SAMAs to Honours Nana Coyote, Roger Lucy, Bhekumuzi Luthuli & Black Coffee

The South African Music Awards just announced that they will be posthumously honouring music legends Nana Coyote and Bhekumuzi Luthuli, as well as folk rocker Roger Lucey, with Lifetime Achievement Awards at this year’s ceremony to be held in Durban on the 4th of June.

The late Nana Coyote was born Tsietsi Daniel Motijoane in 1955, and passed away in 2010.  His signature throaty howls earned him the nicknames “Coyote” and “The Wild Dog”.  Coyote entered professional music with Sharpeville outfit Black Five before going into exile in Lesotho in 1980.  There, he joined the group Uhuru, now known as Sankomota.  His first big hit was in the song I’m Suffering, with Ozila.  Other notable releases include duet with Steve Kekana titled Take Your Love, and Whispers in the Deep with Stimela.

Roger Lucey ,a singer-songwriter, journalist, filmmaker, actor and educator whose career cut cruelly short by the security police in the early 1980s when his protest songs were deemed a threat to the apartheid regime.  He was then forced to working as a doorman and barman before finishing work as a roadie and sound technician and news cameraman for WTN News.  Lucey still performs regularly and currently divides his time between his teaching work in North Carolina and his hometown of Cape Town.

Bhekumuzi Luthuli - one of South Africa’s biggest-selling Maskandi musicians ever, has sold more than a million records and notched up almost a dozen platinum and double platinum releases. He died, aged just 48, in 2010.

Born in the KwaZulu-Natal town of KwaMaphumulo, Luthuli joined Durban-based mbaqanga band Oshimi in the early 1980s, before parting ways with them after two albums to forge a successful solo career where he sold over a million units across his 23 albums.

House DJ and Producer Black Coffee will also be the recipient of the International Achievement Award in honour of his incredible year which included him gracing the cover of MixMag, headlining at Ibiza and successfully completing a 17 country world tour.