South African star goes back to school at 60

ON Saturday nights, 60-year-old Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse is on stage, thrilling South African audiences with hits from his more than four decades in music.But on week nights, the massively popular music maker is in a classroom near his Soweto home, working to earn the high school certificate he abandoned in 1969 as his music career took off.In a country where the public education system is struggling and half of all students don’t always have a desk, Mabuse eschewed Johannesburg’s posh private schools or a personal tutor.Instead, he signed up for the government’s adult education classes, a move school officials heralded as a welcome endorsement of the beleaguered public system.“When I started becoming a musician, I was at a very impressionable age. Young, 15, 16,” he said.“Suddenly you make all this money, and you get invited to all the (graduation) dances and all the beautiful girls, you’re attracted by all those things, and you forget that you’re still a scholar. So I dropped out of high school.”His early talent for drums earned him the nickname Hotstix and his career took him across the world, performing with the likes of Percy Sledge and Paul Simon, who recorded parts of his landmark “Graceland” album in South Africa.Mabuse won his own popular success with songs pulling elements from township music with jazz, funk and disco. BBC

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South African star goes back to school at 60