'Om' Alec Khaoli

Alec Khaoli was born on 5 November 1949 in Pimville, Soweto, and grew up in Zastron in the Free State, where his grandfather, a baritone singer in the local church choir, set him on a path he would follow for the rest of his life. The instrument that path led him to was the bass guitar, and he would eventually be considered one of the greatest players of it that South Africa has ever produced.

He returned to Soweto as a young man and in the late 1960s co-founded The Beaters alongside Selby Ntuli and Monty Ndimande, who attracted Sipho 'Hotstix' Mabuse to the group as drummer. The Beaters blended township soul with worldly pop ambition, backed international visiting artists and built a reputation as one of the tightest live outfits in the country. A formative tour of Rhodesia in the mid-1970s proved transformative. Energised by the liberation movements gathering around them and the growing currents of Black Consciousness at home, the band returned changed, renamed themselves Harari after a township outside Salisbury, adopted dashikis and Afros and fused their township roots with Afro-rock, funk, jazz and mbaqanga into something entirely new. They became the first Black pop and rock band to appear on South African television, and in 1978 Hugh Masekela invited them to tour the United States with him.

Harari dissolved around 1982 and Khaoli launched his solo career immediately and ambitiously, taking guitarist Donovan Knox to A&M Studios in Los Angeles to record Brown Sugar under the name Umoja. The albums that followed, Magic Touch in 1982, Use Me in 1984, Say You Love Me in 1985, Sekuru in 1987, Now! in 1989 and Everybody Needs Somebody in 1991, moved fluidly across township bubblegum, synth-funk and disco-pop. The single U R The One was released in America through Emergency Records, in France through Polygram, in Italy through CDG Records and across Europe and Australia through Chrysalis Records, a genuinely international reach that reflected the scale of his ambition.

His innovations extended well beyond the music itself. He became the first Black South African to own a private recording studio, Fireworks Studio in Pimville, Soweto, a landmark achievement at a time when Black artists were routinely denied equal access to white-owned facilities. He later built a second studio, Oak Studios in Kew, Johannesburg. He was also among the earliest South African artists to harness the vocoder, producing a distinctive sonic signature that influenced a generation of producers who followed him. As a mentor he developed artists including Don Laka, Chicco Twala and Vinolia Mashego. His hits Sekuru, O Nketsang and Born Free are gathered on the Gallo compilation The Best of Om Alec Khaoli and Umoja, released in 2000, and in 2017 Awesome Tapes From Africa reissued 707, introducing his work to a new global audience. A South African Music Award Lifetime Achievement honour recognised a contribution to the country's music that can fairly be described as foundational.