The Clegg legacy: music and family men

For years Jesse Clegg kept his father’s music at arm’s length. The son of the late Johnny Clegg built his own career as a singer-songwriter, determined to forge an identity separate from one of South Africa’s most beloved cultural figures. But time changes relationships, especially after loss. 

Now, nearly seven years after Clegg’s death, Jesse is leading Scatterlings, a tribute project that brings together some of South Africa’s leading musicians to reinterpret songs from his father’s catalogue. The project includes a tribute album and the Scatterlings Music Festival, which will take place in Johannesburg in August. 

For Jesse, the project is about more than music. It’s about memory, inheritance, and the responsibility of carrying a legacy forward. “When someone passes away, you feel the sense of their presence,” he says. “They fill a different role in your life. After my dad passed, that feeling took hold of me about two years later. There was so much love for who he was and the music that he made. I wondered if there was something I could do that could be a catalyst for that.” 

The idea eventually grew into a large-scale collaboration involving artists from across South Africa’s musical landscape. Jesse invited musicians to choose Johnny Clegg songs and reinterpret them in their own styles. The result is an album that spans multiple genres and generations. 

“Music has become so formatted by genres,” Jesse says. “This album will be 14 songs in 14 different genres, including Maskandi, Afro-tech, folk, pop, and many others. It is a uniquely South African celebration.” 

The diversity is intentional. Clegg spent his career breaking down barriers between musical traditions, languages, and communities. Through bands such as Juluka and Savuka, he helped introduce many South Africans to cultural worlds beyond their own. His songs became associated not only with political change, but with the idea that music could bring people together. “My dad understood music as a uniter of people and as a celebration of diversity,” Jesse says. “His music moved beyond the limits of genre.” 

The project has given Jesse a fresh perspective on the impact his father had on artists who grew up with his music. Every musician involved brought their own story. One that stands out for him involved award-winning artist Tresor, who grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “He told me he had been playing Cool, Crazy, Beautiful World since he was a teenager,” Jesse says. “Somehow my dad’s music found him in the Congo. 

“There was something universal about the music my father and Sipho Mchunu made,” he says. “Very few artists become a focal point that people from so many different spaces can come back to and say, ‘Yes, we connect with this.’” 

Listening to fellow musicians speak about his dad’s influence was an emotional experience. “It was this beautiful generational conversation,” Jesse says. “To speak to artists I respect and feel that reverence was beautiful for me as a son.” 

Yet behind the public legacy is a more private story. For millions of South Africans, Johnny Clegg remains a cultural icon. For Jesse, he was simply dad. “He was a really good dad to me,” he says. “He was an amazing father.” 

Jesse remembers a man who managed to create a sanctuary for his family despite the demands of a high-profile career. “He had a very big life. He was travelling and there were always different things coming at him. But he had an amazing capacity to shut the world out and create a very special place for his family.” 

One lesson stands out above all others. Clegg never tried to present himself as a superhero. “He was always willing and open to be vulnerable with us,” Jesse says. “He showed us his shortcomings, his anxieties, and his fears. He didn’t want us to think he was some kind of Superman. Instead, he wanted his children to understand that strength and vulnerability could exist together. He was saying, ‘I’m trying my best. I have strengths and I have weaknesses. You must see both.’” 

Today, Jesse reflects on those lessons from a different perspective. He is now a father himself. His daughter is already becoming acquainted with the grandfather she never had the chance to know personally. “My daughter is already aware of him,” Jesse says. “She sings his songs and does Zulu dancing in the living room.” 

But he wants her relationship with Clegg’s memory to be grounded in family rather than fame. “I don’t want her to see him as an icon or celebrity, but as her grandfather. A funny, quirky, fun-loving happy guy.” 

Becoming a parent has deepened his appreciation of what his father achieved. The man many South Africans remember for his music, activism, and cultural influence was also balancing the ordinary challenges of raising a family. 

Looking back, Jesse sees someone who was committed to his art and his loved ones while remaining humbler. “He was really just an honest, good man trying his best,” he says. “Sometimes succeeding, sometimes not succeeding.” 

That understanding has shaped the kind of father Jesse hopes to be. “I want to have that relationship with my daughter. I want her to be able to ask me questions, and I want to have the answer and sometimes not have the answer.” 

Perhaps that is why Scatterlings feels less like a tribute and more like a continuation. For years, Jesse deliberately kept his career separate from his father’s. “This is my first time recording my dad’s music,” he says. “I used to keep my career very separate in the beginning because I was forging my own path. Now that I’m established, I’ve earned it.” 

The statement carries the confidence of someone who no longer feels overshadowed by a famous surname. Instead, he appears comfortable inhabiting two roles at once: a son preserving a legacy and a father passing it on. In that sense, Scatterlings is not only about remembering Johnny Clegg. It is about ensuring that the conversations his music started continue into another generation. Through songs, stories, and family, the legacy remains alive.