Yvonne Chaka Chaka on creators’ rights, raising African sons and the work that comes after the stage.
Some artists never leave the spotlight, even when they step away from it. Yvonne Chaka Chaka, born Ntombizodwa Machaka in Dobsonville, Soweto, in 1965, has been at the forefront of South African popular music for more than four decades. She is the Princess of Africa: a title bestowed on her in Uganda in the early 1990s and now carried as both honorific and responsibility across the continent and the diaspora. Her catalogue includes Umqombothi, the 1988 hit that opens the first scene of Hotel Rwanda and that an entire generation of African listeners knows by heart. She has performed for Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton, Bono and Oprah Winfrey, and she has sung at the United Nations.
But the woman who arrived at Pavillon Afronova on a Monday afternoon in May was not there to perform. She came to advocate. Since 2020, Yvonne has served as Vice President of CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, the global body that defends the rights of more than five million creators worldwide. Her term is now drawing to a close. The fight she leaves behind is, in many ways, the work she always wanted to do. Long before the records, she had wanted to be a chartered accountant.
It is a quiet kind of full circle. The girl who couldn’t afford university found her way to the world stage by singing; the woman who finally arrived at the world stage has spent the last few years on the other side of the music industry’s ledger, fighting for the artists who follow her not to be cheated out of what they make.
At Cannes, she is here for the CISAC panel, Fair Pay, Fair Voices: Women Shaping the Future of African Audiovisual Creation. She speaks easily about why this matters. The creative industries, she says, have always been a man’s industry. African women have always been disenfranchised within them. The thing she came to Cannes to defend is small in language and enormous in implication: fair chance, fair share, fair play, fair pay. Four words. A career’s worth of work behind them.
Off the stage, she is warmer than the title suggests. She laughs easily, and she circles back to thank people by name. She mentions her four sons more than once and her husband of more than thirty years. She studied artificial intelligence at Henley Business School and worries openly about what it will do to creators if left ungoverned. She is, by her own account, still teachable.
Schön! sat down with Yvonne Chaka Chaka at Pavillon Afronova during the 79th Cannes Film Festival.
You arrived at Cannes to attend the CISAC panel on women in audiovisual arts. Set the scene for us: what are you fighting for here?
I think we all know that this industry is known as a man’s industry. Seeing women take the forefront of writing our stories and being in the creative industry is an important thing, and something we should not take for granted. As a woman, that’s what I’m fighting for: fair chance and fair play for women.
Do you feel there has been progress over the last few years, or has it stalled?
There is a little bit of progress in the fact that we are even here. I want to thank the visionaries behind Afronova for taking bold steps to showcase African talent in Cannes. This is only the second year, and I know it isn’t easy. I’m here to advocate for that and to support them. And thank you to CISAC, the confederation of the creative industry, that looks after all creators, whether they’re men or women, making sure there is proper governance and that things are done accordingly. Women have always been disenfranchised.
Most people meet you as the singer. Now you sit on the board that decides how creators get paid across the world. What does a typical Tuesday look like for Yvonne Chaka Chaka in 2026: not the stage version, but the actual day?
Yvonne is a mother. Yvonne is a wife. Yvonne is a philanthropist and an advocate. I’m grateful to everyone who’s supported me, but above all, I’m grateful that my family has supported me to do everything I want to do. It isn’t easy; this industry is not for the faint of heart. But having your feet firmly on the ground and learning from others is very important. Sometimes, no matter what industry you’re in, you take things for granted and say, I know better. But there are people who know better than you. And it’s okay for all of us to feel vulnerable, and to say I am vulnerable, I am ready to learn, I am teachable.
You’ve said before that you wanted to be a chartered accountant when you were young. In some ways, the work you do at CISAC is closer to that than people realise: the rights, the royalties, the business of being an artist. Does it feel like you’ve come full circle, or like you became two different people?
Yes, when I was younger, I wanted to be a chartered accountant. My mother wanted me to be a lawyer. Coming from a very poor family, my mother couldn’t take me to university, so I found myself singing. For me, music was a stepping stone to be an advocate, to be a fighter, to talk about the dishonesties happening in my country. It was political, as I was born during apartheid.
Music, or the creative industry as a whole, brings us together as people. The work I do with CISAC, working with the collective management organisations, making sure those who create music get compensated, is crucial, despite the fact that it’s something people take for granted. They watch the film or listen to the music, and they forget that this is someone’s IP. You created this music, composed it, paid for the studio and paid the producer. That takes time and money. So I wanted to be an advocate, but also to learn from those who know better than I do. There are organisations like CISAC that make sure everything is done accordingly, with proper governance, and that creative people get compensated fairly.
