Still Grazing

by Hugh Masikela

  At the beginning of 1985 I was still living a sober and clean life, much to the surprise of all those who knew me. I was still smoking marijuana, but I would not touch any alcohol. Around March, Kalahari and I began to work on Waiting for the Rain, our follow-up album to Technobush. We added on celebrated singers Mara Louw and Anneline Malebo from South Africa, and Sonti Mndebele, who had toured Europe and America with Kalahari and was visiting Botswana. I also fetched keyboardist/saxophonist/guitarist/composer/musical genius Bheki Mseleku from Harare in Zimbabwe. They were all featured as guest artists on the recording. Barney Rachabane and Bheki played great saxophone on some of the tracks, including “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight,” an R&B love duet between Tsepo Tshola and Anneline Malebo set in a medium tempo with heavy mbhaqanga harmonies and guitar/piano riffs. The solos by Barney and me turned out to be some mean jazz statements. The fast-tempo “Politician” was a heavy indictment of African leaders who overstayed their welcome on the gravy train, with brilliant solos by Bheki on piano and tenor sax, Barney on alto sax, and me trying to keep up with them. “Zulu Wedding” was a traditional Soul Brothers–style vocal mbhaqanga, and we did a happy cover version of Fela’s Afro-beat “Lady,” which was probably his first major hit. The highlight of the album was a Brazilian ballad called “The Joke of Life.” A video of the song was filmed in which I played my flugelhorn to a dancing Neneh Cherry, several years before she started her own singing, rapping career, which turned her into an international star. Clive at Jive Records was very happy with the album. Being an American soul-music worshiper, he was especially partial to “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight.” The album was released to a fairly enthusiastic reception, and a European-American tour was scheduled for June of 1985.

  Life in Botswana started to be very risky for antiapartheid activists. Most South African exiles in the region had to spend many nights with their families away from their homes for fear of being murdered in their sleep. We were scared of starting our cars in the mornings because so many of our friends had been killed by bombs rigged to explode when they turned on the ignition. We had devised ways of starting our cars with long strings from a safe distance, lest we detonate booby traps. Despite the nerve-racking atmosphere, we all tried to lead normal lives. Just before my birthday on April 4, Nelson Mandela had a birthday card smuggled out of Pollsmoor Prison where he had since been transferred from Robben Island. Mandela learned of all my activities from his wife, Winnie, whom my father regularly visited in Brandfort, her place of banishment. During these visits, which were monitored by the South African police, he would bring her up to date on Barbara’s and my activities. Winnie would then pass the news on to Mandela during visits to him. In the card, he requested me to pass on his fondest greetings to Jabu, whose father had been his schoolmate at Fort Hare University, and to little Deliwe, too. He encouraged me to keep up the efforts with the mobile recording studio and the school of music. It was overwhelming to receive such encouragement from a person who had been in prison for more than twenty years and was selflessly encouraging the efforts of people who were free outside, cheering them on in their endeavors to elevate the continent’s music and its youth. I was so moved by his gracious and generous gesture that I immediately went to sit at the piano and started singing, “Bring back Nelson Mandela / Bring him back home to Soweto / I want to see him walking down the streets of South Africa / I want to see him walking hand in hand with Winnie Mandela.”

  Jabu came from the bedroom and stood listening behind me. “When did you write this song, Hughie? I never heard it before.” I turned around to face her with tears in my eyes. “I didn’t write it, Jabs, Mandela just sent it to me.”

  Just before Easter 1985, I went to Harare, Zimbabwe, to view a house I was intending to buy. Jabu and I had decided to move to Zimbabwe because the environment in Botswana was becoming intolerably dangerous. On my way back to Gaborone, I was arrested at the Harare airport for possession of eighteen grams of marijuana. I was jailed overnight and arraigned in court two days after my host and dear friend Job Kadengu bailed me out. I had to pay a fifty-dollar fine in court on Easter Monday and was declared persona non grata in that country. It was an extremely embarrassing episode because I had been scheduled to play two performances that weekend with Kalahari in Botswana. My father was visiting us, along with Aunt Ackila and her daughter Maphiri, who had come from Tanzania for the Easter holidays. Newspapers all over southern Africa had front-page coverage of my drug bust. I arrived home Tuesday with my tail between my legs.

