We MaDlamini, uph’umqombothi?

Closing in on four decades as a high-flying musician, Yvonne Chaka Chaka is rightfully regarded as the elder stateswoman of entertainment in South Africa.

Since blasting onto the scene with I’m in Love With a DJ in the mid-1980s, Chaka Chaka has cemented her place in showbiz. If it wasn’t her melodious voice crooning bubblegum hits it was her perfectly chiselled face topped with a healthy Afro and her infectious smile that drew music fans to her.   

Long before “going viral” become en vogue, she had a runaway hit with Umqombothi, which took her across Africa and the world in an instant — she was a bona-fide diva, the Princess of Africa.  

Thinking of the wonders of years gone-by, I meet Chaka Chaka in her home office in a Joburg suburb from where her radio station, WOMan Radio, broadcasts. Her eyes light up when we talk about Umqombothi. “In a different world, Umqombothi should have been recorded as an afterthought, put at the end of the Thank You Mr DJ album and forgotten about. The intention was not for it to blow up, but it just happened.  

“It was remixed in London in 1988,” she reflects. “During those times, there was little expectation of getting known worldwide, only in your country, because that’s where we performed. I have no idea how it reached the world. Things were different in apartheid South Africa, but still the song blew up in a major way.”  

Soon, doors opened and Gallo Music artists Chaka Chaka, Lucky Dube, Johnny Clegg, and Ray Phiri toured Paris. She remembers it as an amazing experience that met with a surprising reception.

Chaka Chaka’s Africa invasion began in earnest when she performed in Kenya — at the invitation of then president Daniel arap Moi — in front of 100 000 people crammed into a stadium. “The experience was overwhelming,” she says. Bigger things were to come in 1989, when she was chosen to star in a Pepsi Cola ad with the tagline Choice of a New Generation, sharing the bill with Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and Robert Palmer. She had to travel to Nigeria to shoot the campaign and was stunned to find that everybody knew who she was.   

“I wore torn denims and I remember how upset Nigerians were, they found it inappropriate and unserious. People showed up dressed up in tuxedos. But they were amazing in the end as I performed with [Nigerian musician] Femi Kuti in Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Igu state. I travelled with my son Mfumu, who was small then, and stayed at the Sheraton Hotel. What was fascinating is that we had to fly to London first and catch a connecting flight to Lagos; there was no direct travel like today,” she says.       

With an arsenal of riotous hot singles, including I’m In Love With a DJ, Thank You Mr DJ, and I’m Burning Up, her African itinerary was filled up with dates in Uganda, Tanzania, and other East African countries, as well as Swaziland, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, and Botswana, where they would fill up stadiums with musicians like William Mthethwa and Dan Tshanda in Francistown and Selebi-Phikwe. “The first time I got on an aircraft was to Zimbabwe in 1987. I was quite the nervous flyer who squirmed in her seat. Landing in Harare, I’d never seen a beautiful place like that. I stayed at Meikles, which has remained my favourite hotel after all these years.” 

Her love for and loyalty to the continent of her birth deepened the more she explored. “I wanted to know Africa. This is my home. I was not going to be an American any day soon. My continent meant a lot to me. In 1987 I was offered a music contract in Paris and I didn’t take it. I would have been 21, alone in a foreign city. Music was the only job I’d ever known, so I chose to stay at home and continued performing in countries such as Benin, Sierra Leone, and Burundi. I went to Rwanda in 1994, just after the genocide — seeing the remnants of war, the skulls and clothing in the sand, was a terrifying and sorry sight,” she says.    

Chaka Chaka’s fame also took her to the US, where she met Jonathan Butler in Washington DC when he was performing with Whitney Houston. Years later, as part of the Roll Back Malaria initiative, she was invited to the White House and met President George W Bush, who kept asking her if she was from Jamaica because she had dreadlocks. “I eventually told him that my president was Thabo Mbeki, whom he’d met earlier — I hope he finally made the connection. Laura, the first lady, was very nice,” she says. Other destinations around the world included Australia, Canada, and Japan as a UN Goodwill Ambassador.   

Chaka Chaka remembers the era with fondness. Every profession in entertainment, from journalists to performers and radio jocks, worked together, because the cake was big enough for everybody. “These days, kids can promote themselves on social media. For us it was not easy. I still don’t know how I performed in all those countries, but music flies, music is in the air,” she observes.  

Reflecting on how the industry has changed, Chaka Chaka says collaborations used to be rare. But when it comes to fashion, Africans have always had it, starting with goddesses such as Miriam Makeba in maphondo and the Afros worn by Abigail Kubheka and fashionistas Dolly Rathebe and Dorothy Masuka.  

 It was also the 1980s, a time of colour-blocking, big hair, and shoulder pads. “I wore purples and yellows. I dyed my hair red — go watch the video of I’m Burning Up — we had our fun. Music evolves and today, seeing South Africans winning Grammys, like Nomcebo [Zikode], is something we didn’t expect. Miriam Makeba was the last one to win a Grammy in the 1960s. What has remained consistent is the quality of South African music. It has always been distinct, thanks to the likes of Joseph Makwela, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, Caiphus Semenya, and Jonas Gwangwa, and now amapiano taking over the world.”   

It's little wonder that Chaka Chaka has transcended her role as music diva to straddle the worlds of academia, diplomacy, and philanthropy. Her influence and power were recognised and harnessed early on. These days she shuttles between meetings with heads of state, first ladies, ambassadors, and ministers, fielding calls asking for her intervention in peace processes. As a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador she speaks on international podiums from New York to Kyoto, and she holds three honorary PhD degrees — from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Rhodes University and Tshwane University of Technology. And Chaka Chaka is not close to resting yet. She will soon graduate from Henley Business School South Africa with a post-graduate diploma in Systemic Management Practice and is toying with the idea of pursuing an MBA.