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Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
WHILE they had long mended fences before his death earlier this year, songbird Selmor Mtukudzi has said that she felt justified in saying that Oliver Mtukudzi did not support her career, a statement that reportedly led to a four-year cold war between the two.
The tiff soured relations between them, with Selmor’s mother, Melody Murape, claiming that the feud between father and daughter was only ended after her intervention.
“I had to intervene as a mother of his children because it was getting out of hand. It raged on for years, until I knocked some sense into Selmor’s head,” Murape told South Africa’s City Press.
In an interview with BBC Music Extra which aired a documentary on the late musician’s life and music a few days after his memorial concert, Selmor said she had felt justified at the time as she felt that he was not as supportive of her as he was of her other siblings.
“Yes, I felt I didn’t get as much support from him as my other siblings did. It’s unfortunate that it came out in the public. It wasn’t meant to. It was a conversation that I was having with someone in private and they took it to the public and so it did affect my relationship with my dad,” she said.
Selmor said it had been a struggle to get back into her father’s good graces after her views were splashed on newspapers pages across the country. However, they eventually broke their impasse when they became honest with each other.
“It took us a long time to try and rebuild that relationship, that trust and for him and I to understand each other. (It took time to understand) where he was coming from, where I was coming from and me understanding his situation and him understanding mine. I’m just so glad that we managed to have that talk and in the end we managed to say everything that we needed to say to each other and we were in a happy place by the time he went,” she said.
Despite the differences that they eventually resolved, Selmor said she shared some traits with her late father.
“My mum says I remind her of him sometimes because I’m very quiet. It’s hard for me to make friends because I can’t start up a conversation. I just love to sit and be quiet and just be myself with my thoughts. Maybe I got that from him,” she said.
According to Selmor, her childhood had been torrid as she found it hard to come to terms with her father’s fame.
“I think I was very young (when I realised he was famous) because there was a programme on Thursday that showed music videos, Mutinhimira Wemimanzi, so every Friday going to school was terrible for me because people would be singing that song and saying we saw your dad last night. They would be singing his songs and I hated it so much and I didn’t like the attention,” she said.
This was a view supported by her sister Sandra who also remembers the torrid days when fellow schoolchildren would not allow her to forget that she was the daughter of a famous musician. She said because of her father’s exploits, she was also forced to even take up music as teachers hoped that his musical genes were also embedded in her.
“I didn’t like it (the attention) either and people calling me Tuku. I remember being forced to be in the marimba band simply because my father was a musician. I didn’t want to play marimba but I was forced to do it. Even when he comes to school everyone runs to him so I don’t have time so yah, we knew he was different. He was not ours alone, he belonged to everybody,” she said.
Tuku’s fallout with some of his children might perhaps be explained by his mind state, with Sandra describing him as a deeply emotional man who was easily affected by what happened around him. This, Sandra said, was perhaps best reflected in his music.
“He was one person who was very emotional to the point that sometimes it would make me personally uncomfortable and be like, ‘dad come on, let’s just relax.’ You can tell even by his songs he was a very emotional person, very emotional.
“He had a lot of love. Each time he sees you he would make sure he tells you he loves you. Sometimes you could see a bit of tears in his eyes. He was just that type of person who expressed himself so much. At the same time he was very quiet, extremely quiet. But because we knew him we knew he would be thinking of big things,” she said.
Before the contents of his will were revealed, it seemed that the Mtukudzi family was spiralling down the familiar road of feuds and catfights that characterise many families after the death of a patriarch. It was perhaps ironic that Sandra chose Pfuma Yenhaka Inoparadza Hukama as her favourite song from her father’s vast catalogue.
“It’s a very touching song for me. It talks about how relationships can actually break up because of the deceased’s wealth. Inheritance issues where relatives want to come and take what doesn’t belong to them so he sang a song about that. It’s a very emotional song but I really love it. It’s one of my favourites,” she said.
While his biological daughters spoke of a quiet and emotional man, one of the many musicians Tuku mentored and regarded as a daughter, Dudu Manhenga said that Tuku, who sometimes looked exhausted before performances would suddenly transform when he was on stage.
“Sometimes as public figures we have lonely places, the pains of the losses that people don’t consider. They just want to see you being Oliver on stage and he loved his audience and I think his whole heart is just there. So when he is on stage he is just dishing out, he is pouring himself out more than showing the skills that he has. He would give of himself,” she said.
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