masekela has passed away last year after a long battle with prostate cancer.



When he cancelled his appearance in 2017 at the Johannesburg Joy of Jazz Festival, taking time out to deal with his serious health issues, fans were forced to return to his recorded opus for reminders of his unique work. Listening through that half-century of disks, the nature and scope of the trumpeter’s achievement becomes clear.



Masekela had two early horn heroes.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="594" height="380" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-141835647-594x594.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-40054" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-141835647-594x594.jpg 594w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-141835647-594x594-300x192.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px" /><figcaption>SOUTH AFRICA -DECEMBER 28 : Legendary South African singer Miriam Makeba with fellow musician and ex-husband Hugh Masekela. (Photo by Gallo Images/ Avusa)</figcaption></figure>



The first was part-mythical: the life of jazz great&nbsp;Bix Biederbecke&nbsp;filtered through Kirk Douglas’s acting and Harry James’s trumpet, in the 1950 movie&nbsp;“Young Man With A Horn”. Masekela saw the film as a schoolboy at the Harlem Bioscope in Johannesburg’s Sophiatown. The erstwhile chorister resolved “then and there to become a trumpet player”.



The second horn hero, unsurprisingly, was&nbsp;Miles Davis. And while Masekela’s accessible, storytelling style and lyrical instrumental tone are very different, he shared one important characteristic with the American: his life and music were marked by constant reinvention. As Davis reportedly said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">I don’t want to be yesterday’s guy.</blockquote>



Much has already been written about Masekela’s life and its landmarks: playing in the Huddleston Jazz Band in the 1950s on a horn donated by Louis Armstrong; performing in the musical&nbsp;“King Kong”&nbsp;in the 1960s and at the Guildhall and then Manhattan schools of music with singer&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/miriam-makeba">Miriam Makeba</a>; US pop successes in the 1970s and then touring Paul Simon’s&nbsp;“Graceland”&nbsp;in the 80s and 90s.



What is less discussed is the&nbsp;music, and the innovative imagination he has periodically applied to draw it fresh from the flames.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Breaking new ground</h4>



The Huddleston band, plus time as sideman and in stage shows, were the traditional career path for a young musician. But then Masekela broke his first new ground. With fellow originals, including saxophonist&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/kippie-jeremiah-moeketsi">Kippie Moeketsi</a>, pianist&nbsp;<a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/">Abdullah Ibrahim</a>&nbsp;and trombonist&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jonas-mosa-gwangwa">Jonas Gwangwa</a>, as&nbsp;The Jazz Epistles&nbsp;they cut the first LP of modern African jazz in South Africa.



“Jazz Epistle: Verse One”&nbsp;(1960) featured band compositions marked by challenging improvisation – “a cross between mbaqanga and bebop”.&nbsp;Mbaqanga&nbsp;is form of South African township jive and&nbsp;bebop&nbsp;an American jazz style developed in the 1940s.



Masekela had also joined the pit band and worked as a copyist for South Africa’s first black musical, “King Kong”.



This exposure attracted attention to his talent from potential patrons at home and abroad. Pushed by the horrors of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/sharpeville-massacre-21-march-1960">Sharpeville massacre</a>when the South African police shot and killed 69 people on 21 March 1960, and pulled by donated air-tickets and scholarships, Masekela left for London, and then New York.



In the next two decades, Masekela’s re-visioning of his music took many forms. He found America hard, but with wife Miriam Makeba (the marriage lasted from 1964 &#8211; 1966), the production skills of Gwangwa, and the support of American singer&nbsp;Harry Belafonte&nbsp;he proactively introduced audiences to South African music and the destruction of apartheid.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="925" height="612" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40056" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh.png 925w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh-300x198.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Hugh-768x508.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 925px) 100vw, 925px" /><figcaption> Jazz legend Dorothy Masuka, who died on 23 February 2019 attends Hugh Masekela&#8217;s memorial service. At the back is Sibongile Khumalo. Picture: Motlabana Monnakgotla </figcaption></figure>



On the ironically titled 1966 live&nbsp;“Americanisation of Ooga Booga”, he demonstrated the creative possibilities of “township bop”. Masekela did this by mashing up repertoire and playing styles from the South Africa he had left and the America he had landed in.



