Songstress Dorothy Masuku once said that music was like breathing for her.
age of 83 . She was an African musician of note, but also much more. I was once shown the script for a biopic purporting to tell the early story of the late singer. It was highly professional, but a shallow, deeply patriarchal thing in which Masuku’s pioneering work as a composer, her acute and precocious political consciousness and proud pan-Africanism were sidelined in favour of a narrative of affairs and flirtations. The sidelining continued.
Historical narratives of jazz in that era focus on the solidarity among male musicians. But when Masuku spoke of those days at a recent panel discussion, she revealed a different story. There were links and solidarities among women musicians, from her tuition in Yiddish lyrics with actress to the protection from male predation that she, as one of the youngest performers, was given by the older women on those tours.
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