For South African Johnny Clegg, music is a road to racial harmony

Johnny Clegg never planned to be a revolutionary. He simply wanted to perform the music he loved, and what he loved were the Zulu rhythms he heard as a child in South Africa.

"I was learning classical Spanish guitar music, and I was learning a picking style. By chance, I met a street musician outside of a cafe, and I saw his guitar was tuned differently and was being picked differently," Clegg says. "I intuited that the guitar had been Africanized, and for me that was an important moment. Classical guitars are designed to do a certain job, and here was a guy with a guitar who had deconstructed it. I was absolutely intrigued."

That meeting between Clegg, British-born and white, and the street musician, a black South African named Charlie Mzila, led to Clegg's adoration of traditional Zulu music. Most important, it paved the way for Juluka, their nation's first multiracial band, with Clegg and fellow musician Sipho Mchunu, a black South African, at a time when their country was fractured by apartheid.

Years later, Clegg is still considered one of South Africa's seminal artists and is also credited with using his music to spread messages of racial harmony. He is scheduled to perform tonight at 8, with the Johnny Clegg Band, at the Berklee Performance Center.

Outside of South Africa, it was this nation's rich music, often with a political edge, that first enlightened many to the racist apartheid regime, which was finally dismantled in 1994. Some became involved with activist movements in the United States after seeing such videos as the Special AKA's "Free Nelson Mandela" and Clegg's "Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World" on MTV, a song recorded with Savuka, his band from the '80s and '90s.

Yet it was his first band, Juluka, which gave Clegg his enduring musical legacy.

"He put a face on the positive possibilities of white and black relationships in South Africa, demonstrating that not all white South Africans were racist," said Jacob Edgar, vice president of A&R at Putumayo World Music, which has released several Clegg compilations and collections featuring his music. "Juluka stood for more than just its music. Its music was catchy and really accessible, but you also had this image of these two people in Juluka from such different backgrounds, creating beautiful music together. It was groundbreaking, and that image meant a lot to a lot of people."

In the late 1960s, Clegg became Mzila's musical apprentice, and the older man taught the eager teenager about Zulu music and traditional Inhlangwini dancing, characterized by aggressive high kicks. Soon, Clegg met Mchunu, a guitarist and street musician.

Mchunu was a little suspicious of this young white man so enamored of Zulu traditions.

"I was open to anybody and everybody, but he didn't know where I was coming from," Clegg said. "He saw me dancing, he saw me playing guitar, and he saw me mixing with all these people. But he then realized I loved the music, and we would play and dance for hours."

Clegg remained a fixture in the black townships, even after he was arrested and threatened with deportation for spending time in black-designated areas without official government permission.

"We [Clegg and Mchunu] had a lot of problems just being together," he said. "We became quite adept at getting through the system as youngsters. Apartheid for us was like a fence, and we never initially questioned the fence. When I went to university, I started to say, `Why is it like this, why is this fence constructed like this?' "

In 1979, Clegg and Mchunu recorded their first album, "Universal Men," blending African and Western music. Banned on South African radio stations, it became a word-of-mouth hit. Before parting ways in 1985, Juluka garnered seven gold and platinum albums.

Clegg, 51, will perform songs associated with both Juluka and Savuka, and he still wants his audiences to experience what he first found as a teenager in the rural black townships of South Africa -- "cultural crossover." "I like the idea of people who are interested in the voice of the other, the voice that comes from another place and constructs melodies and harmonies in a different way," he says. "The world is more open, and people are more open to hybridized music, and that's what I do."

Johnny Clegg performs at the Berklee Performance Center tonight at 8. Tickets $37, $32, $28. Call 617-876-4275.