NEEDED something therapeutic, I did. Fortunately, I got it.

For a moment, I forgot the horrific child rape judgments Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng delivered while he was a "senior" judge in the North West division.

For a moment, nightmares about the endorsement of a faulty judicial legacy that his pending elevation represents weresuspended.

His sudden rise that resulted in civil society groups unearthing his horrible judgments had made me feel the media was guilty of failing to report about those judgments when they were initiallydelivered.

Without overestimating the role of the media in assisting to deal with societal ills, I had recalled, with a sense of guilt, reading about a conversation between Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner in economics, and Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US's central bank.

Sen had told Greenspan: "In the terrible history of famines in the world, no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press. We cannot find exceptions to this rule, no matter where we look."

I had thought, if the media were vigilant enough about the goings-on in all courts in all dorpies and villages, we would have long known about Mogoeng's judgments. His problematic thoughts would have long been placed in public.

My therapeutic moment came when the Lucky Dube Band took the stage at Moretele Park in Mamelodi on Saturday night.

Earlier in the day, I had listened to Mogoeng trying to convince himself and fellow South Africans that he was the best judicial mind that this country had ever produced.

He consistently sought to convince himself and all of us that he is capable of being a leader among leading judges who, through their judgments, will be able to make the law that should be followed by the rest of the judiciary.

I had begun to review the bar that distinguishes excellence from mediocrity in this country. It needed some adjustments to remove the shock in me so that when Mogoeng is finally appointed, as he probably will, I will be ready to join in celebrating a truly South African achievement.

You just have to love our country's ability to spot talented leaders! As Archbishop Desmond Tutu would say in a different context, we are an amazing people. Really amazing.

So, when the Lucky Dube Band took to the stage, I witnessed a genuine legacy in action, a legacy to be proud of.

The enthusiasm with which people danced to Lucky Dube's classic tunes -Feel Irie, Racial Discrimination, Prisoner, among others - testified to a positive legacy Dube bequeathed. Here was a band replaying with precision - minus the original lead vocalist - Dube's uniquely South African reggae.

Revellers, including myself, could only reciprocate. The band got a resounding reception similar to, if not a little more than, that accorded to the legendary and forever youthful 70-something year-old Hugh Masekela.

The fact that the band has stayed united after merciless thugs robbed us of Dube's life is an indication of the bonds he created among its members.

It's a legacy of real leadership. The consistent theme of unity in diversity contained in his songs continues to resonate not only among his millions of fans, but also within his own band.

His political tunes aimed at the brutal apartheid regime are still sung with the same zeal as when they were back in the days when they were produced and topped the music charts. More significantly, unlike many Struggle songs which have since been vulgarised, with lyrics changed to insult present leaders, Dube's songs don't seem to lend themselves to such.

The background vocalists still do their thing - that which I remember seeing them do in Dube's DVD, recorded live in Uganda. The Moretele crowd responded the same way as the Ugandan crowd.

Dube was a truly international artist. In many music shops his albums are found in different categories - "reggae" and "world music". After he was killed, his obituary appeared in newspapers of international repute, including The Economist.

Well, some might correctly point out that many obituaries, including PW Botha's and Adolf Hitler's, had been published in international newspapers. So in itself it is not a credit. True. What matters is what is said in those obituaries.

Dube was always and correctly portrayed as a voice of reason pre-and post-apartheid. Moretele bore testimony to his enduring legacy.

Beyond the indelible mark he left behind through his music, spiced with skanking guitars and drums, Dube left behind, I hope I don't get into trouble for saying this, an extraordinarily beautiful daughter.

Bongi Dube briefly took part in the performance, unleashing a powerful rendition of a tribute to her father. He could have been a king born in a palace; to her, he was "my daddy". He could have been many things to many people; to her he was "my daddy".

Bongi's beauty, I concluded, must have radiated from her inside. And she was right, Dube meant many things to many people, but they all were united by his messages of unity.

After the show I returned to the real world, the depressing world of Mogoeng. During his unprecedented interview that lasted for two days, Mogoeng conceded that he erred in not giving reasons for his dissent in one case. I wondered if he understood what that implied.

He spoke about how proud he was to implement an apartheid-era law which required the execution of people. I wondered whether he had thought about freedom fighters who were executed for reasons that were presented asnon-political.

He conceded that he didn't follow the law in one of his horrible rape judgments. I wondered whether that was a sign of things to come.

In his self-justification exercise, Mogoeng even quoted from certain practices of repressive regimes like Singapore.

I wondered what he thought about the political civilisation project this country embarked upon in 1994.

I wanted to return to Moretele.

• Mkhabela is the Editor of Sowetan