Yvonne Chaka Chaka: She's still burning up at 60

Mail & Guardian

08-05-2025

From me to you: Celebrated South African singer and songwriter Yvonne Chaka Chaka is also known for her work for organisations that raise awareness and money for humanitarian causes.
Yvonne Chaka Chaka has a beautiful lust for life. The evergreen musician, humanitarian and entrepreneur recently turned 60. However, she has no plans to stop singing and is equally determined to continue spreading love and goodwill through her music and charitable acts.
Chaka Chaka has been at the forefront of South African popular music for almost four decades and is popular throughout Africa: in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Gabon, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast. She still performs across the continent.
Her entrepreneurial ventures, music and humanitarian work have been significant parts of her career.
Born Ntombizodwa Moloko Machaka on 18 March, she is proud of her Dobsonville roots.
To celebrate her milestone birthday, she not only held a concert with celebrated musical guests, she also teamed up with a national retail chain to spread the love.
She approached Wendy Lucas-Bull, chairperson of Shoprite Holdings, for 100 food parcels that were recently distributed to families in Dobsonville, Soweto, where she grew up.
She intends to spread this initiative to other townships around South Africa, as well as to neighbouring countries such as eSwatini, and is looking for sponsors.
When I interviewed her at her home in Bryanston, Chaka Chaka kindly made me her mom Sophie's famous cheese and tomato toast. We chatted over a meal and wonderful coffee.
She said she and her sisters, Refiloe and Doreen, came from humble beginnings. Her mom had high hopes for her children.
'My mother worked hard as a domestic worker. She earned around R40 a month. She used to say, 'I want you girls to be better than me — empowered and doing things for yourself.''
Life was a challenge for the family. Her dad, Habakkuk, died when she was 11. But neither this nor growing up during the height of apartheid held her back.
'As children in Soweto, you think, 'This is my boundary.' You can never go anywhere. You are a non-entity in the system. You were born here; you live here and die here.'
But not so for Chaka Chaka. As a young black girl, apartheid dictated that she become a teacher or nurse, as that 'was open to us, but becoming a doctor was the higher grade'.
She was fortunate to have teachers she admired at school.
'There was a teacher who was pretty and dressed up in skirts and jerseys. I wanted to be like that.
'In 1976 — I was 11 at the time of the Soweto uprising against using Afrikaans as a medium of instruction at schools — so my mother took me to Pretoria, where the protests were slightly less hectic.'
At school, a Mr Mahlangu taught her accounting class.
'He would tell us what a cash book, ledger, and journal were. When I returned to Johannesburg, I wanted to study accounting to become an accountant, but my mother wanted me to become a lawyer.'
At one point, Chaka Chaka went to the department of education, where she met a school inspector, as she needed to be placed at a new school. After telling him she wanted to become an accountant, he said, 'That is wishful thinking. Your mother is a domestic worker and your father is a gambler. This is not right.'
'He broke my heart, dashing everything I aspired to be. He should have said, 'Your mother and father are not educated, so it is good that you want to follow a career.'
'This was rubbing salt in a wound and I was broken. He told me to do housecraft, just like my mother.'
Chaka Chaka matriculated from Letare High School in Soweto, where her housecraft teacher was strict but a mother to the whole school.
'We were lucky to have teachers who were parents, social workers and all-rounders to us. I wish we could go back there.'
Her Afrikaans teacher 'taught us to love the language as it is good to be good in someone's language as they will respect you, even though we saw it as the language of the oppressor'.
For Chaka Chaka, while apartheid was not a good thing, 'it taught us to care for one another'.
'We were a close-knit community. Parents were parents to every child. Our teachers wanted us to be better than they were.'
The apartheid system aimed to ensure the black child was happy with the little they had: 'The intention was to make us stagnant.'
In Dobsonville, a strong sense of community prevailed. 'We didn't see anything wrong with asking the neighbours for sugar or milk.
'We were there for each other and I miss that,' she fondly recalls.
Chaka Chaka's journey is a testament to her determination and resilience. While entering the music scene and garnering hits I'm Burning Up, I'm in Love With a DJ and Umqombothi, among a host of others, she acquired qualifications from Unisa and Trinity College and earned the title 'Princess of Africa'.
Her achievements are a source of pride for her and her fans.
However, Chaka Chaka questions whether those in strategic positions are 'brave enough to give others a seat at the table'.
'Sometimes, we become so happy to be the only one in the boardroom. When you are in, take the lead and bring others with you. It's okay to be the first — but not the only one.'
'Look at [activists] Biko, Sobukwe, Mandela and Sisulu. They were great people. You cannot dictate to people what they should become.
'I believe in black power. You cannot put a good man down.
'There is a lot we can learn from those who came before us. We need to shape the future and give people a seat at the table.'
She is doing just that, having been an ambassador for the UN Children's Fund Unicef and groups such as the Global Fund, which fights Aids, TB and malaria; the Roll Back Malaria initiative and vaccine alliance Gavi.
Her work with these organisations has been instrumental in raising awareness and funds for various humanitarian causes.
She laments that while colonisation held it back, Africa has the means to rise above poverty and challenges but does not. 'God decided to give us beautiful weather and resources. [But] a man will always be greedy.'
For Chaka Chaka, 'We need African leaders who take the best interests of the people they lead to heart and not say, 'It's time to eat,' and they take and take.'
Critical of politicians, she says if they are sick, they don't go to public hospitals, as they do not believe in the system. 'Neither do politicians send their children to public schools,' she adds.
What makes her angry about politicians is that the ones who shout the loudest get in, even if they lack the relevant knowledge: 'In Ghana, if you are not a lawyer, you cannot become a politician, as you need to understand policies there.'
She sees more young people pursuing self-gratification than serving other people. 'I want my Maserati; I want my Porsche. Me, me, me. You don't have to be a billionaire to do good. You can become wealthy and be an empty vessel.'
Concerned that many young people did not vote in the general election last year, she said, 'You have the right to your opinion but ask yourself what change you want.
'Go out and make the change. You don't want to see this country going back to apartheid.'
'Sixty years — plus 40 years in the creative industry,' she smiles.
'There are so many people who don't have anything. People are not happy being poor. Nobody wants society to feel pity for them.'
As part of her 60th birthday celebrations, she invited several renowned musicians, among them Mercy Pakela, PJ Powers and Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse, to perform at a party she hosted on 5 April at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. It was a joyous celebration.
Referring to the 100 food parcel initiative in Soweto, she said: 'I am celebrating my milestone birthday with a purpose,' adding that she would die happy, as she had managed to do what she wanted.
'You did not finish your fruit,' she admonished me before concluding the interview with a hug and pledging to support democracy-building dialogues, around the theme of 'the future South Africa we want and deserve, towards a better country and Africa'.
Edwin Naidu is a communications professional in financial services who heads education start-up Higher Education Media.