But he was also looking in other directions: in collaborations with other African musicians; towards fusion (with&nbsp;The Crusaders), rock (with&nbsp;The Byrds) and even pop at the&nbsp;Monterey Pop, festival.



That list captures only a fraction of his projects in the 1960s. Some bore instant fruit: his 1968 single,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=8369">“Grazin’ In the Grass”</a>, topped the Billboard Hot 100 list and sold four million copies; the previous year’s “Up Up and Away” became an instant standard.



In 1971, he teamed up with Gwangwa and Caiphus Semenya for another pan-African vision:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/hugh-masekela-the-union-of-south-africa-mw0000625550">The Union of South Africa</a>. In 1972 he explored a stronger jazz orientation on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/home-is-where-the-music-is-mw0000789812">“Home is Where The Music Is”</a>&nbsp;with, among others, sax player&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dudu-pukwana-mn0000210863/biography">Dudu Pukwana</a>, bassist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-gomez-mn0000794244">Eddie Gomez</a>, keyboardist&nbsp;<a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/larry-willis-mn0000114935/biography">Larry Willis</a>&nbsp;and Semenya.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Sixties counterculture</h4>



But as the title of “Grazin’ In the Grass” suggests, Masekela was also bewitched by other aspects of Sixties counterculture. He dated his addiction back to the alcohol-focused social climate of his early playing years in South Africa, but by the early Seventies he admitted:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">I had destroyed my life with drugs and alcohol and could not get a gig or a band together. No recording company was interested in me…</blockquote>



That depression inspired the song that achieved genuinely iconic status back home in South Africa: the 1974 reflection on migrant labour,&nbsp;“Stimela/Coal Train”.



Foreign critics have handed that status to other Masekela songs, such as “Soweto Blues”, “Gold” or the much later “Bring Him Back Home”. Yet powerful though those are, it is Stimela, with its slow-burning steam-piston rhythm that captured the hearts of South Africans in struggle back home, and still does today. And of course the lyrics:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">There’s a train that comes from Namibia and Malawi /there’s a train that comes from Zambia and Zimbabwe/ from Angola and Mozambique…</blockquote>



Masekela said:



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">For me songs come like a tidal wave … At this low point, for some reason, the tidal wave that whooshed in on me came all the way from the other side of the Atlantic: from Africa; from home.</blockquote>



Shortly afterwards, Masekela headed off to Ghana, hooked up with&nbsp;Hedzoleh Soundz, and was soon back in the charts. “Stimela” received its first outing on the album&nbsp;“I Am Not Afraid”, with West African and American co-players including pianist&nbsp;Joe Sample.



By the mid ‘80s, the hornman was back in southern Africa, recording&nbsp;“Technobush”&nbsp;at the mobile&nbsp;Shifty Studio&nbsp;in Botswana, and performing for the Medu Arts Ensemble with a Botswanan/South African band,&nbsp;Kalahari. His music shifted again: roots mbaqanga came strongly to the fore to speak simply and directly to people now openly battling the apartheid regime just across the border.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading">Returning home</h4>



After liberation and his return home, Masekela once more chose fresh directions. In 1997 he banished his addictions and began to showcase the virtuoso player he could have been 30 years earlier without the distractions of the West Coast. He fronted big European jazz bands, and benchmarked a long musical friendship with Larry Willis with the magisterial&nbsp;Friends.



But his shrewd ear for the music of today, rather than yesterday, also took him into younger company. He collaborated with current stars – including singer&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thandiswa.com/">Thandiswa Mazwai</a>&nbsp;– often encouraging them to take centre stage. Just before the recurrence of his cancer, he was&nbsp;planning&nbsp;a festival collaboration with rapper Riky Rick.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="475" height="594" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-40055" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594.jpg 475w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594-300x375.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/gettyimages-99309818-594x594-240x300.jpg 240w" sizes="(max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px" /><figcaption>NEW YORK &#8211; AUGUST 20: South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela poses for a portrait on August 20, 1968 in New York City, New York. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



To cap the transformation, the individualistic rebel of the 60s and 70s became an elder statesman of social activism. In 2001, he established a&nbsp;foundation&nbsp;to help other musicians escape addiction. Once more he foregrounded the music of continental Africa, to campaign against xenophobia. And the return of his own illness became the cue to&nbsp;exhortother men to get checked for prostate cancer.



