DO MUSICIANS DIE YOUNG?

DO MUSICIANS DIE YOUNG?

In musical discourses, it isn't strange to hear discussants say musicians die young. This can be attributed to the norm, that death isn't welcome at age, and kith and kin of the bereaved will also watch despair even if the deceased is a centenarian. There is no appropriate time for death as man will always wish to live longer, possibly because of the uncertainty about the eventuality of man, after death. 

The pertinent question here is, do musicians die young as alleged? Let's have a musical safari around Africa to either confirm or debunk the myth. 

From down South, we choose two three superstars representing three genres, reggae, jazz, and Afrop/Kwaito.

These are the late Lucky Dube, Hugh Masekela, and Miriam Makeba. The anti-apartheid activist Miriam Makeba was born in 1932 and died in 2008. She was aged 76. Lucky Dube's life was cut short by trigger-happy robbers in 2007.

The reggae superstar was born in 1964. This means he died at age 43. Jazz maestro Hugh Masekela died aged 79 in 2018. 

A swift shift up to Central Africa in DRC, we examine three of the country's most successful sons. Franco, the Grand Maitre of OKJ, was born in Sona Bata, 60 km west of Kinshasa in 1938, and died in Brussels in 1989, aged 51. 

Tabuley Pascal Rocherreau was born in 1940 and died in  2013, aged 73. Verckys Kiamuangana legendary sax, st who also founded Veve, died in 2022, aged 78. 

Fela Kuti, Chief Osita Osabede, and Teddy Osei of Osibisa will provide us with a Nigerian perspective of the debate. Osei is alive at 86. The sax wizard was born in 1989. Let's assume he will live to be 100. Chief Osita, the highlife king, died in 2007, aged 71. Fela Kuti was born in 1938 and died in 1997. That was a life of 59 years.

Closer home in Tanzania, it isn't known exactly when the tobacco-loving Miss Fatuma Binti Baraka, aka Bi Kidude, the country's music icon was born. Estimates put it at 1910. The taarab guru who escaped marriage aged 13 had on for long before her death recognized as the oldest performing musician in the world. She guzzled her booze as well and attributed her long life to being single. She died in 2013, aged 103.

East Africa's most successful musician, Mbaraka Mwinishehe, the flute player turned guitar wizard nicknamed soloist national, was born in 1944 and died in an automobile accident in Kigonya Mombasa Kenya, aged only 35. Salam Abdalla of Cuban Marimba was born in 1928 and died in a road accident in 1965, aged 37.

We wind this safari in Kenya. We look at three of the country's best musicians. The king of Bangor, a local jazz genre, is alive and performing at 89. Let's hope he hits a century because he doesn't look like he can be leaving us any time now. He is from the coastal Kenya. The twisty god Daudi Kabaka, also known as "Mtoboa Siri", was bronze in 1939 and died in 2001, aged 62. Habel Kifoto of Maroon Commandos, the military ensemble was born and died in 2011 aged 62, a few years into retirement from the military. He was found dead in a hotel room.

This is a total of 1021 years for the 15 musicians. That's an average of 68, way above Kenya's average life expectancy, which stands at 62. If our sample accurately represents the continent's music, then it is inaccurate for anyone to state that musicians die young. They don't.

By Jarome Ogola

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