It’s been a long and storied career, but now Johnny Clegg is slowly taking his foot of the pedal and easing into retirement.

We say slowly, because he says he is only “semi-retired” now, and then there’s the small matter of his autobiography.

Chances are you’ve seen the emotional tribute video put together by 50 of South Africa’s most popular musicians, as part of the Friends of Johnny Clegg educational fund, but if you haven’t, please dive in.

You’ll also find details about how to get involved and donate to that cause in the link above.

With that video doing the rounds, Channel24 sat down with Clegg for an exclusive interview, to shed some light on what lies ahead.

Perhaps the most pressing issue is his health:

“Well I am semi-retired now, due to my health. Which is why I had to cancel the second half of my world tour; I still have to do the western side of America because I did the east coast, I still have to do France, Belgium and Switzerland. I still have to do Australia and the western side of Canada. I’ve just come off six months of chemotherapy and then I had to go into stereotactic radiation because it (cancer) has metastasized into my lungs.

“So, we’re basically monitoring it over the December/January period to see if my tumour count can come down, if it can come down then we will continue with the tour. But, technically right now, I am semi-retired. I also writing my autobiography and slowly getting on it and keeping myself going.”

We have already touched on just how moving Johnny found the tribute video, but he went into further detail:

“You know I was having a bad day, I’ve had some health problems, and I sat there after having just done a performance in Cape Town at Ellerman House for the Click Foundation and they said, ‘sit here Johnny, we want you to watch this.’ And they ambushed me (laughs). I was not expecting anything, I didn’t know what I was going to see, and I was crying by the end of it…I got a very strong sense of being affirmed and validated but also that the song was given a new life and a new purpose. I was just blown away.”

He also expressed his delight on Twitter:

You can bet his autobiography is going to be one hell of a read, and he’s making steady progress:

 “I’m about 150 pages in and it’s about halfway done. I’ve had to wait at times because I’ve done interviews with my old band mates and sometimes, they’re not in the country. The record company that released me in 1983 in England doesn’t exist (anymore) but the owner is still there, and we keep in contact, so I’m going to have to go back to England to interview him and some of the other people who were involved in the very tortuous moments…

“There are many layers to the book and other than having to struggle through apartheid, through the Group Areas Act, through the global segregation and not being able to perform in public (as a non-racial band). There was also having to find holes in the system from playing private venues to churches to private school halls; we also played in people’s lounges and at private school halls. Many embassies during the seventies and eighties had these little cultural events where fifty or sixty people came, and we were the requested group. We started to find ways to perform, we figured out that if you play the really rural areas or universities or technikons. So, all of those stories are in there.”

There’s a book to look forward to.

Also, to help you make it through the rest of this day, here’s a classic:

[source:channel24]