Lucky Dube - You will be missed!
One of my favorite Reggae artists was gunned down in a senseless carjacking incident on Friday in Johannesberg, South Africa. I saw Lucky Dube first perform live in Reggae on The River when I was 15 years old. He was an amazing performer and his energy on the stage had me hooked to his style and his music ever since. His songs have a Caribbean soulful vibe and all his tracks make me feel like I'm on vacation in the islands. If you are interested in checking out Lucky Dube's music, click here to go to his Rhapsody Page. Here's one of lucky's latest videos.
Gosh I'm so bummed about this news!! Its crazy that he was just shot over his car, something so materialistic was more important to someone than a person's life. some people are insane... and to make matters worst, the entire incident took place in front of his son. My best goes out to lucky's family and friends. All we as his fans can do is support his music. Fortunately, Lucky's 22 albums will live on and his voice will be heard for an eternity.
The News Clip:
Link to Article
JOHANNESBURG: A team of gunmen shot and killed Lucky Dube, an international reggae star and one of South Africa's best-known musicians, in an apparent carjacking attempt late Thursday that underscored the continuing peril of violent crime here.
Dube, 43, what shot by three hijackers in Rosettenville, just south of downtown Johannesburg, as he dropped off his teenage son at his brother's house. Another child, a 16-year-old daughter, was in the car at the time, the police said.
The hijackers fled after Dube crashed his car into a tree. He died at the scene.
As the provincial police commissioner appointed seven veteran investigators to chase down the attackers, President Thabo Mbeki called on the nation "to confront this terrible scourge of crime, which has taken the lives of too many of our people, and does so every day."
The principal opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said that "the circumstances surrounding his murder again illustrate that violent crime in South Africa is out of control, and that the government's remedies to address this scourge have failed."
South Africans have reduced the murder rate by 41 percent since the nation became a democracy in 1994, experts say, but the pace of both murder and other violent crimes remains among the world's highest, and attacks on both ordinary citizens and high-profile figures, including politicians and the police, are a daily occurrence.
The government has committed to reduce so-called contact crimes, in which criminals confront their victims, by 7 percent annually. Figures for the last annual reporting period, which ended in March, showed declines in attempted murders, assaults, rape and in several other categories.
But murders rose to 19,200, a 3.5 percent increase, reversing a longstanding drift downward. Aggravated robberies, in which criminals assault as well as rob victims, leaped by nearly 6 percent, to more than 126,000. And carjackings of the sort that killed Dube rose 6 percent, to a level not seen in four years.
Those increases reflect a disturbing shift toward violence by certain kinds of criminals, said Johan Burger, a 36-year veteran of the South African Police Service who is an analyst for the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies.
"This is a change for the worse," he said. "A psychosis of fear is spreading, and this has dangerous, dangerous implications if it is not stopped. I'm not at all convinced that we're doing the right thing at the moment."
While politicians and the press were demanding more police to combat the rise in violent crime, he said, South Africa already exceeds international norms for the number of police needed for its population. To reduce the violence, he said, the nation needs to control illegal immigration, especially from war zones, which has fed a population of destitute aliens with military training and experience of violence.
He also said the nation needed to reduce the vast gap between the nation's wealthy class and a jobless underclass that has little hope of climbing out of poverty except by crime.
On Friday, Dube's Web site, www.luckydubemusic.com, said that his death "leaves a great void in the music industry as 25 years of music suddenly ends in tragedy."
Dube began as a singer of traditional African songs, but swept to international stardom in the 1980s when he began singing reggae. He recorded 22 albums during his career.
He is survived by a wife and seven children.
Gosh I'm so bummed about this news!! Its crazy that he was just shot over his car, something so materialistic was more important to someone than a person's life. some people are insane... and to make matters worst, the entire incident took place in front of his son. My best goes out to lucky's family and friends. All we as his fans can do is support his music. Fortunately, Lucky's 22 albums will live on and his voice will be heard for an eternity.
The News Clip:
Link to Article
JOHANNESBURG: A team of gunmen shot and killed Lucky Dube, an international reggae star and one of South Africa's best-known musicians, in an apparent carjacking attempt late Thursday that underscored the continuing peril of violent crime here.
Dube, 43, what shot by three hijackers in Rosettenville, just south of downtown Johannesburg, as he dropped off his teenage son at his brother's house. Another child, a 16-year-old daughter, was in the car at the time, the police said.
The hijackers fled after Dube crashed his car into a tree. He died at the scene.
As the provincial police commissioner appointed seven veteran investigators to chase down the attackers, President Thabo Mbeki called on the nation "to confront this terrible scourge of crime, which has taken the lives of too many of our people, and does so every day."
The principal opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said that "the circumstances surrounding his murder again illustrate that violent crime in South Africa is out of control, and that the government's remedies to address this scourge have failed."
South Africans have reduced the murder rate by 41 percent since the nation became a democracy in 1994, experts say, but the pace of both murder and other violent crimes remains among the world's highest, and attacks on both ordinary citizens and high-profile figures, including politicians and the police, are a daily occurrence.
The government has committed to reduce so-called contact crimes, in which criminals confront their victims, by 7 percent annually. Figures for the last annual reporting period, which ended in March, showed declines in attempted murders, assaults, rape and in several other categories.
But murders rose to 19,200, a 3.5 percent increase, reversing a longstanding drift downward. Aggravated robberies, in which criminals assault as well as rob victims, leaped by nearly 6 percent, to more than 126,000. And carjackings of the sort that killed Dube rose 6 percent, to a level not seen in four years.
Those increases reflect a disturbing shift toward violence by certain kinds of criminals, said Johan Burger, a 36-year veteran of the South African Police Service who is an analyst for the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies.
"This is a change for the worse," he said. "A psychosis of fear is spreading, and this has dangerous, dangerous implications if it is not stopped. I'm not at all convinced that we're doing the right thing at the moment."
While politicians and the press were demanding more police to combat the rise in violent crime, he said, South Africa already exceeds international norms for the number of police needed for its population. To reduce the violence, he said, the nation needs to control illegal immigration, especially from war zones, which has fed a population of destitute aliens with military training and experience of violence.
He also said the nation needed to reduce the vast gap between the nation's wealthy class and a jobless underclass that has little hope of climbing out of poverty except by crime.
On Friday, Dube's Web site, www.luckydubemusic.com, said that his death "leaves a great void in the music industry as 25 years of music suddenly ends in tragedy."
Dube began as a singer of traditional African songs, but swept to international stardom in the 1980s when he began singing reggae. He recorded 22 albums during his career.
He is survived by a wife and seven children.
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