The 'son' Tuku denied

While the country collectively nursed the still fresh wound of Sam Mtukudzi on the eight-year anniversary of his death last week, fresh details emerged about the less than rosy life of Selby Mtukudzi, Tuku's other alleged son with an unknown woman.

Fresh insights about Selby's life arrived courtesy of the second edition of Tuku Backstage, the tell-all book from journalist and Tuku's former publicist, Shepherd Mutamba.

The life lived by Selby, a Catholic priest turned keen alcohol imbiber, is in sharp contrast to that of Sam, a young man who seemed, before death intervened, destined to reach his full potential having grown up in his father's cozy nest.

By all accounts, Sam seemed to have been his father's favourite, showered with love and mentorship by one of Africa's most prolific musicians. The seemingly unbreakable father-son bond was acknowledged even by Tuku himself in a conversation with Mutamba, a close confidante who now seemingly has no problem writing page after page about the intimate details of Tuku's personal life.

"My friends are always complaining that they've got problems with their children but I was so close to my son. He knew me very well, as I did him. Some parents don't know their sons because they don't have relations with their children. He was just a good young man and I didn't have problems with him. When he stepped out of line it was only one word and he was back doing the right thing," he said.

So vivid are Tuku's memories of his son that he remembers the last moments that he shared with Sam.

"One moment that makes me smile when I think about him is the last time he spoke with me when I was in South Africa and he was in Harare. He was supposed to pick me at the airport in Harare and I changed my mind and I didn't travel that same day as I needed an extra day to do something else. I sent him a text that I was no longer coming, but unfortunately the text didn't reach him.

"So he called me and said, 'Nzou ko ndeipi? Listen, you're supposed to be flying here, so what are you doing at the bus stop? We laughed at the joke and I apologised for the undelivered text. Those were the last words spoken between me and my son," Tuku said.

That warmness and camaraderie, bordering on friendship, is what seems to have been largely missing from Selby's life, a life largely lived beneath Sam's adored shadow. In fact, Tuku even took Selby's "coming out" as an opportunistic attempt to replace his beloved Sam, according to the book.

"Those people who talk about Selby must explain and make me understand why it took 27 years for his existence to come to light and then only after Sam's death. My personal feeling is that people want to take advantage of Sam's death. I don't mind if those making the claims prove that Selby is my son then I will accept him as my son.

"People take advantage of others and situations and people think that I'm famous and I've lots of money and they want to benefit. People look at me and say I'm ageing and dying and they want to take advantage of that. Selby and his mother should prove that he is my son," said Tuku when confronted by Mutamba about Selby.

A diligent Mutamba managed to track down Selby in 2015, and after a trip to a few pubs managed to pick the brain of the "son" that had been rejected by the man he claimed was his father.

"Selby said that Tuku was his father and they related well. He referred to Tuku as daddy throughout our conversation. He said Tuku called him mufundisi from his former practice as a Roman Catholic priest. He said he even called Tuku the previous morning to talk but Tuku had just arrived from abroad and still at the airport. Selby claimed that Tuku was paying for his studies at university . . . ," Mutamba wrote in the chapter titled Selby: The follow up.

According to Selby himself, if people had looked at the microscopic details of this life, they could have easily deduced that Tuku was indeed his father.
"Daddy has never said to me that he isn't my father. I've never heard him say that to me. He pays for my college fees. People, you're failing to ask the right questions; why is it that I live with Tuku's sister (in Eastlea) if I'm not Tuku's son or in Highfield (Tuku's childhood home)?" Selby said.

Perhaps betraying the lack of warmth in their relationship is the fact that even after Selby was involved in a car accident, Tuku had sent his manager on his behalf rather than visit the son who is his spitting image.

"When I was involved in a road accident daddy's manager and my mother came to see me at the Avenues Clinic. I didn't want my mother to know about the accident because I feared that would devastate her; but she came with the manager. People should be asking why the manager visited me with my mother," he said.

Selby is not the only person to emerge claiming to the music superstar's child from a relationship out of wedlock. In 2014, a woman calling herself Memory Mtukudzi upset Tuku's camp when she claimed that he was her father although he had repeatedly denied paternity. After having been pacified by a few gestures of goodwill by Mtukudzi, she confronted him again in Bulawayo at the end of 2017.