THE late Lucky Dube’s backing vocalists are using music to stay relevant in the industry.
Made up of Tonique Phala, Gabisile Mdluli and Thandi Radebe, the group calls themselves Togata.
After years of being silent, they’ve released their debut song called Peace.
Gabi described it as a prayer song. “Our country and families have experienced a lot of tragedies.
“There’s been too many deaths, sicknesses and disasters amongst other things. With this song we are appealing to God to intervene and bring us peace.”
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Jah Seed from Bongo Maffin collaborated with them on the reggae song. “We’re bringing a young and old generation audience to an upbeat, new reggae vibe,” said Gabi.
It was produced by the icon’s lead guitarist, Skipper Shabalala and will be released next month. Gabi said this was to remind people of original Mzansi reggae sounds. She also told Daily Sun: “After Lucky’s death we lost a lot of money because promoters refused to take us seriously. We’ve been struggling. We’ve been told we have nothing to offer since Lucky was gone. We tried other music projects but we got rejected.
“We’ve managed to keep our name relevant in Australia, Brazil, Malawi, Zambia and Amsterdam in Holland. South African reggae has millions of global followers yet isn’t taken seriously at home.”
