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ROger Lucey: A Living Legend of Anti Apartheid music

Sara Lilia Soraya Rodriguez Hernandez | 15.09.2005 18:26 | Anti-racism | Culture | Social Struggles

This is about a musician, journalist, war corresponsal, filmmaker....and a hero for me, and their people too!! and her struggle against one of the most oppresive and racist government who has been exists...now the truth brights and the wounds are healing and i want you knows about him...

Hi..... I just want pressents to yours a very special artist in a very distant country who has to pay a big price by her ideals and fight against the racism.....Her name is Roger Lucey....He was a young, white boy with curl hair and a lot of ilusions in her soul....He discover her passion by the music at a very short age, and, when he was in the high school, he becames to make music, in a local band....you maybe think thats not a special thing.. a lot of teenagers has the same ilusion , and the same wishes of thriumph......

But he was a special one!!!

He haves all the necessary to be a winner....he had a powerful voice, composes and plays magniffically......he inniciates her musical life playing in several places and the people loves him.....

But he wasn't felt good.....He looks attemptly the painful reality in her country even the most of people closes her eyes and sings about the love, or the peace......He looks how the police threatens and destroy the willness and spirit and even took the lifes of the people who opposites them.............The entire scene was awful, and stanks, and he denies to be only quiet, with her arms crossed, like mostly of the people do!!!!

And he becames an angry kid with a powerful voice, raging against all the shit who accumulates and invades their country.....He makes a song by another, spitting at the face of the racist regime, David and Goliat in an inequal fight, he was alone and, despite that, he was been make tremble at the extremely racist and ferocius regimen of censorship and hard measures of her country goverment....." - there were the 3rd Ear / Nusas / Safma Free Peoples Concerts at Wits through which a few Folk singers & Jazz die-hards had the audacity, at the time, to take on the might of the State and the Mediocrity of the Record Industry with full frontal lyrics and licks - Roger Lucey - one of those... Long-hair, torn jeans, attitude... with loaded guitar, a head-full of ideas & a soul full of songs - a threat to the order, safety & security of the state?" (3rd Ear page)
He makes songs about Steven Biko, the young African black lider, who has been murdered during an interrogatory, and Lungile Tabalaza, a young of only twenty years, student of one Zulu school, who was taken away by the police, and "misteriously" falls five floors (he just drops by himself,-says the police-, and end off!!"),and nobody question it!!!! Nobody, except Roger.....

But he can't win for ever!!

Misteriously, the places in whom he presents became to suffer "accidents"....Tear gas flowing throughout the condiccionated air system, raids by the police, and subitly, witouth an explanation, they became to say Roger: "sorry, you cannot play here...." their air-free concerts was became ruined up, and her career just vanish off between her fingers..... The few music produceers who still try to contract him, recibes strange negative responses by the phone, and Roger never notticed it.....

He's becaming sad and finally abandons her country, going to live in London, her marriage broken, her life destroyed, her career, vanished, thinking he wasn't a good musician .....he try another way of life.....

A long time after, he knows the thrue......The secret service of her country has been commisionate a secret agent specially to ends her career!!!

That guy confess, 20 years after, the dirty tricks he was using to destroy Lucey....they don't want him dead, (if they kill them, he was became a marthyr and her voice becames more strenght and dangerous to the system...) They want her alive, but destroyed, silent, crushed, fallen....In this way, he becames a painful escarment to the people who want seek her..They also want her music not spreads over the country.....and became in the most hideous manner who is possible....They ban their albums, and to have one was punished with a generous amount of money and five years in the jail......

Silently, like poisonous snakes, they infiltrate Lucey's life, poisoning, destroying, mining, sneaking around subtly, but lethally.....

The secret service man, Paul Erasmus, listening the Lucey's music, becames one of their fans, and founds her job very difficult....He think's Roger it's a radical, but he makes good music.... He was removed of their mission and transladed becaus the authorities thinks he "was becoming softer...."

Twenty years after, the secret service man meets Roger in an attempt to reconciliate with him, Roger forgives him and, together, film a doumenthal called "Stop the music" who becames a part of the South African School Program to teach the childrens about racism, and apartheid, and censorship in the dark time......

Now, the truth has been triumphed.... Roger now is a journalist, freelancer war corresponsal, writer, and prestiged filmmaker....and a musician, too!!! he plays ocassionally in cultural events. He was in the conference of the Censorship of the music, of Freemuse organization....... And he had some fans, like me, ready to continue with the music again!!! They can't stop him, and now, in a renovated and free country, he can becames their dream real.......He pays the price of the truth and courage, he pays with blood and tears, and, like the Phoenix bird, he reborn from their ashes again and again....and became a legend among their people!!!!!

And between the people of another countries too........He's a fighter, a freedom warrior, and i am just a common girl, who wants everybody knows her history and the way he fought by her country.....David and Goliath....He has a fan in me who has been touched by her wonderful music, (who he still producing and making only by the pleasure of make it, composing and playing various instruments, beautiful and free like ever, like a clear water river......) I was searching in the net about Steven Biko, because i seen a movie who talks about South African Apartheid when i was a child and now i want to know who was he.....and i find her music!!! I wrote to her Internet website and he answer to me personally..he's a kind and down-to-earth person, seems to me who he does'nt even note the signnificative and value labour he makes for his country.............

Her Internet Site is:

www.rogerlucey.mweb.co.za

in that site you can enjoy a little bit of their songs......the most new ones...It's so beautiful!!!

Thank's for read it...my appologies about the grammar, the English is not my home language (the Spanish are) I expect you read it and know him.....

Sincerely:

Sara Rodriguez.

P.O: if you wish, i can send you a few pictures who i was collecting of the net......my e mail address is:  blacksilencebat@gmail.com

Sara Lilia Soraya Rodriguez Hernandez
- e-mail: blacksilencebat@gmail.com

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