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Lucky Dube is a committed commentator/ agitator and yet… His favourite bands are Aerosmith, Toto and Bruce Hornsby. Not quite what would jump to mind. Trivia can be so revealing but so confusing somehow.

Lucky Dube’s latest gift to his fans worldwide is Respect — 12 tracks of heartfelt questioning and dealing with the big issues. We’re not all fans of songs about the Big Issues which give us lyrics like:
‘Giving false hope to the people
Giving false hope to the underprivileged
Do you really sleep at night? ‘

But it’s funny, you read Dube’s lyrics and you see a powerful snapshot of life on any street in any town — political corruption, custody battles, family rows, love. Some may say the reggae backbeat somehow overplays the meaning behind the words.

But there’s no denying the sheer force of the Lucky Dube sound — crucially his perfect voice against the backing vocals, the bank of horns, crisp rhythm section — it is just so, so slick.

Dube released his first reggae album in 1986 Rastas Never Die, which was banned by the censors in South Africa. He was breaking new ground as an African reggae artist, challenging his audience and even his record company, who had been marketing him as a straight-up Zulu mbaqanga musician which he had been up until then.

Within a year his 1987 album Slave was setting records for South African music by selling 500,000 copies and attracting international attention. And since then a steady stream of albums have been released including, rather bizarrely, a Rough Guide to Lucky Dube, it seems he’s got his very own niche that needs exploring, rather like Indian or Gypsy music.

The Lucky Dube style is unadulterated reggae but there are African ingredients added that give it a distinctive edge. The Mbaqanga sound that Dube was known for before reggae greets listeners in the intro to the opening track ‘Respect’, there’s some ferocious drumming in ‘Touch Your Dream’ and the backing vocals are pure southern African church. And yet the sounds of the 1980s in ‘Political Games’ and ‘Choose your Friends’ with synthesizers, roaring guitars and echoing vocals take you right back to Toto…..

Respect was released by Gallo Record Company (South Africa)