Early Life Lucky Dube was born on a small farm near Ermelo in Mpumalanga on August 3rd 1964. His mother, Sarah, considered his birth after a few unsuccessful pregnancy attempts so fortunate that she named him “Lucky”. She was the only breadwinner in the family as she had separated from her husband before Lucky’s birth and was forced to leave Lucky and her other two children, Thandi and Patrick, in the care of her mother. She earned such meagre wages in her job as domestic worker that she was barely able to send money back home for her children. Like many other kids in Africa, Lucky often had to work and help support his family instead of going to school. He once worked as a gardener or as a library assistant. 

Music Lucky Dube first discovered his talent for music when he joined the choir at school. As a teenager, he and his friends experimented with borrowed instruments from the school band room, and formed an informal band called "Skyway", who performed mbaqanga music - pop music with heavy traditional Zulu influences. He continued to perform mbaqanga music for several years, even recording several albums with his band The Love Brothers. In the early 1980s, Lucky Dube discovered artists like Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and began the switch from mbaqanga to reggae. 

Initially, Dube simply performed an occasional reggae song with the Love Brothers, and when he realized the reception that these songs got, he eventually began performing reggae almost exclusively. Despite his record label's misgivings, Lucky Dube began to record reggae. His second album, "Think About the Children" was an immediate hit. Apartheid-era Black South Africans could relate easily to the lyrical messages of Dube's reggae music, which gave voice to their struggles. He was the biggest selling reggae artist of South Africa. His album Prisoner was South Africa's best-selling album of the 1980s/90s and Victims sold over 1 million copies. 

The compilation Serious Reggae Business had phenomenal sales in Ghana. He won over 20 awards in South Africa and internationally. He was on tour most of his life. International audiences enjoyed Dube's melodic and Afro-centric take on reggae, and he remained an international star until his death. He also appeared in the movies "Getting Lucky", "Lucky Strikes Back" and in the feature film "Voice In The Dark". 

Death
During an attempted carjacking on 18.10.2007 in Rosettenville, a suburb of Johannesburg, he was shot and killed in his car in front of the eyes of his teenage kids. He was only 43 years old. The three murderers were caught and jailed for life. 

Legacy On 21 October 2008, Rykodisc released a compilation album entitled Retrospective, which featured many of Dube's most influential songs as well as previously unreleased tracks in the United States. The album celebrated Dube's music and honored the contributions he made to South Africa. The Roots Reggae Library has taken steps to store digital versions of the Mbaqange albums made in the 80's. Five of the six albums have been retrieved. Ngikwethembe Na has yet to be found. Lucky Dube is remembered as the greatest African reggae artist of his time.

Minister of arts and culture Nathi Mthethwa said the following about Dube, “Lucky Dube was a masterful musician & despite his success, he remained humble. We thank him for his contribution, his legacy lives on”. As one of the first artists to bring African reggae to the mainstream, Dube bridged cultural gaps within the African diaspora. What Lucky Dubé's music did was "[present] a praxis of cross-culturality and visionary possibility" that the diaspora at large tends to erase.

Dube gave Africa a voice and put its culture on the global stage by joining the global reggae community. Through taking Jamaican roots music back to its roots, he recontextualized the oppression and political struggles that reggae seeps itself in, bringing the basis of the diaspora back in conversation with the diaspora at large to allow for a more pan-African form of cultural expression.

–JP