Johnny Clegg was born in England in the 1950s, but his family soon moved to Africa where he grew up first in Zimbabwe and Zambia, and later in South Africa. A chance encounter with a Zulu street guitarist led him to Zulu culture. He became so caught up in the culture and it's music that he was eventually made an adopted son of a Zulu chief.
In the early 1970s Clegg teamed up with Sipho Mchunu and as Juluka they made history as they bucked the strict apartheid government by becoming the first mixed-race band to play together on stage. Juluka's sound melded the predominant Zulu sound with the Celtic callings from Clegg's origins. Their song "Scatterling of Africa" was released as a single and had some worldwide limited success. After repeated concert shutdowns, and threats because the band angered the then apartheid government, Mchunu retreated to his farm in 1986 and Clegg went on to form a more westernized pop sound with the group Savuka.
In the mid-1990s Clegg and Juluka reformed, with original member Sipho Mchunu, and they toured the world on a bill with King Sunny Ade.
Savuka is the name of the highly popular multi-racial Zulu dance group formed by Johnny Clegg after the demise of Juluka. With their incredibly infectious dance music, Savuka have become well known and loved the world over.
