Universal Men 1979
Track 2 - Universal Men
Johnny Clegg, Sipho Mchunu & Juluka
Universal Men is the debut album from Juluka, a South African band led by Johnny Clegg and Sipho Mchunu. It was first released in 1979 and has acquired the status of a classic album in the history of South African music.
The album explores the experiences of a Zulu migrant worker, caught between his traditional rural background and the city where he lives and works.
The album hit the streets in October 1979. The sleeve carried a picture of the two men, dressed in paisley waistcoats, beads and car-tyre sandals. The name of the band, Juluka, appeared as an engraving on a gold bar. Juluka means sweat in Zulu and the message couldn't have been clearer: Johannesburg's wealth and glamour is built not just on gold but also on the sweat of the men, the migrant labourers, who mined that gold.
Clegg explains that Universal Men "was about bridging two worlds. Going and coming. While the worker is on route, on a bus or a train, he is given the time to look over the distances, geographic and otherwise, in his life. Migrant labourers, in Africa, Europe, everywhere, are like universal joints. They are this incredible human resource who are just sucked up by the capitalist system and used anywhere. The system makes no concessions and so the workers have to create a whole new universe of meaning."
"There was so much hardness in the migrant life and yet I experienced incredibly human moments with my buddies", said Clegg. "They lived such a rich and full life with a highly developed sense of humour and understanding of human nature. For me there was something magical and mystical in this bleak life and I felt that I needed another language to capture it and to humanise the suffering."
The title track is the pivot on which the whole album turns. It pays respect to the workers: "From their hands leap the buildings\ From their shoulders bridges fall\ And they stand astride the mountains and they pull out all the gold\ The songs of their fathers raise strange cities to the sky."