  Early in the evening of June 14, I had just finished a sound check at the Blue Note Club, where we were preparing a farewell performance before leaving for England on June 17. On my way home, I stopped by George and Lindi’s house. They had recently installed burglar bars on their doors and windows following a break-in.

  Jabu and I put Deliwe to bed early, listened to some music and watched television, and went to bed shortly after midnight. At around three in the morning a mighty explosion and the roar of machine-gun fire awakened us. A bomb had just destroyed a house near ours. Anyone inside the dwelling, I figured, was surely dead. A public-address system came on, with a heavy, guttural Afrikaans accent commanding, “Stay in your houses. Don’t come out. We know who we are looking for. I repeat, stay in your houses. Don’t move. We know who we are looking for.”

  Jabu and I lay motionless, fearing we were the death squads’ next target. I immediately thought of George and Lindi as we heard other explosions in the far distance. I wondered if they were still alive. The voice from the loudspeaker grew faint. We checked on Deliwe. She was in dreamland. Mrs. Koka, our South African neighbor in the corner house up the street, called us on the telephone and asked in a shaking voice, “Are you still there? Everybody is running to the police station. We are going. Shouldn’t you?” I said, “Ma Koka, just stay put.”

  Jabu and I lay stunned until around five-thirty that morning, when we got a call from Nkopeng Matlou, a friend who worked for the Botswana Broadcasting Corporation. “Bra Hugh, Bra George and Ous Lindi are dead. We were just escorted to their home by some members of the Botswana Defense Force. Twelve other people have been killed. I’m so sorry, Bra Hugh.” Although I wasn’t surprised by the news, I was still stunned. I got out of the bed and stood in the middle of our bedroom. I just stared into space. Jabu tried to console me, but I wept uncontrollably for what seemed like an eternity.

  I called Louis Molamu, George’s closest friend in Botswana, and John Selolwane around six. They were both in shock. By seven, they were at my house. I pulled out a bottle of XO Courvoisier from my bar and we began to drink. By nine, when we drove over to George’s house, we were on our third bottle. We were numbed by the trauma, not the booze. We said very little. George had been unable to get out of the house with Lindi and their two brothers because the windows had all been burglar-proofed. The assassins had been informed that three people lived in the house, the third being Livi Phahle, George’s younger brother. Lindi’s brother was visiting for the weekend from Soweto. Livi, a pianist, was thrown to the floor and George put his piano over him so that he could be concealed. George then threw himself over his wife to protect her as he was being mowed down by machine-gun fire. The bullets pierced her body as well. Her brother hid in a closet, but the assassins shot him through the door when they heard him stirring inside. Having killed their quota, the assassins left with Livi still hiding under the piano. We learned later that the assassins had entered Botswana two weeks earlier, and had checked into the Oasis Hotel in the guise of hunters who were en route to one of the country’s animal safari parks. During that period they had done a thorough reconnaissance of their intended targets with the assistance of collaborating exiles, called Askaris, pretending to be political activists. The media reported the murder squads had abducted them. The truth was, they were going back home, their mission accomplished. They had lived among us and gained our trust, yet during all those years these Judases were laying the ground for this ultimate attack. We were
shocked to learn who they were after they were gone.

  The following evening Kalahari performed a farewell concert at the Blue Note Club in Gaborone’s Mogoditshane suburb. The next day we left for London. I was shattered that I wouldn’t even be present at the burial of my dear friends, George and Lindi Phahle, who had been an inspiration for me to come and live in Botswana. I had lived in their house for almost a year before I found my own place, with their help. When I was weeping for them, after just receiving the news of their brutal murder, Jabu put my head against her bosom and said, “I’m really sorry about your friends, Hughie.” That was the first time she had expressed any warm words for them. She had previously accused them of introducing me to many women with whom I had affairs before her arrival in Botswana.

