“As the world pages through the legacy of musician, performer and cultural activist and entrepreneur Quincy Jones, South Africa mourns the passing of this global icon who was a close friend of our country and our struggle for freedom. We recall his close relationship with our Founding President, Nelson Mandela, whose Inauguration he attended as part of a United States delegation.

This year is a decade since South Africa inducted this great humanitarian as an Esteemed Member of our National Order of the Companions of OR Tambo in recognition of his excellent contribution to the cultural boycott imposed on South Africa to press white voters in the country to accept fundamental political change. “Q” played a key role in the cultural boycotts imposed on South Africa in the last half of the 20th Century. These boycotts placed necessary and very effective external pressure on the then Government of South Africa to democratise.

The boycotts were efforts based on moral principles with the goal to bring home the costs of apartheid to white South Africans, thereby encouraging them to withhold support for apartheid and instead promote a radical restructuring of the South African political order. Quincy Jones became a cultural and political icon in South Africa when he was prepared to protest against South African politics, to refuse to visit South Africa, and to prevent his works from being made available to TV, cinema or video, and record/CD stores, despite being a highly successful record producer and artist in the USA.

The stand he took highlighted the broader role of the artist in society, and he fought who fought relentlessly against forms of injustices found in his country and in South Africa. Quincy Jones was a formidable performer and creative genius whose most important characteristic was the generosity of spirit with which he collaborated with peers and inspired and opened doors for emerging talent. Through the nine decades of his life, the meter of his metronome became the beat of our hearts and feet as his mercurial creativity delighted us, stirred social consciousness and united diverse audiences globally in the in the chorus line of our shared human experience.

May he rest in peace.”

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