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MARGARET SINGANA
The little girl is singing on a bandstand. And nobody pays any attention to her. That’s because we are in 1954. At 17, Margaret Singana is still 20 long years away from fame. But the girl from Queenstown does not give up. She gets her glowing voice on a record by 1962.
In 1964 she’s on Broadway, in Alan Paton’s Sponono. Back in South Africa she appears on stage in Sikalo and Ipi-Tombi, where her big number is Mama Tembu’s Wedding. It becomes the monster hit of 1973.
Margaret tours the world as Lady Africa. In 1977 she invents crossover music, with Hamba Bhekile on the flip side of I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Loved You). The disc sells 100 000 copies to black and white audiences.
Now it’s 1978, and Lady Africa is felled by a stroke on the stage of the Colosseum Theatre in Johannesburg. But she goes on singing from a wheelchair, at huge stadium concerts. She writes and sings the world hit We Are Growing for the 1986 TV epic Shaka Zulu.
Margaret Singana dies in 2000. But her recordings live on, and we can still feel the richness and power of Lady Africa’s voice.
* Buy the book for R90 at CNA, Exclusive Books, Spar, Makro or takealot.com
