Mbongeni Ngema

After the 1950 Group Areas Act, Verulam was reclassified for Indians only, so black Africans were relocated, including the policeman's children, to kwaHlabisa, to live with their grandfather.

There Mbongeni and his siblings lived a rural life, getting up early to tend to the animals before school, which he attended until Standard Six.

He moved back to Verulam and then Durban to attend various high schools.

In Umlazi, he attended Vukuzakhe High School, but dropped out in his final year and started playing music in local bands.

He taught himself to play the guitar, inspired by his father.

Ngema moved to Johannesburg, initially working in a fertilizer factory.

There he played guitar backing for a workers' production, and was then asked to fill in for an actor who had fallen ill.

He joined Gibson Kente's theatre company as a singer and trainee actor, and was exposed to the work of Stanislavsky, Peter Brook ,and Jerzy Grotowski.

Mbongeni Ngema (10 May 1955 – 27 December 2023) was a South African playwright, lyricist, composer, director, choreographer, and theatre producer, best known for co-writing the 1981 play Woza Albert! and co-writing (with Hugh Masekela) the 1988 musical Sarafina!.

He was known for plays that reflected the spirit of black South Africans under apartheid, and won much praise for his work, but was also the subject of several controversies.

He died in a car accident on 27 December 2023.

Mbongeni Ngema was born on 10 May 1955 in Verulam, Natal (near Durban), the third of seven children of Gladys Hadebe and Zwelikhethabantu Ngema.

Zwelikhethabantu was a policeman who had been born in the village of eNhlwathi, in kwaHlabisa, outside Mtubatuba, and was stationed at Verulam.

This was a predominantly Indian area, but there were many Black residents too.

He acted in local productions in the 1970s.

He later became a playwright, screenwriter, and librettist.

He became well known in the 1980s after co-writing the comedy/drama Woza Albert! with fellow actor Percy Mtwa (1981; toured the U.S. 1984) and the multi-award-winning musical Sarafina! (premiered 1988).

He wrote about and was known for his representation of the spirit of Black South Africans under the apartheid regime.

After founding his own theatre company, Committed Artists, Ngema trained young men who had no experience in acting.

He wrote and in 1983 directed a production of the prison musical Asinamali, which, soon after its first performance in South Africa was raided by police and actors arrested.

The story is based on a famous rent strike in a Durban township, and toured to New York City, premiering at the Roger Furman Theatre and being nominated for a Tony Award.

The musical has been mounted around the world in various places, including Australia with an upcoming 2024 production in South Africa at the National Arts Festival.

Sarafina! (1988), set in the Soweto uprising of 1976, was nominated for five Tony Awards, and was later also nominated for the Grammy Awards.

The musical won 11 NAACP Image Awards, enjoyed a two-year run on Broadway, toured the US, Europe, Australia, and Japan, and was later adapted into a feature film starring Whoopi Goldberg, Leleti Khumalo, and Miriam Makeba.

Township Fever (1990), about a major workers' strike, was very successful, and was produced in the U.S. after a production at the Market Theatre.

In the same year, Ngema co-wrote (with Duma ka Ndlovu) and directed his first American work, Sheila's Day, staged by African American theatre company Crossroads Theatre.

Ngema was one of the vocal arrangers for the Disney film The Lion King (1994), for which he earned a multi-platinum award for sales in excess of 6 million copies.

Also in 1994, he co-wrote the song "African Solution" with Mfiliseni Magubane for the National Peace Committee, with all proceeds going to the committee to assist families affected by violence.

The song was awarded gold and platinum discs.

Mama (1995) was a musical about Soweto gangsters.

It was produced by The Playhouse Company and toured Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

In the same year, Ngema presented The Best of Mbongeni Ngema at The Playhouse, and a CD and video of the performance was released.

In 1995, Ngema created Sarafina II, a musical addressing the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, which debuted in early 1996.

In 1997, Ngema was both composer and producer of his solo album Woza My Fohloza, which he showcased on a tour of South Africa.

He wrote and composed Maria–Maria, and choreographed and directed a production which premiered at Wiesbaden in 1997 and then toured Germany and Austria before opening at The Playhouse.

Also in 1997, Ngema was appointed a visiting lecturer at the University of Zululand to teach his unique technique and subsequently produced the first CD released by the university's music department.

In 1998, Ngema was inducted into the New York "Walk of Fame" in front of the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Manhattan, New York City, as one of the revered writers of the 21st century.

The City of Durban commissioned Ngema to compose a song to celebrate the new millennium (2000).

In 2001 during the African Renaissance festival, his name was engraved on the entrance of the City Hall in Durban alongside those of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Miriam Makeba, and other heroes of the liberation struggle.

A film of the musical was released in 2017, co-written, directed by Ngema, in which he starred as Comrade Washington.