You’ve outlived a number of your peers, like Brenda Fassie, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela. What is it like to be one of the last standing from that generation of South African music?
I wouldn’t say I’ve outlived them. Miriam Makeba was Mama Africa. She is one of the people who went to the United Nations in 1963 to talk about the atrocities happening in South Africa. I was not even born yet. Hugh Masekela stood out there and shouted from the top of his voice. And then there was a generation of Brenda Fassie and me, and unfortunately, Brenda died very young. She was thirty-nine. I think she was one of the best African musicians, with a golden voice.
I am only grateful to God and I’m a believer that my life is not in my hands. I can plan and strategise and try to navigate where I want to be, but somebody up there, more powerful than
me knows where He wants me to be. I’m grateful for the support, for the people who listen to my music, who come to my shows, who work with me. It isn’t that I’ve outlived them. I’m happy that I’m still living. I still have the oxygen. I can still do the work I do today.
You’ve raised four sons. When you think of African boys in 2026, what do you find yourself telling them about being men, about being seen, that you wouldn’t have said twenty years ago?
As a mother of four boys and a mother-in-law of all the girls in the world, I think things have changed, things have evolved. Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t sit with my sons and ask them about their relationships. But today it’s important to know how they feel, what they think, what they want to be. My honest wish is to see my children being great partners to their partners, loving and respecting humanity.
These are things I can sit with them and talk about now, because ages ago I probably wouldn’t. I’m an African woman. Culturally, there are things you can say and things you cannot say. But now there is that openness, talking honestly, not having young people scared to express themselves freely. That’s what’s changed.
Your music opened Hotel Rwanda, which made an enormous impression on me when I first watched it. Your songs have scored other films too. It’s Cannes, and we are in cinema week. What’s the next thing you want to do that you haven’t done yet, in music or in film or anywhere?
I’m grateful for everything I’ve already done. Everything I’ve contributed in my community, in Africa, in the world. Hotel Rwanda was one of those mind-boggling films. In South Africa in 1994, we were having our freedom; at the same time, in Rwanda, there was a genocide. Imagine! For the filmmakers to find it in their heart to use my music in the opening, ithumbled me. It showed that music brings all of us together. That really, really made me happy.
Going forward, my term is coming to an end as Vice President of CISAC. I’m grateful to everyone I’ve worked with. There’s so much I’ve learned. But I’m not despairing. I will still work closely with CISAC and on an Africa strategy. We need to make sure different countries are well served, because people in the creative industry are always shortchanged, and many people don’t even know they shouldn’t sell their IP outright. There are carve-outs, all sorts of things. There is a lot I can still contribute to the next generation. Especially now, with artificial intelligence.
What is your view on the dangers AI poses to intellectual property?
I studied artificial intelligence at Henley Business School. I think it’s good for production. Let’s say you and I have hundreds of chairs: it would take us many hours to pack them. With robots, it could be much quicker. But artificial intelligence should enhance the creative industry. It shouldn’t come to us as a burden and take away from artists. We can’t run away from it; it will always be there, but it needs to be properly regulated. That’s what I hope organisations like CISAC will fight for: proper legislation with governments, proper policies, so that AI doesn’t take from people.
What about a song made through artificial intelligence: who owns it at the end of the day? AI was set up by men, too. These are the things we have to be careful about. We can’t shy away from technology because it will keep evolving. We have to live with it, but make sure it’s properly put in place. So that human beings don’t suffer.
Global audiences are streaming African music at historic rates, yet local royalty systems are still catching up. As a businesswoman, not just as a listener, which African artist do you think is undervalued or overvalued in the global market right now?
I must say, as a South African, I’m so proud of Amapiano, which has taken the world by storm. Everybody wants to sound like Amapiano, which is a typical South African sound. So music is changing, music is evolving and South African music has made its mark. That makes me very happy.
Now, when it comes to streaming, very few people buy CDs any more. People are streaming, and different organisations collect that money. I just wish that the people who utilise the music distribute that money accordingly, and for me, that is called transparency. I was reading the newspaper as I was coming to Cannes, and South Africa distributed hundreds of millions of rands from royalties recently. So, as much as there isn’t enough transparency, money does eventually go to the people it’s supposed to go to: composers and musicians. This is good news.
Yvonne Chaka Chaka was at Cannes as Vice President of CISAC for the panel “Fair Pay, Fair Voices: Women Shaping the Future of African Audiovisual Creation,” part of the seventh edition of Pavillon Afronova.
photography + words. Maria Biardzka
