Aura (South African Singer)
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Aura Msimang (Aura Lewis) (4 March 1947– 28 December 2015), born Aurelia Msimang, was a South African singer who worked with
Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...
and
Jimmy Cliff James Chambers OM (born 30 July 1944), known professionally as Jimmy Cliff, is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hold the Order of Merit, t ...
and recorded an album with
Lee "Scratch" Perry Lee "Scratch" Perry (born Rainford Hugh Perry; 20 March 1936 – 29 August 2021) was a Jamaican record producer, composer and singer noted for his innovative studio techniques and production style. Perry was a pioneer in the 1970s development o ...
in the late 1970s.


Early life and career

She was born Aurelia Msimang in Western Native Township,
Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
,
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
on 4 March 1947.Katz, David (2000) ''People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee "Scratch" Perry'', Payback Press, , p.289, 298, 299 After growing up in Johannesburg, she moved to the United States in the early 1970s and enrolled at
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
's
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...
. She married a
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
musician and became known as Aura Lewis. She became interested in
reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...
after seeing
The Wailers ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
perform at
Max's Kansas City Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South in New York City, which became a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s. It was opened by Mickey Ruskin (1933–1983) in Decembe ...
in 1972, and moved to
Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
in 1976 where she enrolled in the Drama department of the Jamaica School of Arts, and began working with
Cedric Brooks Cedric "Im" Brooks (27 April 1943 – 3 May 2013) was a Jamaican saxophonist and flautist known for his solo recordings and as a member of The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, The Sound Dimensions, Divine Light, The Light of Saba, and The Skatali ...
in the group United Africa.Larkin, Colin (1998) "Aura", in ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Reggae'', Virgin Books, , p16 She was introduced to
Jimmy Cliff James Chambers OM (born 30 July 1944), known professionally as Jimmy Cliff, is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hold the Order of Merit, t ...
, who asked her to join him on his 1977 West African tour as a backing vocalist, the tour filmed and released on video as ''Bongo Man''. Cliff's band stopped off in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
before returning to Jamaica, where she was taken to
Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
by Cliff, while Lee Perry and Bob Marley were working on "Punky Reggae Party" (released on Bob Marley & the Wailers' ''Exodus'' album). Perry was looking for an additional backing vocalist and asked Lewis to contribute to the recording, joining Candy MacKenzie.


Full Experience

Back in Jamaica, Lewis became a regular backing vocalist for Perry at his
Black Ark The Black Ark was the recording studio of reggae and dub producer Lee "Scratch" Perry, built in 1973 and located behind his family's home in the Washington Gardens neighborhood of Kingston, Jamaica. Despite the rudimentary set-up and dated eq ...
studio, and began working on a group project called Full Experience, along with another Black Ark session singer, Pamela Reed. Perry agreed to produce an album by the group, and drafted in Candy MacKenzie to make the group up to a trio. They recorded eleven tracks in 1978 with a backing band including Mikey "Boo" Richards, Winston Wright,
Geoffrey Chung Geoffrey Aloysius Chung (1950 – 13 October 1995) was a Jamaican musician, recording engineer, and record producer. Biography Chung was born in 1950 in Kingston, Jamaica.Moskowitz, David V. (2006) ''Caribbean Popular Music: an Encyclopedia of ...
,
Michael Chung Michael Chung (1950 – 28 December 2021) also known as Mao Chung, was a Jamaican musician who played keyboards, guitar and percussion instruments. He was also an arranger and record producer of Music of Jamaica, Jamaican music, and worked with ...
, and Sticky, including a version of
Nina Simone Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone (), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, ...
's "Young Gifted and Black", retitled "Young, Gifted and Broke", and the track "Full Experience" (originally called "Stricly Roots"), which featured
Boris Gardiner Boris Gardiner (born 13 January 1943) is a Jamaican singer, songwriter and bass guitarist. He was a member of several groups during the 1960s before recording as a solo artist and having hit singles with " Elizabethan Reggae" (in 1970), " I Wann ...
on
bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
. The tracks recorded also featured versions of the Swahili songs "Malaika" and "Haposamane". The album was never issued in Jamaica, amid tensions between band members and Perry's partner Pauline Morrison, and Perry's increasingly erratic behaviour, which would lead to the destruction of his studio, and eventually Lewis asked Jimmy Cliff to help her buy the master tapes from Perry. Cliff and Perry came to a deal, but then Cliff issued singles by another group under the Full Experience name on his Sunpower label in 1978, and refused to give Lewis the master tapes. Eventually, Lewis was able to obtain a tape containing five tracks from the sessions and these were licensed to the French Blue Moon label, and released in 1990. The album sleeve features an image of Lewis superimposed on a photograph of the outside of the Black Ark studio. "Full Experience" was included on the album ''Baffling Smoke Signal: The Upsetter Shop Volume 3'' in 2002.


