He was previously married to actress Leleti Khumalo, who received a 1988 Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical for Sarafina!, as well as starring in the leading role in South Africa\u2019s first Oscar-nominated film Yesterday.<\/p>\n

Born in Verulam and raised in the heart of Zululand, Mbongeni Ngema has distinguished himself as a renowned playwright, screenwriter and\u00a0librettist. He is best known as the Writer of the internationally acclaimed and award-winning musical\u00a0Sarafina!<\/i>, which was nominated for five\u00a0Tony Awards, and later nominated for the prestigious\u00a0Grammy Awards. The musical won 11\u00a0NAACP Image Awards\u00a0enjoyed a two-year run on Broadway, toured the US, Europe, Australia and Japan and was later adapted into a feature film starring\u00a0Whoopi Goldberg,\u00a0Leleti Khumalo\u00a0and\u00a0Miriam Makeba.<\/p>\n

Ngema has had a string of blockbusters that include his award-winning and internationally revered Woza Albert, Township Fever (1990), which travelled from the Market Theatre to the USA the Brooklyn Academy of Music\u2019s Majestic Theatre; Mama (1995), Asinamali (1996), Maria Maria (1997), The Zulu \u2013 the musical (1999), 1906 Bhambada The Freedom Fighter, The House of Shaka (2005) and The Lion of the East (2006).<\/p>\n

In 1998, Ngema was inducted in the New York \u201cWalk of Fame\u201d in front of the Lucille Lortel Theatre in Manhattan, New York City, as one of the revered Writers of the 21st century. In 2001 during the African Renaissance festival, his name was engraved on the entrance of the City Hall in Durban alongside those of Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Miriam Makeba and other heroes of the liberation struggle.<\/p>\n

As a librettist, Ngema has written the musical soundtrack for\u00a0Sarafina \u2013 the movie<\/i>\u00a0and produced the movie\u2019s soundtrack alongside\u00a0Quincy Jones. He has composed several music albums, including the famous and locally loved album\u00a0Stimela SaseZola<\/i>. Ngema has written and arranged numerous songs as well as arranged music for artists such as\u00a0Michael Bolton. He was also one of the vocal arrangers for\u00a0The Lion King<\/i>, Disney\u2019s animated film. For this, Ngema received a multi-platinum award for sales in excess of 6 million copies. He subsequently won a Grammy Award for the movie adaptation. \u201cWoza My Fohloza\u201d, the new millennium song, and several albums of his musicals are on Ngema\u2019s librettist list.<\/p>\n

In 1997, Ngema was appointed as a visiting lecturer at the\u00a0University of Zululand to teach his unique artistic technique and subsequently produced the first CD released by the university\u2019s music department. In 2003 he was appointed as Artistic Director for the\u00a02003 Cricket World Cup\u00a0and in 2004 appointed as one of the organisers of the 10th Anniversary Celebrations of South Africa\u2019s democracy. He has been entrusted by the KZN Department of Arts, Sports and Recreation for establishing and managing the recording studio and record company, The KZN Music House managed by his company Committed Artists.<\/p>\n

Several books and academic work have been written about Mbongeni Ngema and his celebrated works, including\u00a0Nothing Except Ourselves<\/i>\u00a0by Laura Jones (USA),\u00a0The Best of Mbongeni Ngema, The man and his music<\/i>\u00a0by Isabel Cooke (RSA),\u00a0An investigation into the creation and interpretation in Mbongeni Ngema\u2019s intra-cultural Theatre<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 N. O. Sabelo (UKZN Thesis).<\/p>\n

Ngema has tapped into his own richly-nurtured background of traditional story-telling, learned as a small child from his great-grandmother, to create his spell-binding one-man show, which melds memories of his childhood, spent in the heart of Zululand, with the wealth of his heritage, bringing vividly to life the historic panoply of the Zulu nation.\u00a0The Zulu<\/i>\u00a0continues its triumphant tours of South Africa, filling theatres around the country, and is set to soon tour abroad.<\/p>\n

Ngema prides himself on being from the lineage of the warriors Mbandama and Sigcwelegcwele kaMhlekehleke of the Ngema clan who led the Ingoba Makhosi regiment, a pivotal regiment that defeated the British armies at the\u00a0Battle of Isandlwana\u00a0in the Anglo-Zulu war, on 22 January 1879.<\/p>\n

To add to the growing list of accolades, Ngema has recently been conferred with an honorary doctorate from the Good Shepherd College of Religion, Culture and skills training. This prestige was in honour and recognition of Ngema\u2019s service to South African music and on-going impact in the arts sector. Ngema was recently the recipient of a prestigious Life Time Achievement Award, presented to him at the Naledi Awards ceremony held in Johannesburg in 2014.<\/p>\n