JUBA –  The nation plunged into a somber mood when rapper Alex Murye Henry, famously known as Mantani Ov Hardlife Avenue Stars died on July 26, after sustaining gruesome injuries from horrendous road carnage in Uganda’s Moyo District two days prior.

Mantani’s death report sent a shockwave across South Sudan. His death did not interfere with the sounds of the instruments but it also inflicted pain in the hearts of relatives, friends, and family.

Social media platforms were awash by #MafiTani (no more). In him, the youth lost an inspiration, the music industry lost an icon, and humanitarian organizations miss a compassionate worker. Above all, Mantani’s family wishes the life of a breadwinner, a son, and a father is brought back – at least for one more time.

After fundraising and doing all that they can to save him from the life-threatening injuries, members of Mantani’s music group Hardlife Avenues Stars were left even more devastated.

But the compassion shown by musical fans, fellow celebrities, and South Sudanese in general enormously stood out when the musician’s body headed to Juba from Uganda.

An ambulance headed for Juba accompanied by commercial motorbike operators with leaf stash hardly found its way out of a weeping crowd in Nimule. The arrival of the body to South Sudan brought the capital Juba to a standstill. With the main bridge cleared for entry, bystanders wept as the body of the late crossed the outskirts of the capital.

“Mantani basically was such a good and nice person, humble, social, he was one person who was so caring and kind, very human, he related everybody young and old,” MC Lumoex, Mnatani’s manager described the late.

“We wants to make sure that he remained alive after getting that accident, we raised all the necessary money to cater for his medical bills hoping for the best to our brother but I think God loves him more than us and so we lost him,” he said with tears rolling down his cheeks.

Lumoex said the untimely death of Mantani left a void hard to be filled and that the musical legacy of the late would live to be remembered.

“He really contributed positively in the music industry, his loss is a very great loss to the country. He had the common status that everyone knows about him, such as he always felt good when others felt good, that is why we saw him as a good, loving person,” the manager mourned.

Peace ambassador

The late was not just a musician. He also worked as an advocate for peace in a refugee camp in Adjumani District in Uganda according to Lumoex.

“His mission was advising refugees in the camps to leave peacefully and advising them to come back home. He did all these through music.”

The manager said the death of Mantani should create a rift between the music industries from the two neighboring countries as initially perceived by many.

“I want to call upon the East African music fraternity to be calm. Though people are mourning in different ways, let this be something that can unite us as people of one region and continent, Africa,” he appealed.

Silver X, one of the most popular artists in the country said the late Mantani has shown dignity and love to everyone by being always humble to himself and others.

“I can say it is a very great loss to the industry, we actually pray that his soul rests in peace, and his love remains amongst South Sudan’s music industry and beyond. I want to call upon all the entertainers to keep calm, I know it is too painful to lose a loved one in an accident, something that we did not prepare for,” said the self-styled Ustaz ta Dunia.

Mantani was born on May 28 in 1992. He is the son of Henry Duku Elikana Malero of Kini Gopil of Bori and Betty Puru Ekilkana Jansuk of Nyawa Clan of Ka’bele.

In 2000, Mantani went to Masaloa Primary School in Lefori. From 2001 up to 2006 he managed to obtain his Primary Leaving Education Certificate from Koiba Primary School.

From 2007 up to 2010 he got his secondary school education in Uganda at Moyo Town Secondary School. The late Mantani also attended some training such music, computer, and business management and also production skills of household companies in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2019.

He got married to Winnie Kidden in 2015 and fathered one child named Juru Mercy.

As recent as 2021, Mantani worked as an Operation Field Manager for Kombo Company Limited to oversee the distribution of food relief to returnees and displaced persons in Kajo Keji.

He was also the Co-founder of the Hardlife Avenue Stars music crew in which he contributed to the first single titled Lost Culture. He was also an entrepreneur and founder of the M-Tani and Star liquid soap business.

According statue

A group of Musicians from the West Nile of Uganda has pledged to erect a statue of the late Mantani. The group has urged government officials to provide them with space where they could build Mantani’s statue in recognition of the good work he has done.

Muze Wakiraka the Representative of Musicians from the Western Nile of Uganda he says that their plan was to build that statue as a memorial statue.

“We wanted to build the statue in his memory because their young children who have known his music and also for people not to forget him. Besides, having that statue is a symbol and respect of his work,” he said.

[Reported by Bullen Alex and Sheila Ponnie]