|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Musician, humanitarian, and entrepreneur Yvonne Chaka Chaka recently turned 60. The popular musician says she has no plans to stop singing and spreading love and goodwill.
Chaka Chaka has been at the forefront of South African popular music for almost four decades and is popular throughout Africa in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Gabon, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast. She still performs across the continent.
Born Ntombizodwa Moloko Machaka on March 18, Yvonne Chaka Chaka is proud of her Dobsonville, Soweto roots. To celebrate her milestone birthday, she teamed up with a national retail chain to spread the love, distributing 100 grocery hampers to Soweto residents. She plans to take the initiative to the country’s townships and Africa.
When interviewed at her home in Bryanston, Chaka Chaka kindly made her mom’s famous cheese and tomato toast, chatting over a meal and wonderful coffee.
She said she and her two sisters came from humble beginnings. They were the daughters of a domestic worker who had high hopes for her children. “My mother worked hard as a domestic worker. She used to say, ‘I want you girls to be better than me – empowered and doing things for yourself’.”
Growing up in the height of apartheid was not the end for her. “Growing up in Soweto, you think this is my boundary. You can never go anywhere. You are a non-entity in the system. You were born here; you live here and die here.” But not so, for Chaka Chaka.
As a young black girl, apartheid dictated that she becomes a teacher or nurse, as that “was open to us, but becoming a doctor was higher grade.” She recalls that she was fortunate to have teachers she admired at school.
“There was a teacher who was pretty and dressed up in skirts and jerseys. “I want to be like that. In 1976, I was 11 (at the time of the Soweto uprising against the use of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at schools), so my mother took me to Pretoria, where the protests were slightly less (hectic).”
At school, Mr Mahlangu taught her accounting class. “He would tell us what a cash book, ledger, and journal were. When I returned to Johannesburg, I wanted to study accounting to become an accountant, but my mother wanted me to become a lawyer.”
She went to the Department of Education, where she met a school inspector, as she needed to be placed at a new school. After telling him she wanted to become an accountant, he said, “That is wishful thinking. Your mother is a domestic worker, and your father is a gambler. This is not right. He broke my heart, dashing everything I aspired to be as an accountant.”
He should have said, “Your mother and father are not educated, so it is good that you want to follow a career. This was rubbing salt in a wound, and I was broken. He told me to do housecraft just like my mother.” Chaka Chaka matriculated from Letarie High School, where her housecraft teacher was strict but a mother to the whole school. We were lucky to have teachers who were parents, social workers, and all-arounders to us. I wish we could go back there.”
Her Afrikaans teacher “taught us to love the language as it is good to be good in someone’s language as they will respect you, even though we saw it as the language of the oppressor”.
For Chaka Chaka, while apartheid was bad, “it taught us to care for one another. We were a close-knit community. Parents were parents to every child. Our teachers wanted us to be better than they were.” The apartheid system tried to ensure that the black child was happy with the little they had. “The intention was to make us stagnant.”
In Dobsonville, there was a sense of community. “We didn’t see anything wrong with asking the neighbours for sugar or milk. We were there for each other, and I miss that.”
She acquired qualifications from Unisa and Trinity College while entering the music scene and earning the name “Princess of Africa.”
Chaka Chaka questions whether those in strategic positions are “brave enough to give others a seat at the table. Sometimes, we become so happy to be the only one in the boardroom. When you are in, take the lead and bring others with you. It’s okay to be the first but not the only one.”
“Look at (activists) Biko, Sobukwe, Mandela and Sisulu. They were great people. You cannot dictate to people what they should become. I believe in black power. You cannot put a good man down. There is a lot we can learn from those who came before us. We need to shape the future and give people a seat at the table.”
She is doing just that, having been an ambassador for UNICEF and groups such as the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB, and , the Roll Back Malaria initiative, and the vaccine alliance Gavi.
She laments that while colonisation was the worst sanction, Africa has natural resources to rise above poverty and challenges. “God decided to give us beautiful weather and resources. (But) A man will always be greedy.”
For Chaka Chaka, “We need African leaders who take the best interests of the people they lead to heart and not say it’s time to eat and they take and take.”
Critical of politicians, she says if they are sick, they won’t go to a public hospital or clinics, “as they do not believe in the system. They should be the first ones to go to the clinic. Neither do politicians send their children to public schools,” she adds.
What makes her angry about politicians is that the ones who scream the most get in even if they don’t understand policies. “In Ghana, if you are not a lawyer, you cannot become a politician, as you need to understand policies there.”
She sadly sees more young people pursuing self-gratification than serving fellow man. “I want my Maserati; I want my Porsche. Me, me, me. You don’t have to be a billionaire to do good. You can become wealthy and be an empty vessel.”
Concerned that many young people did not vote in South Africa’s elections last year, she said, “You have the right to your opinion, but ask yourself what change you want. Go out and make the change. You don’t want to see this country going back to apartheid.”
The popular musician is known for her humanitarian work and recently performed in Botswana. To celebrate her 60th birthday, Chaka Chaka is on a campaign to distribute 100 food parcels to underprivileged communities in each province through 2026.
“Sixty years, plus 40 years in the creative industry,” she smiles. “There are so many people who don’t have anything. People are not happy being poor. Nobody wants society to feel pity for them.”
As part of her celebration, she invited several legendary musicians to perform at a party she hosted on 5 April at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. It was a joyous celebration.
As part of her plan to spread the love, she approached Wendy Lucas-Bull, Chairperson of Shoprite Holdings, for 100 food parcels recently distributed to families in Dobsonville. She also intends to do this in countries like Swaziland and is looking for sponsors. “I am celebrating my birthday with a purpose,” she said, adding that she will die happy, as she managed to do what she wanted.
“You did not finish your fruit,” she admonished the writer, before concluding the interview with a hug, and pledging to support conversations towards a better country – and Africa.
