Devotion #10

Lucky Dube
August 3, 1964 – October 18, 2007

From Michael Wines of the New York Times:

“JOHANNESBURG, Oct. 19 — A team of gunmen shot and killed Lucky Dube, an international reggae star and one of the nation’s best-known musicians, apparently in a carjacking attempt late Thursday that underscored the continuing peril of violent crime here.”

Another week, another tragedy, and not just for South Africa – although that region has long been overwhelmed by senseless acts of brutality – but there is always tragedy somewhere. The question that people constantly seem to ask in rebuttal is, “When will it end?” It will never end. Violence and conflict are as old as Man. Man is violence and confliction, but life does go on. I just hope that the living learn to be more grateful for the lives they are blessed to have.

I first learned of Lucky Dube as a freshman at Iowa State University, of all places. There was a Trinidadian kid on the floor of my dorm named Remy, who used to run with this Tupac head from Atlanta named Prince and a Gangster Disciple from Chicago who was nicknamed “Shade.” They were quite the motley crew, but in their respective ways, represented a bit of home that I damn sure wasn’t going to find in central Iowa.

Remy would always chide me for not listening to “real” reggae, instead of the Bob Marley and Peter Tosh that informed much of my knowledge of the genre at the time. He swore up and down by Lucky Dube, whose music I often heard drifting through the halls, along with the scent of “chronic” marijuana that Remy’s roommate Prince had somehow gotten his hands on and was selling at the ridiculously low price of $30 for an eighth of an ounce. But reggae to me, then, was nothing more than music to party to. After all, it was college, and I was susceptible to engaging in recreational college activities. I have since grown out of such things, and my appreciation of reggae music has widened considerably. My connection to Dube, however, wouldn’t come through Remy’s insistence on the late superstar’s brilliance, but by way of Shade, with whom I shared some mutual friends back in Chicago.

We all ended up leaving Iowa State after that first year – I came back to home to attend Loyola University – but I would eventually see Shade two and a half years later at the funeral of a friend of mine from both high school and Loyola that he knew from elementary school, a young man who was murdered one night in the alley behind his home. As a gang member, Shade was no stranger to street violence, but this was my first experience dealing with the random loss of someone so close to me. I remember nearly breaking down into tears while watching a segment on the shooting during the WGN News and just asking myself, “Why?” But I wasn’t confused as to why he had to die. This was Chicago. What I couldn’t understand was how he could let something like that happen, as if the he was the one to blame. Even without all the details of what happened that night, knowing him as I did, I just knew that he wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. And this turned out to be the case. His assailants were merely looking for someone to rob when they came upon my friend and a friend of his sitting in a parked van. Following a struggle, one of the two was dead.

The young man who pulled the trigger was eventually arrested, and according to court records, found guilty of first degree murder and attempted armed robbery, and sentenced to a term of 40 years on the murder conviction and a consecutive 10-year term on the attempted armed robbery conviction. There have been arrests made in the Dube case, but the details of the killing are still being sorted out. Initial reports stated that the beloved singer was shot in what was a botched carjacking, a story that authorities are holding to despite allegations from those close to Dube that his murder was some sort of planned killing. While an assassination plot isn’t beyond reason, based on Dube’s longtime stance against substandard living conditions and oppression at the hands of the government in his native South Africa, it is more than likely that he was murdered strictly by chance. According to a CNN.com article, between April 2006 and March 2007, “more than 19,000 South Africans were murdered, more than 52,600 people were raped, and nearly 13,600 people were carjacked.” The Independent reports that in South Africa, a murder takes place every 24 seconds, so if Dube was indeed the victim of a random act, it would make the legend no different from the thousands of others who have battled for survival in the former apartheid nation and lost.

No matter the cause, there are millions of people mourning Dube’s death, just as I and many others did in mourning the lost of my friend. And in the case of robberies and carjackings and such that go awry, again, the common question is “Why?” Not so much why things happen – because crime is unfortunately a way of life in many, many places – but what happens at that instant that makes a person pull the trigger? It could be resistance, or panic, or the fear of a victim being able to positively identify their attacker. It is a decision that is often made in the span of a few seconds, yet carries with it a lifetime of consequences. Personally, I don’t fear death as much as I fear having my life taken away from me, and if it comes down to me, my money, my car, or my pride, it’s an easy choice to make. My friend was a fighter, just as Dube was a fighter, but I can’t help but wonder what could have happened differently so that they were able to live, love, and fight another day.

Music? Ok...

J Dilla – Track 18 – Beat Tape, Vol. 1 & 2 (self 2002)
Milk. – “Get Off My Log” jazzyfatwoody remix – Never Dated (American 1995)
The Phenoms – “Up and Die” – The Phenoms (self 2002)
Psalm One – “Things I Do” – EV Records Presents: Everything (EV 2006)
Soil & “Pimp” Sessions – “Dawn” – Pimpoint (Victor (Japan)/Brownswood 2007)