Later career

Lewis left Jamaica and joined the Malopoets and a South African jazz group featuring
Louis Moholo Louis Tebogo Moholo (born 10 March 1940), is a South African jazz drummer. He has been a member of several notable bands, including The Blue Notes, the Brotherhood of Breath and Assagai. Biography Born in Cape Town, Moholo formed The Blue ...
, and went on to work with
Mory Kante Mory is the name or part of the name of three communes of France: * Mory, Pas-de-Calais in the Pas-de-Calais ''département'' * Mory-Montcrux in the Oise ''département'' * Mitry-Mory in the Seine-et-Marne ''département'' Mory is also the name of t ...
and
Maxime Le Forestier Maxime Le Forestier (; born 10 February 1949 as Bruno Le Forestier) is a French singer-songwriter. Life and career Bruno Le Forestier was born on 10 February 1949 in Paris to father Robert Le Forestier and mother Genevieve (née Lili 1917–2010 ...
after becoming based in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
where she recorded with Tony Coe in ''Les voix d'Itxassou''. While in Paris she started a project which would allow her to move back to South Africa where she worked in community development. On her arrival in Johannesburg she became involved in forming a non-profit organisation called Reggae Vision which was meant to uplift and promote reggae artists while organising scarce gigs and events for the rasta community. Aura would get backing from the group Tidal Waves and many others reggae practitioners around the suburb of
Yeoville Yeoville is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F (previously Region 8). It is widely known and celebrated for its diverse, pan-African population but notorious for it ...
in Johannesburg. From 1994 to 1996 she stayed in Belgium and was one of the singers of the Tsjaka reggae band. In 2006 she was invited to perform in Brazil with her band and upon her return continued to develop her album, ''Afrikan Child'', which was to be her last body of work. Working from Base II Base Studios in Yeoville she assembled a group of young producers and beatmakers to contribute to the album. The album was named ''Afrikan Child'' because she had made these collaborations with her children. Initially the production was started by the in house producers namely, DOC, Julius, Tebogo "Vambos", Sakhele Maphuthi and Milandru Mapengo who eventually took over the production of six of the tracks on the album. Paul Brown a producer from London, UK contributed a track entitled, Magic In Your Eyes, where the band recorded the entire song and sent the record for Aura Msimang to add her vocals. ''Afrikan Child'' was released in 2010 on digital outlets. The album did not fare well due to poor mixing which was handled by
dancehall Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2004) "The Rou ...
producers in the UK.


Death

On 28 December 2015, Aura Lewis died.


Discography


Albums

*''Full Experience: Aura Meets Lee "Scratch" Perry at Black Ark Studio'' (1990) Blue Moon *''Itshe'' (2000) Aura Msimang * ''Afrikan Child'' (2010) Aura MsimangAfrikan Child
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Singles

*"Azania"


References


External links


Full Experience
at Roots Archives *Katz, David (1991)

(interview), ''Musical Roots'' magazine {{DEFAULTSORT:Lewis, Aura 1947 births 2015 deaths Singers from Johannesburg South African reggae musicians 20th-century South African women singers 21st-century South African women singers