Leleti Khumalo - Early Life and Sarafina!

Early Life and Sarafina!

She was born in KwaMashu township, north of Durban, South Africa. Showing an interest in performing from an early age, Khumalo joined a youth backyard dance group called Amajika, mentored by Tu Nokwe.

In 1985, she auditioned for Mbongeni Ngema’s musical, which later became the international blockbuster Sarafina!, Ngema wrote the lead character of Sarafina especially for Khumalo. She was formerly married to Mbongeni Ngema. But there have been recent speculations that he has had several affairs with different women, including the late Brenda Fassie.

Khumalo performed the role of Sarafina! on stages in South Africa and on Broadway, where she received a 1988 Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical. Sarafina! had a Broadway run lasting two years, after which the production embarked on a worldwide tour. In 1987 Khumalo received a NAACP Image Award for Best Stage Actress.

In 1992, she starred alongside Whoopi Goldberg, Miriam Makeba and John Kani in Darrell James Roodt’s film version of Sarafina!, which had a worldwide distribution, and became the biggest film production to be released on the African continent. Again Khumalo was nominated for an Image Award, together with Angela Bassett, Whoopi Goldberg and Janet Jackson.

Based on the 1976 Soweto youth uprisings, Sarafina! tells the story of a young school girl who is not afraid to fight for her rights and inspires her peers to rise up in protest, especially after her inspirational teacher, Mary Masembuko (Goldberg) is imprisoned.

In 1993, Khumalo released her first album, Leleti and Sarafina.

Sarafina! was re-released in South Africa on 16 June 2006 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the youth uprisings in Soweto.

Read more about this topic:  Leleti Khumalo

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!”
    David Elkind (20th century)

    Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
    Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
    Than that of painted pomp?
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)