Juluka

Juluka was a group of music of South Africa to the inspirations Zoulou S and British formed in 1979 by the British anthropologist of origin Johnny Clegg and the Zulu musician of street Sipho Mchunu. The group was dissolved in 1985, but reappeared some time in the Nineties. Juluka means sweat in Zulu.

Biography

Clegg and Mchunu met with Johannesbourg in 1979. A chemistry was not long in being formed between the two guitarists, who are well quickly reflected to amalgamate Western music and music traditional Zulu, which was still very rare at the time. But what dissociated them still more was the fact that Clegg was white and Mchunu, black, whereas the inter-racial groups were proscribed in South Africa of the Apartheid. That involved besides many disorders with the group. Clegg on several occasions was stopped and beaten by the police force because of the very political words sometimes of its songs. The members of the group had thus to keep a low profile, but that did not prevent them from being a success with the international level.

The group had to separate in 1985 when Mchunu decided to be withdrawn in the farm where it had grown in the Natal. Clegg as for him formed a new group which took the name of Savuka. In 1997, after the dissolution of this one, Clegg and Mchunu met for a last album.

Discography

1979 : Universal Men
1981 : African Litany
1982 : Ubuhle Bemvelo
1982 : Scatterlings
1983 : Work For All
1984 : International The Tracks
1984: Stand Your Ground
1984: Musa Ukugilandela
1986: The Good Hope Concert
1992: The Cologne Zulu Festival
1996: Scatterlings (US Version)
1997: Crocodile Coils/Ya Vuka Inkunzi

See too

Johnny Clegg, Solly Letwaba.

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