  I sent for Jabu and Deliwe to come and join me in London, where I was staying at the home of my niece, Sisai Mpuchane, and her husband, Sam, who was Botswana’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. When they arrived, I told Jabu we could no longer live in Botswana. The murders had left me disillusioned. The government had informed the South African exile community, especially the activists, that they could no longer guarantee our safety because the South African death squads were unpredictable. A United Nations repatriation program was put into place, and most of the South African exile population was transplanted to many countries around the world that offered to take them in and provide educational opportunities.

  Khabi Mngoma had organized a workshop in celebration of the first anniversary of the Botswana International School of Music. As one of the founders, I felt obligated to attend, and I needed to sell some of our belongings and arrange shipment of the rest to London. Once I returned in August, it took only a few days to settle our affairs. George’s brother Levi repatriated to New York, and today teaches music in Manhattan. The workshop was a success. Eventually the music school was absorbed by the Ministry of Culture and renamed the National Cultural Center. Clive Calder had requested that I find a business manager to represent me, because he was finding it a little awkward to deal with me directly. I asked Dennis Armstead, and he jumped at the opportunity. Clive Calder arranged for the sale of the mobile studio to EMI Records in South Africa. It was a sad ending to a great but short period in Botswana.

  When I boarded my flight back to England, I knew that I would probably never return to Botswana. I was forced into a second exile. I still mourn George and Lindi, and I find it hard to forgive the perpetrators of this heinous act. Nothing galls me more than the millions of white people who are always trying to tell us to forget the past while they enjoy the fruits of the sacrifices made by people like George and Lindi. I will never forget that only a few thousand whites helped contribute to South Africa’s freedom. The other millions bask in the sunshine of our losses and protection and live off those privileges that were made possible for them by apartheid. They never form their lips to express any gratitude for the good life they enjoy today, still at the expense of the impoverished masses. Damn them!

  19

  JABU TOOK DELIWE to New York to be reunited with her parents. I hated to see her go. Johny Stirling, my European music publisher and fellow trumpeter, with whom I had become very good friends, arranged some advance money from Warner Brothers Music to help me settle in England. With assistance from Francis Fuster, who was now our percussionist and had acquired several properties since immigrating to England, we moved Kalahari into one of his homes in the suburb of Manor House. Mbongeni and I finally found time to work on our idea for a theatrical musical. He came to visit me for a fortnight, during which time we developed the idea for Sarafina. Mbongeni took some unreleased Kalahari recordings we had done at the Botswana mobile studio back with him to South Africa; one of those songs was “Sarafina,” around which the musical was built. He put together a group of youths with singer/composer Tu Nokwe, and began to workshop the musical in Durban. Sarafina was a dramatization of the political coming of age of a high school girl and her schoolmates. They are at the forefront of the student protests in the bloody confrontation with government troops during the 1976 uprisings in Soweto.

  With the Kalahari band, we got a booking agent through Johny Stirling and began to get steady work around the United Kingdom and Europe. Johny and Stewart were not comfortable with Clive Calder’s trying to influence me into concentrating more on rhythm and blues. They advised me against that direction, and I eventually terminated my contract with Jive Records. Johny Stirling was able to secure a deal for me with Warner Brothers Records, and we began recording our first album for the company.

  The standout song on our Warner Brothers album Tomorrow was the Mandela song that came to me when I received his birthday card. “Bring Him Back Home” went on to become a regular anthem during his travels after his release from prison, and remains the finale in all of my performances outside South Africa, where the audiences jump up to dance in joyous celebration as soon as the song begins; it is a testimony to the man’s popularity abroad. Ironically, the song doesn’t cause the same amount of excitement at home, probably because of differing political allegiances.

