A year after the Soweto uprising, a Nigerian musician recorded a song about the fire still burning in South Africa. Pretoria banned it. In the townships, people played it anyway.
Sonny Okosuns released “Fire in Soweto” in 1977. The song was a direct attack on apartheid, the system of racial segregation in South Africa. It became a massive underground hit among black South Africans, despite the ban.
Soweto 1976
In June 1976, students in Soweto protested against the use of Afrikaans in their schools. Police opened fire, and hundreds of people were killed in the uprising and the crackdown that followed. The events shocked the world and made apartheid a central issue across Africa.
Nigeria, newly wealthy from oil, took a strong position against apartheid, and Nigerian musicians took up the cause.
Papa’s Land
Okosuns’s album Papa’s Land, also released in 1977, carried the same message. The title song spoke about Africans losing their land to colonial settlers. The album was very successful, and EMI sent Okosuns and his band to London, where he recorded his next two albums at Abbey Road Studios.
Ozzidi
Okosuns called his music Ozzidi, a name taken from a figure in Ijaw folklore. His sound mixed highlife, rock, reggae and Afro-pop, with electric guitars and strong choruses that made his political songs easy to sing.
Liberation songs
Beyond “Fire in Soweto”, Okosuns recorded songs supporting liberation movements in Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa. Those songs made him one of the best-known political musicians in Africa, and he performed them across the continent.
A change of direction
Later in his life, Okosuns became a born-again Christian and turned to gospel music. He was ordained as an evangelist and recorded gospel albums, though his earlier songs remained his most famous.
His death
Okosuns suffered from colon cancer. He died on 24 May 2008 at Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC.
The songs outlived apartheid
Apartheid ended in the early 1990s, and South Africa held its first democratic elections in 1994. The songs that fought it became history lessons. “Fire in Soweto” is still played in Nigeria and South Africa, a reminder that the struggle had a soundtrack recorded far from Johannesburg.
A government in Pretoria tried to keep a Nigerian record off South African radio. It could not keep it off South African cassette players.