Other South African musicians have succeeded overseas; many have made one mid-career image switch – but few have shown us, in only one person but more than 30 albums, so many of the faces and possibilities of South African jazz.



Hugh Masekela, musician, activist. Born: 4 April 1939; Died: 23 January 2018



-Gwen Ansell; Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria



-The Conversation



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Remembering Hugh Masekela: the horn player with a shrewd ear for music of the day

In January, Africa lost Oliver Mtukudzi. His friend and
fellow musician Yvonne Chaka Chaka fondly remembers the global icon.&nbsp; 



In October 2012, Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi, South Africa’s
Yvonne Chaka Chaka and Kenya’s Suzanna Owíyo produced Because I Am Girl with
musicians from around the world.



It was released to promote the global launch of Plan
International’s ‘Because I am A Girl’ campaign, marking the first UN
International Day of the Girl Child, on October 11.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2019/01/25/tribute-to-oliver-mtukudzi-zimbabwes-man-with-the-talking-guitar/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Tribute To Oliver Mtukudzi – Zimbabwe’s ‘Man With The Talking Guitar’ (opens in a new tab)">Tribute To Oliver Mtukudzi – Zimbabwe’s ‘Man With The Talking Guitar’</a>



Dressed in African prints, they sang together, spreading the
word about the empowerment of the girl child. 



Mtukudzi’s bass and Chaka Chaka’s soulful voice in harmony,
they became more than co-artists; they become brother and sister. It was the first
performance of many for the two.



Seven years on, Chaka Chaka is teary-eyed about Mtukudzi’s death 23 days into 2019, when not just she, but Africa lost a music legend.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">In a strange coincidence, Mtukudzi died the same day the continent lost the father of South African jazz, Hugh Masekela, last year.</blockquote>



On the phone for this interview, Chaka Chaka describes
Mtukudzi as a soldier at work. 



“When he was on stage, he was a totally different man. When
he had his guitar, it was like a soldier. Like a soldier who has a gun at
work,” she tells us.



“I think there were two different people. Offstage, he was
just an ordinary man, and on stage, people ate out of the palm of his hand.



“I’ve never known Oliver to never be fit. He has been a
skinny man and he would just twist that body with a guitar and that gravel
voice of his. A big voice in a small body,” she says.



“He has never called me Yvonne, he has always called me
Fifi… Fifi means sister.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“The man was always humble, he never raised his voice, I have never seen him angry and all he has ever wanted is just to see Africa thriving. He wanted to see Africa beautiful. He wanted to see Africa with less disease, less hunger, less corruption, a happy Africa – that was his wish.”</blockquote>



One anecdote Chaka Chaka shares is when Mtukudzi was made a
UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in Zimbabwe in 2011.



“You know he sat there with me and asked, ‘so, what does
this entail, my sister? You have been a goodwill ambassador for a long time.
You will tell me what needs to be done. How should I act? How should I react?
How should I do things?’



“And I’m like, ‘no, but you know, you are more of a star
than me and you have been in this industry long before I’. He was just so
down-to-earth and had no chip on his shoulder.”&nbsp;




The last performance the two did together was in October
last year in Harare during the Jacaranda Festival, attended by more than 2,000
people and other artists around the continent.



“Oliver was not in his changing room or at home. He stayed
there and watched other artists perform, which was so great,” says Chaka Chaka.



“This year, he promised that we would do it [the Jacaranda
Festival] in Bulawayo,” she said. They had planned to make it a big show and
use their status as goodwill ambassadors to encourage and inspire more youth.



&nbsp;But sadly, that
promise will never be fulfilled.



“The legacy he will leave behind is a legacy of love, the
legacy of pro-African and I think for me he was a pan-Africanist. That’s what
he was,” she says.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2019/01/23/zimbabwes-oliver-mtukudzi-dies-at-66/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi Dies At 66 (opens in a new tab)">Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi Dies At 66</a>



To this day, Neria is still one of Chaka Chaka’s favorite
songs by him.



