And like anything when you start to notice a trend, so your peripheral thinking picks up on it even more...In London, Joe Sumner comes to mind – lead singer of fabulous rock band Fiction Plane and son of Sting! (Fiction Plane supported The Police on their world tour this year!)
And then of course, I turned my attention to South Africa to spot who are the famous offspring of musical geniuses – who most likely are both honoured and hindered by the connections of fame. So… ‘What’s in a name’, asks Juliet in classic Shakespearean tale Romeo and Juliet. Well, to those in the know of that particular name – quite a lot it would seem.
Here are a few SA ‘offspring artists’ I found…
Jesse Clegg… that one doesn’t take many guesses to get who his dad is…! But, one does wonder what style of music he has gone for. While talent and hard work clearly run in the family, Jess has grown up to know life on the road as his dad has been playing his whole life. We’re talking of course, world music artist Johnny Clegg! Jesse Clegg is not even 21 yet and has already released a debut album! ‘When I wake up’, made up of 11 songs, is an album of meaning and with a positive message, with Jesse’s first single ‘Today’ debuting at No.1 on the Highveld Homebrew Chart soon after the album was released on 1 Oct.
He’s got a great voice, is very listenable and seems serious about what he does. And nothing to do with being Johnny’s son. Jesse has songwriting under his belt, and with live performances and interviews he is at ease. And what a great name. Linked to fame or not. 'Jesse Clegg' just has a great ring to it!
Interesting fact: Apparently Johnny wrote the song ‘Cruel Crazy Beautiful World’ for his kids – and for this I reference another blog post worth reading for more about Johnny and Jesse.
Other famous SA musical offspring include the late Brenda Fassie’s son Bongani ‘Bongz’ Fassie who is part of the hip hop hotties in South Africa known as Jozi. They have just picked up the ‘best live act’ award from the MTV Africa Music Awards! Check out a video of what Jozi do best! (see – I promised Id look into some of the nominated bands from the MAMAs!)
(And one of SA's heavy rock sons, Seether, also won an award for 'best alternative'!)
And then, an upcoming event in London – where Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse’s daughter will be performing… Her name is Mpho Skeef and she has just released her debut album - 'To Spite My Face'. And I’ve been told that this lass is good! So that might be a good date to diarise – Sunday 7 Dec at Brixton Jamm – and DJ Mo Laudi will be spinning a deck or two, too!
Rock on rockstar offspring!
x
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