  In the spring of 1986, Dennis Armstead ran into Paul Simon in London. He had just returned from recording his Graceland album in South Africa—by the end of that year, the album had sold millions. Dennis arranged a meeting for us at Paul’s Savoy Hotel suite. Paul and I hadn’t seen each other since the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. We discussed the possibility of a tour with South African artists. I suggested he bring the basic rhythm section from his album, Ray Phiri on guitar, bassist Bakithi Khumalo, and drummer Isaac Mtshali, along with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and select the rest of the musicians from my band and from among other South African musicians living in England and the States. I also urged him to invite Miriam Makeba on the tour with her three South African backup singers.

  In the summer of 1986, Caiphus Semenya approached me to participate as a band member in a theatrical production he was putting together based on the idea of how it would be in South Africa when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. The rehearsals and premiere would take place in Harare. Since I was persona non grata in Zimbabwe, Caiphus had to arrange for special permission for me to enter the country. I flew down to Harare in November and joined the huge cast of South Africans. The show featured Letta Mbulu and Dorothy Masuka, among others. In the orchestra were saxophonists Barney Rachabane and Duke Makasi, with whom I had worked very extensively when I first came to Botswana. Tony Cedras was the keyboard player. After a month’s rehearsals, we opened at Harare’s Playhouse Theatre to a week of overwhelmingly enthusiastic audiences. Barbara was down from Lusaka to represent the African National Congress, which had helped to raise funds for the production. At this time she was heading the organization’s cultural department. The highlight of my Zimbabwe visit was that we were able to arrange for my father to come over from South Africa. He stayed at my friend Job Kadengu’s home. It was a great reunion for him and Barbara. They had not seen each other in twenty-four years. We had a glorious time with my father, showing him off to everyone and posing for photographs together. It was amazing just how many people knew him from what their parents had told them about the times they worked as migrant laborers at City Deep Gold Mines and how Thomas Masekela helped them in one circumstance or the other. This was very heartwarming. Thomas and Job Kadengu became the greatest of friends.

  At the end of December I returned to London and was pleasantly surprised to find that guitarist John Selolwane, saxophonist Barney Rachabane, pianist Tony Cedras, percussionists Francis Fuster and Okyerema Asante from Hedzoleh Soundz and OJAH, were all in the Graceland band. Miriam Makeba began rehearsals during a very difficult time in her life. Apart from having gone through a divorce from Stokely Carmichael (who had changed his name to Kwame Toure), her only child, Bongi, who I had helped raise, had recently lost her life during childbirth in Guinea. As I thought about all the wonderful times we had spent together, singing her grandmother’s songs, riding in the bus to Downtown Communit
y School, braiding her hair, and learning her beautiful song compositions, so many sweet memories of her flashed through my mind. It pains me to think of her early death. For Miriam, it was one of her life’s most heartbreaking tragedies. But Miriam was the pillar of strength she’s always been. She held herself together admirably, and demonstrated her resilience by giving the rehearsals her all and singing more beautifully than I’d ever heard her sing before. She was pulling the performances from the very depths of her soul when she belted out “Soweto Blues,” a requiem for the lives that were lost by so many young people during the 1976 uprisings, and “Patha, Patha,” which always got the house on its feet, whooping, dancing, and singing along. Miriam Makeba is a performer’s performer when she hits her stride.

  We rehearsed for six weeks in London at the beginning of 1987. Excited by the upcoming Graceland tour, Warner Brothers, to whom Paul Simon was also signed, figured that if we could get “Bring Him Back Home” on the British top-ten charts, we would be able to break into the U.S. markets with a high entry onto that country’s charts. The American record industry took a lot of its cues from what was popular in England during this period. We were scheduled to appear on the Tube music show on BBC television, a very influential program that catapulted many new releases to the top. The record company’s public relations people called my manager, Dennis Armstead, who was vacationing in the Caribbean with his fiancée. They wanted to discuss the arrangements with him, but claim he abruptly told them, “My artist does not do television.” Warner Brothers dropped all plans to promote Tomorrow. I confronted Dennis. He denied making the comment. The damage had been done. Warner dropped me from their label. I bade farewell to Dennis Armstead as my manager. It was a very bad end to a potentially great relationship. I have not spoken to him since and probably never will.