&nbsp;Mtukudzi, who died
aged 66 of diabetes, was laid to rest on January 27 in his home village of&nbsp; Madziwa.



Thousands sang and danced to the melodies of his songs.



President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared him a national hero,
posthumously, a status that has previously been reserved for ruling party elite
and independence veterans.



He may be gone but his music will live forever in the hearts of the fans that loved this legend who soldiered on until the end.

Music Midtown 2002

Oliver Mtukudzi The Soldier With A Big Voice – Yvonne Chaka Chaka

Every time she visits, the Princess of Africa is blown away by the love, respect and order she finds in Japan. 

FORBES AFRICA meets singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and humanitarian Yvonne Chaka Chaka, fondly called the ‘Princess of Africa’, in her home office in the wealthy suburb of Bryanston in the north of Johannesburg in South Africa.
Framed pictures of her travels and accolades as a musician and humanitarian adorn the walls.
On her desk are a stack of magazines, some of them in Japanese.
One of the covers has Chaka Chaka posing with a mic in one hand, the other held out.
The cover line reads: ‘We love Japan. Hold my hand and we will walk together’.
<blockquote>“I love the Japanese so much and they really love me back,” says Chaka Chaka glancing at the magazine. And she has traveled to Japan too many times to count.</blockquote>
But nothing beats the first time she visited the country.
Ten years ago, she was invited to attend the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).
Traveling from the City of Gold, Johannesburg, to high-tech Tokyo, she could immediately tell she had entered brand-new territory.
The language, the food, the cultures were so different.
“Japan is just too nice. There are so many people but it is so clean,” says Chaka Chaka.
“I remember my first time when one of the organizations that we worked with, wanted me to go to a place called Kamaishi, where there was an earthquake and I agreed and said that’s fine,” she says.
Little did she know it was going to be a trip she would never forget. She traveled with her humanitarian advisor.
“They said we were going on a train. Ah I was so angry. I said, ‘what! I don’t get in a train’.”
Chaka Chaka prefers road travel but she nevertheless obliged.
“So we got to the station and I saw people with suitcases and I don’t like carrying suitcases. So we did and we got onto the platform and it’s just packed and packed.
“The station there is like the airport, it’s massive but with more people on the trains. It’s like hundreds of platforms and ‘I’m like, I don’t want to be here’.”
They were about to board the Shinkansen, Japan’s high-speed railway, which is a bullet train. 
To her surprise, it exceeded her expectations.
“We got into the train and the order!” she now exclaims.
“There’s so much order it hurts.”
“When the train comes, it stops right here and people queue, there’s no chaos.”
Chaka Chaka watched in awe as everyone waited in a line.
“Arigato gozaimasu [thank you],” she hears some of the staff say to the passengers and bow in respect.
“You know that bending, it shows the love and respect. Everything is just respect, order, cleanliness and meticulous. The Japanese are so meticulous and there’s a lot that we can learn,” says the singer.
During her trip, she also visited Kumamoto which is a city on the Japanese island of Kyushu. They were just recovering from heavy rainfall that had caused floods and landslides.

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“Families were staying in makeshift houses and parents brought their kids to a place where I was talking. And it was so amazing. These kids were like three-year-olds and four-year-olds and they would leave their shoes and you would see hundreds of shoes packed nicely,” she says.
“They are taught from such a young age… and they don’t take what’s not theirs.”
“I had the chance to sit with the advisor of the prime minister and I was asking them, ‘how do you get things so much in order?’ And they said, ‘you know, we teach kids from school. When children finish at school they clean the classes’.”
The famous African was also impressed by the recycling bins available throughout the towns, a bin for every kind of waste.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2018/09/28/executive-travel-wajes-south-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Executive Travel: Waje’s South Africa</a>
“That one is for paper, that one is for bottles and that one is for this… And I was feeling so bad because I had finished and I threw in a bottle of water in the wrong bin,” she recalls, laughing.
“There’s a lot we can learn from just loving ourselves, respecting ourselves, respecting time and respecting culture. The Japanese still abide by their culture, you know. I mean they wear their kimonos with love,” she says.
She also had the chance to wear her own kimono, which she enjoyed.
That first trip gave her so much insight she frequently visited Japan.
The one place she often visits is Kamaishi to support children affected by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that tore the city apart.
She has even been given the title of ambassador to Kamaishi City.
Her last visit in March was to Masaka, a central region in Japan, where she was with a Japanese NGO for children called Ashinaga. Her next trip will be in March next year and she is already looking forward to it.
As a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Chaka Chaka has the opportunity to travel to numerous countries, but it’s clearly the land of the rising sun that has marked many a new dawn for the Princess of Africa.

