Zimbabwe’s music icon Oliver Mtukudzi has dismissed rumours suggesting that he is HIV positive.<\/p>\n
Speaking in an interview aired by CNN on its African Voices programme, Tuku dismissed the reports as mere speculation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not HIV positive myself, but I have dealt with a lot of programmes on HIV and Aids. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have had a close encounter with Aids when I lost four of my band members, including a brother, to the pandemic in a space of two months.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuku, as Mtukudzi is affectionately known in music circles, made the revelations in reaction to growing speculation that he was HIV positive on account of his gaunt frame.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother Robert died of Aids, so I had all the reason to try and help and give awareness to the people and fight the stigma.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am glad the stigma in Zimbabwe has fallen away, though not completely.<\/p>\n
\u201cStigma is just an attitude. And the fact that people now talk about HIV and Aids freely shows that it has fallen away. People no longer hide it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuku said he was diabetic; hence his often sickly look, adding that rumour-mongers were basing their speculation on that condition.<\/p>\n
The 60-year-old music guru said he was the first Zimbabwean musician to be approached by the World Health Organisation in the 1980s to start Aids awareness programmes through song and dance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am one of the very first artistes in Zimbabwe to be approached about HIV by WHO in the year 1987.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody knew about the disease in Zimbabwe, and I was lucky to get the material about the disease.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to learn and come up with a song, which saw me going to Switzerland where I actually saw people infected and affected, so I had a better understanding of the disease than my fellow artistes because they had not seen it and I had seen that,\u201d he told Nkepile Mabuse of CNN\u2019s African Voices.<\/p>\n
These experiences, Tuku said, had pushed him to embrace HIV as a key theme in his decades-long musical career hoping to fight stigma and raise awareness through his powerful lyrics.<\/p>\n
Tuku\u2019s songs that address HIV and Aids-related issues include \u201cTapera\u201d, \u201cTodii\u201d and \u201cStay with one Woman\u201d among others.<\/p>\n
Last year, Mtukudzi won critical acclaim when he was appointed Unicef Goodwill Ambassador to raise Aids awareness in eastern and southern Africa.<\/p>\n
Unicef regional director Elhadj As Sy said Tuku had demonstrated a genuine commitment to communicating strong and clear messages about the importance of child and young people\u2019s rights, including their right to live free from HIV and Aids on the occasion of the latter\u2019s Unicef ambassadorial appointment.<\/p>\n
Herald<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zimbabwe’s music icon Oliver Mtukudzi has dismissed rumours suggesting that he is HIV positive. Speaking in an interview aired by CNN on its African Voices programme, Tuku dismissed the reports as mere speculation. \u201cI am not HIV positive myself, but I have dealt with a lot of programmes on HIV and Aids. \u201cI have had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-5059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5059\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=5059"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=5059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}