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Interviews Music

Johnny Clegg: great spirit, great heart

Elephants march in unison. Giraffes gallop across the plains. A hippo yawns. A lion sleeps. And intercut between the music video’s stock wildlife footage, a brighteyed and curly-haired young white man with an acoustic guitar performs traditional Zulu dances, shows off his stick-fighting skills and sings of his search for the spirit of the great heart.

“There’s a highway of stars across the heavens / The whispering song of the wind in the grass / There’s the rolling thunder across the savannah / A hope and dream at the edge of the sky / And your life is a story like the wind / Your life is a story like the wind.”

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Music

South African music: play it by ear

Music – not hooting minibus taxis or the drone of vuvuzelas – provides SA’s real soundtrack. In a country with more music genres than official languages, there’s certainly a playlist just for you. From BLK JKS to Miriam Makeba and TKZee to Lira, South African Music Awards judge Nils van der Linden offers his picks.