MUSICIAN Oliver Mtukudzi, aka Tuku, says he is where he is today because of his wife Daisy whom he says budgets time for him.
“She makes sure I am happy; she makes sure I am well-fed and she takes care of me. I don’t think without her, I would be what I am today.
“I would be something else but because she is behind me and takes care of me, she is the person who makes me come up with a good new song because I would be happy and prepared to write a song.”
In an exclusive interview with the Weekend Post at his Norton base, Tuku said he does not believe he is a superstar.
“I am the same Oliver Mtukudzi who didn’t have a song, the Oliver Mtukudzi that has had a song and the same Oliver Mtukudzi who is yet to have another song.
“Being super about it, I don’t see it. I am just the same person. And all these 40 years that I have been a musician, it is the people who kept me going. The key to this musical journey has been God,” said Tuku.
The singer said for as long as there are people, there is a reason for a song.
“The purpose of a song is to give life and hope to the people; to heal the broken hearts and so on. So I aim to have a song that serves that purpose.”
Tuku said he started singing at birth, adding that his mother told him that his cry was so sweet.
“According to my mother, my birth cry was the best song ever to come out of me. It was so sweet that she wished I cried more because she had just given birth to her first child and she couldn’t believe that the cry was from her baby.
“She used to say when you come up with a new song, you will never surpass your birth cry because it was the best ever song to come out of you.
“So I truly believe I had already started then — right from birth. Forty years is just from when I started recording but I was doing music far way back before that.”
And he sees no evolution to his art since that birth cry and to when he started recording.
“I don’t see an evolution at all; I just come up with a new song. That’s all it is. I don’t see an evolution because I don’t know how to write an evolution; I just come up with a song.
“Like today, I have been rehearsing a new song that I was giving the band but it has nothing to do with the songs that came out before.” The message of sorrow seems to be found in some of his songs.
“Well, sorrow is part of life. You wouldn’t live a life of happiness without sorrow and you wouldn’t live a life of sorrow without happiness. You can’t separate the two because that’s what is called life.”
Tuku said while his musical journey was a hard road to travel and still is; the common thread in his music has been his voice.
“Music, especially my music, is about life whether you fight or don’t fight or whether you fall in love or don’t fall in love.
“I talk about life — things that give life and hope to people. Things that heal the broken hearts.
“So there is no change from what I sang in 1975 and from what I am still singing now. The umbrella that covers what I’m talking about covers self-discipline.”
A book released in 2014 reveals that Daisy was not happy with Tuku over infidelity and she wanted to shoot him.
She revealed further interesting details about Tuku and their marriage when she said: “But Tuku hides too many things in his heart and I am sure that makes him sick. He thinks by keeping things to himself things will be okay . . . I wanted to shoot Tuku. I have a firearm. I don’t like people who twist me and lie to me. He drove me into a corner . . . Yes, things can be sorted out after the fracas, but then you will know.”-WP
