Its music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world and at peace with myself

The former president of South Africa late Nelson Mandela, from all indications was not ignorant of the vital role that music played in keeping his imprisonment and the sustained fight against the then apartheid government in South Africa on the world stage.From reggae singer legend Eddy Grant with Gimme Hope Jo’Anna to jazz great Hugh Masekela with Bring Him Back Home, and Nigeria’s Sunny Okosun’s “Fire in Soweto”, musicians composed and dedicated songs to Mandela and the anti-apartheid struggle.T he message was clear, “Free Nelson Mandela.”Exiled South African musicians like Hugh Masekela, Ladysmith Black Manbazo and the late Miriam Makeba popularly known as “Mama Africa” kept up pressure on the apartheid government through their music.Before the end of apartheid in 1994, one thing most songs dedicated to Mandela had in common is that they were almost banned by the then white minority government in South Africa.But despite the bans, songs often became powerful weapons in the fight against racial segregation. South Africa’s Clegg reportedly told Talk Radio 702 that activists copied and distributed Asimbonanga, which he wrote in 1986 at the height of the country’s state of emergency when protesters fought pitched battles with police and the army in the black townships.Bob Marley declared war against repressive regimes in Africa. His ‘War’ song, which happened to be an aftermath of a speech delivered by Ethiopian leader then, Haile Selassie to the UN conference in 1963, in New York, against racial inequality in Africa, was a direct attack against the apartheid government in South Africa, and the continued incarceration of Mandela as a prisoner of conscience. “Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited... And abandoned , everywhere is war..”, he sang.

Leisure

Its music and dancing that makes me at peace with the world and at peace with myself