Yvonne-Chaka-Chaka-2_KM

Executive Travel: Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s Japan

For someone who has been a bona fide superstar on the African continent for well over two decades, Yvonne Chaka Chaka is strangely the most approachable person I have ever met, with few airs and graces.
She is the opposite of a spoilt superstar; instead, she has this quality of mothering everyone around her. A couple of times during my one-on-one interview with her, she picks the most inopportune moment to ask whether I’m hungry and proceeds to offer me some pasta and mince.
<div id="attachment_337" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-337" class="size-large wp-image-337" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/chaka2_1-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Yvonne Chaka Chaka at her home, Bryanston, north of Johannesburg</div>
We meet Chaka Chaka at her home in the wealthy suburb of Bryanston in the north of Johannesburg. We are not the only crew here; there is a team from a popular showbiz magazine wrapping up a shoot with her. One of her many assistants tells us that she has another two more interviews later. So how is it that this 46-year-old mother of four boys has managed to remain relevant, in demand and adored in this very fickle entertainment industry?
“I have just never bought into this notion that the music and entertainment industry are all ‘sex, drugs and rock-’n-roll’. I was raised to always maintain a sense of pride and to be responsible at all times. From the first moment after I was discovered, all I ever wanted to do was to make it big so I could uproot my family out of poverty. My mother, who was a domestic worker at that point, wanted me to get a law degree and be very successful. She didn’t approve of me being a singer. She had higher expectations,” she says.
Chaka Chaka’s debut album, I’m in Love with a DJ, sold more than 35,000 copies in two weeks back in 1985. Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, Chaka Chaka was to belt out iconic hits such as Umqombothi (African beer), Burning Up, Thank You, Mister DJ and Who’s the Boss?, among many other hits. Her songs are a soundtrack to many an African childhood, and she has performed in all corners of the African continent.
“I knew I was becoming really successful when everyone started comparing me to Brenda Fassie, who had started singing in 1981 and was the epitome of success at that time. Everybody started noticing me. My gig calendar went crazy and I could finally build my mother the three-bedroom house she wanted. I also started singing for serious company like former President Nelson Mandela, kings, queens and the world’s most important people,” she says proudly.
On the walls of her home, there are countless gongs, awards, trophies, certificates and picture portraits of her flanked by people straight from a name-dropper’s fantasy. Alongside them are many magazine covers and framed platinum-certified discs. The most refreshing aspect about Chaka Chaka’s career, though, is that it has been far from one-dimensional. She has managed to balance performing with getting an impressive higher education, being an entrepreneur and doing high-level philanthropy. It is her entrepreneurship that I am interested in, mainly because we have all heard the painful tale of beloved musicians dying as paupers.
“I started my first business in 1987. It was a hair salon based at the Carlton Centre shopping mall in the CBD of Johannesburg. It was called Le Classique and it was ahead of its time in the way it offered services. The salon had a separate wing where our VIP and celebrity clientele could come in and have private consultations, be pampered without the glare of the public, without delay or having to wait in queues. Le Classique was also one of the few salons at that time that had a multiracial client base,” she explains. The success of Le Classique led to Chaka Chaka opening another beauty salon on Kruis Street—just down the road from the Carlton Centre. “I opened my second salon in 1989. It was called Vonny’s 7th Heaven and it too was wildly successful. The two salons had a very good run until the steep escalation of crime in the CBD forced us to close shop,” she says.
These mishaps may have pushed Chaka Chaka away from the hair and beauty industry, but the business bug had bitten. In 1992, Chaka Chaka opened a limousine business.
“My husband and I bought a few limos and a couple of luxury American cars and started Byandlani Limousine Services. We realised that there was an influx of tourists coming to our shores as the political climate changed, so we jumped on the bandwagon. We hired drivers who would be based at the airport ready to pick up tourists and take them sightseeing, on tours or to wherever their destinations were,” she says.
