LISTEN: A tribute to Dorothy Masuka
Dorothy Masuka was truly an exception musician, an exceptional woman, and an icon of Pan-Africanism
Dorothy Masuka - Music icon, Pan-Africanist, struggle hero
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Dorothy Masuka, musician and Pan-African was born in Buluwayo, Zimbabwe in 1935.
Masuka moved to live with her aunt in South Africa in 1947, aged 12 and was enrolled at St Thomas Convent School in Johannesburg. There, she joined the school choir and her talent was immediately spotted. She signed for Troubador Records.
She wrote over 30 hit songs as a teenager. Despite this, she was never adequately compensated for her music with royalties, contracts, or a wage. Instead she was given clothes or a spending allowance from time to time.
Masuka was one of the top selling artists in South Africa in the 1950’s. Her songs conscientized her listening audience, and infuriated the apartheid government. Her song “Dr. Malan,” mentioning difficult laws, was banned. Another of her songs, “Lumumba” so vexed the apartheid regime that the Security Branch (the brutal secret police of the apartheid government) destroyed all the master recordings of these tracks. It is unknown whether any copies still exist today .
Her radical stance and her politics led her into exile as the repressive government of the day looked to repress influential artists and activists like Masuka. Her exile lasted for 31 years. During exile she worked as a flight attendant. Dorothy Masuka returned to to Zimbabwe in 1980 after independence, and returned to South Africa in 1992. She passed in Johannesburg on 23 February 2019, aged 83.
