Hamba Kahle Squire: Charl Blignaut’s tribute to Dr Graeme Gilfillan

I really didn’t know enough about music and copyright specialist Dr Graeme Gilfillan to write a full obituary. But there’s no doubt his passing over the weekend represents a huge loss to our knowledge of the field, as well as robbing us of a courageously outspoken human being. So I’m reprinting this tribute, first published by arts journalist and editor Charl Blignaut on his Facebook page. Hamba Kahle to a doughty fighter for rights.

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The news yesterday of the passing of multi-jurisdictional copyright specialist Dr Graeme Gilfillan hung heavily on me when I woke up today. The South African music industry is this morning a far poorer place, especially for those artists fighting against the corrupt mainstream music machine.

Graeme Gilfillan

Born into a Johannesburg legal family, Graeme rejected corporate law and began his own hybrid career around music rights protection, obtaining his academic qualifications in international copyright law. 

Graeme had as many enemies as the people he exposed for stealing artists’ royalties and rights. You will have heard many negative things about his brusque tongue and relentlessly confrontational demands for justice for music creators. But as a friend – and impeccable journalistic source – of almost 30 years, Graeme’s sudden death has left me reeling and bereft. He was a genius forensic investigator and a tireless fighter for social justice.

Graeme was integral to helping usher in a new era of independent local music in the 1990s. Through his company Nisa Global Entertainment he managed the business affairs of many kwaito stars and almost all the major house music deejays and producers, helping them establish their own companies, take control of their rights and publishing, and thrive, spreading their wings globally. He worked relentlessly and at a furious pace for roadies and divas alike. 

Graeme was central to the management of the music rights of a line of great female artists from Miriam Makeba to Brenda Fassie to Lebo Mathosa to Hlengiwe Mhlaba. They all counted him as their friend or ally, especially Mam Miriam, who he toured with and grew close to. He built an astonishing archive of their careers that he allowed me to access for decades in his offices, first at Mega Music in Newtown then at Time Square in Yeoville and finally at Sunnyside Office Park in Parktown. There he would educate visitors and rant for hours, rolling spliff after spliff and sharing what he knew about the industry. Which was a scary amount.

In later years Graeme persistently exposed South Africa’s deeply unscrupulous and mismanaged rights collection societies. He was profoundly involved in restoring and protecting the work of the late great visual artist Dumile Feni. (See some of the fruits of this labour over here: https://www.dumilefeni.co.za/ ) 

His work on what happened to Mhlaba’s plundered rights would lead to him recently obtaining his PhD at mind-boggling speed. He was producing academic paper after academic paper in the past months, exposing systemic rot in rights collection in South Africa and internationally, producing damning audits for big names that included the likes of Duran Duran. (Some of these papers can be accessed here: https://nisaonline.com/documents/)

Graeme was particularly delighted by his new title of Dr Gilfillan, producing a big smile with missing teeth and scruffy hair, which he cared less about. He never liked to put himself in the media unless it was absolutely necessary and he wasn’t willing to do interviews on camera any longer, but in our last meetings in April we conducted several hours of audio interviews which will form part of the next phase of my writing, on Brenda Fassie in particular. 

As anyone who knew Graeme will tell you, when you said hello and asked how he was, he would always answer uniformly and with great vigour: “Pumped up, thundering, mint condition, no issues. And how are you, Squire?” 

It’s unimaginable to think he is gone. Rest in power #GraemeGilfillan. Your work is done and will live on. Corruption will sleep easier tonight.