Chaka Chaka also used her industry connections to boost her limo business’ image and they were chosen to transport Michael Jackson during his South African tour.
A few years later, legislation around how public transportation entities operate was changed, so Chaka Chaka decided to sell the cars and cut her losses.
“The cars were American, so they were a left-hand drive and we were always given grief about that. The business had also started doing badly at that point, so it made sense to just move on to something else,” she says.
Soon after the dissolution of Byandlani Limousine Services, Chaka Chaka then bought a house in Berea, downtown Johannesburg that she converted into offices for hire and a rehearsal venue for herself and other musicians.
“The house was a very popular rehearsal venue. You name any artist that was big during that period, and they were most likely also rehearsing with us. Bands like Sankomota and Stimela, as well as solo artists like Tshepo Tshola, Sibongile Khumalo and Hugh Masekela were among our clients,” she says.
Once again, crime became the thorn in her side and forced Chaka Chaka to think twice about the location of her business. “We got burgled way too many times. Our clients’ cars got hijacked and it quite simply became unpleasant. So we donated the house to a local church and once again shifted focus,” she says. This is the point where Chaka Chaka set her sights on the corporate world.
Her first major move was to buy into Gestetner—a company that produces printing machines.
“Buying into Gestetner surprised a lot of people. It was during the period where BEE (black economic empowerment) was the buzzword, so some even thought I was brought in to be ‘the token black’. People just didn’t understand why or how a singer could also feature in the corporate space,” she says.
Her move into corporate South Africa has flourished. Right now, she owns shares and sits on the board of JSE-listed Morvest Business Group, an IT company, as well as on the boards of many Section 21 companies like the African Women’s Development Board, Shalamuka Board, Sonke Skills Development and Women in Energy. Chaka Chaka also owns shares in major companies such as Media 24, Sasol and Telkom.
Even with such an impressive business portfolio, it is practically impossible to sit with Chaka Chaka and not notice that the thing that’s closest to her heart is her charity work. “I have just come back from Vietnam and Kenya, where I have been involved in a campaign started by the World Health Organization (WHO) along with The Global Fund and (international police agency) Interpol. The campaign aims to create awareness around fake medication, counterfeit ARVs and other drugs meant to treat dreaded diseases such as tuberculosis. I am the face of that campaign alongside fellow musician Youssou N’dour,” she says.
Chaka Chaka is also a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador, and hints at the fact that unlike her other UN ambassador colleagues, such as movie star Angelina Jolie, she goes further than attending a UN press conference to just smile and wave.
“I have a passion for going to the grassroots and helping people who literally have nothing. I recently travelled to the most remote villages of Africa and shot a documentary highlighting the extreme plight of the people who live there in the hope that once it gets flighted on television, someone somewhere will do something to help these people who are so extremely disadvantaged.”
Chaka Chaka has also adopted Lethare High School in Jabulani Township in Soweto, where she has a program that supports the needy and sponsors a number of them through university.
“Lethare is the same school that I attended growing up. So knowing that community as intimately as I do, I knew that I had to do something to help, something to give back as they are behind my musical success. There are a few kids there whom we have taken to university, and in the next five years, I am making plans with Lethare’s principal to broaden this program so that there isn’t a child we cannot help,” she says.
With so much on Chaka Chaka’s plate, it is amazing that she finds time for everyone else in her life. But as I sit in her home, I realize that somehow it has been possible for this remarkable woman to raise great kids, keep her music career afloat and go from strength to strength in her business life. She is not about to slow down—she is currently shooting a musical with Leleti Khumalo (of Sarafina! fame) and Luthuli Dlamini, and going into studio to record a new album that will be released in 2012 through her own company, Chaka Chaka Promotions.
As I drive out of her home, I see a Lifebuoy soap billboard with her face on it—she is there too.

Tag: Yvonne Chaka Chaka

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