This year is epoch-making in Dr Nokuthula Mazibuko Msimang’s writing career. In a few weeks, the academic and award-winning author will be submitting her seminal work on the life of legendary actress, singer and songwriter Dolly Rathebe.Triple celebration for Dolly Rathebe’s biographer Mazibuko Msimang
She is also marking the 20th anniversary of her debut novella for teens In the Fast Lane.
Mazibuko Msimang, who turns 50 this year, has spent the past 16 months solely focused on researching and documenting the life of South Africa’s first black film star Rathebe as part of her two-year fellowship at the University of Pretoria’s Future Africa Institute. Her book will be published by Xarra Books.
Describing Rathebe – who was born in Randfontein, west of Joburg – as Africa’s first superstar and mega diva – Mazibuko Msimang says her contribution to music, songwriting and composition, film and entertainment is understated, understudied, underdocumented and undervalued.
She says Rathebe, who died of a stroke in 2004 aged 76, composed many of what Hugh Masekela has called the “great South African songbook”.
“Her artistry is so huge and spans various decades from late 40s right through to the early 2000s,” she says. “Her influence is just as wide”, greatly influencing the lives of her contemporaries such as Mariam Makeba to Mara Louw to the new generation of blues and jazz musicians such as Gloria Bosman.
“She was acting and performing right up until the early 2000s,” she says. “I felt compelled to honour her as an artistic ancestor. She paved the way for all those divas of music such as Makeba, Letta Mbulu and Dorothy Masuka.
“It is a dream come true for any writer to be afforded the space, time and resources to write,” she says of her two-year fellowship at Tukkies, which started in August last year and will end this year.
Inspired by Can Themba’s biography, written by Siphiwo Mahala and buoyed by a paper on The Mega Divas of Sophiatown, which she presented at a symposium held by the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study to celebrate 70 years of Drum Magazine – Mazibuko Msimang said she realised she had only just scratched the surface of Rathebe’s contribution in changing the face of music, art, culture and politics.
Calling it a labour of love, which she says she will be relieved when she hands it over to the publishers for review at the end of January, and she says it is just the first of many projects she is planning to give Rathebe in her rightful place in history.
She is also planning a biopic and documentary.
It also helps that as a daughter of freedom fighter and teacher at Morris Isaacson High Fanyana Mazibuko, she was exposed to the history, music and personalities that have shaped South Africa. She also has her own recollections of the likes of Makeba and Mbulu, who were her parents’ friends.
“Mam’ Dolly’s daughter Ntsiki [Duru] and her grandson Tshepo [Duru] have been very supportive. I see a little bit of her through talking to Ntsiki. Tshepo likes clothes just like his grandmother; he used to choose a lot of her clothes for her performances,” she says.
Mazibuko Msimang, who holds a PhD in African Literature from Wits University, is also celebrating the 20th anniversary of her first novella for teens In the Fast Lane, which was published by New Africa Books.
She has written five more books for young readers; A Mozambican Summer (2005), Spring Offensive (2006), Love Songs for Nheti (2006); Freedom Song (2008); and Qhawe! Mokgadi Caster Semenya (2021).
Her debut novel, Daughters of Nandi, a historical fiction released in 2021 and inspired by Zulu queen Nandi, which is set over a 200-year period, made the Brittle Papers 100 Notable African Books of 2022 list published at the end of November.
She was awarded the Chairperson’s Award at the 2022 South African Literature Awards on 7 November last in recognition of her body of work over the past 30 years, sharing the award with poet Lebo Mashile.
Last year Mazibuko Msimang launched her autobiographical book for children, Soweto Tea Party, which is based on her own experiences about a time when her father was placed under house arrest by the apartheid state during the 1970s and 1980s on June 16.
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