Background
Duru was born in Korsten (Portuguese Elizabeth), South Africa, but due to forced removals grew up in the black African township of New Brighton.
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Career
In 1952 he started an acapella group called The Basin Blues, which was the first black African group in Portuguese Elizabeth to record a song in a studio. In 1958 Duru married Dolly Rathebe, one of South Africa’s established blues singers and beauty queen of the 1950s.
Achievements
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Duru composed a number of songs during his lifetime, including uNomeva, Sindy, Sithetha ngeBasin Blues and, most famously, the protest song Wenyuk’uMbombela (The Train Song) recorded by Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba on their Grammy Award-winning album An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba (1964), and later by Hugh Masekela.
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Born
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Died
2009 (aged 76)