CBI News pays special tribute to a global icon whose music touched millions of people across Africa

There are artists whose music entertains us, artists whose music defines an era, and then there are those whose music somehow becomes part of the emotional vocabulary of generations.

Dolly Parton belonged to that rarest category.

Her passing at the age of 80 on August 25, 2026, brings to an end the earthly journey of one of the most extraordinary singer-songwriters, entertainers and humanitarians the world has known. But for millions across Africa, this is not simply the loss of an American country music legend. It is the farewell to a familiar voice whose songs travelled far beyond the Appalachian hills of Tennessee to find remarkably receptive audiences on a continent thousands of miles away.

She was born into poverty in rural Tennessee, one of 12 children. Yet from those modest beginnings emerged a songwriter whose words would eventually be sung by people in virtually every corner of the world. Her own life became a testimony to perseverance, imagination and self-belief.

There is something particularly African about that story.

Across Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and many other parts of the continent, stories of people rising from difficult circumstances to achieve greatness have always carried enormous emotional resonance. Dolly's story therefore felt familiar, even though her landscape was different.

Dolly Parton was in the truest sense a global artist.

Her music may have been rooted in country, but her stories were universal. Love, heartbreak, ambition, disappointment, resilience, poverty, hope and the struggle to make something meaningful out of life are not exclusively American experiences. They are human experiences and Africans understood them.

That perhaps explains why Dolly Parton's music found such enduring resonance across Africa.For many Africans, Dolly was more than the woman with the glossy blonde hair, rhinestone costumes and unmistakable Tennessee accent. She represented something deeper: the possibility of transforming humble beginnings into extraordinary achievement without losing one's humanity along the way.

Few songs demonstrate her songwriting genius better than “I Will Always Love You". Parton wrote it in 1973 as a farewell to Porter Wagoner when she decided to leave their professional partnership and pursue her solo career. It became a country hit in Parton's own voice before Whitney Houston's spectacular 1992 rendition transformed it into one of the biggest songs in pop music history. Dolly Parton earned about $10M in royalties from Whitney Houston's cover of the hit song and invested the money in a predominantly African -American neighbourhood in Nashville to support the local community

In Africa, where Whitney Houston herself remains enormously beloved, that connection made Dolly's songwriting legacy even more visible.

Many Africans who knew Whitney's version eventually discovered the woman who wrote the song.

And what they discovered was not simply another singer.

They discovered Dolly.

The actress.

The businesswoman.

The philanthropist.

The entrepreneur.

The fiercely independent woman who built an entertainment empire while remaining remarkably comfortable with her roots.

The humanitarian who established the Imagination Library, a literacy initiative that has distributed hundreds of millions of books to children around the world. Africa is the world's youngest continent, with education, literacy and access to books remaining critical development priorities. Dolly's belief that giving a child a book can change the trajectory of that child's life was therefore a message with enormous relevance beyond America.

This is perhaps where Dolly's legacy becomes even more significant for Africa. For a continent that has embraced her music across generations, Dolly Parton's passing is a reminder that cultural influence does not respect geography. A little girl from the Tennessee mountains could write songs that eventually found their way into homes, radios, churches, cars and hearts thousands of miles away in Africa.

That is the extraordinary power of music.

And that is the extraordinary legacy of Dolly Parton.

Her philanthropy demonstrated that celebrity is most valuable when it is converted into social impact.

Dolly Parton understood that.

She transformed it into art.

She transformed it into enterprise.

And ultimately, she transformed it into a source of inspiration for millions.

That is a lesson Africa understands particularly well.

From Lagos to Johannesburg, Accra to Nairobi, Cairo to Cape Town, generations of Africans have grown up listening to Western music alongside their own local sounds. Dolly's songs occupied a distinctive place in that enormous international musical tapestry. This writer is among millions of African youths who grew up with Dolly Parton's music playing in their households.

Her voice may have emerged from the American South, but her songs travelled.

And they travelled because people recognized themselves in them.

That is the ultimate measure of an artist.

It is the ability to make a stranger, thousands of miles away, feel that you understand something about their life.

Dolly Parton possessed that gift.

Her extraordinary catalogue of over 3,000 songs included “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “Here You Come Again” and, perhaps most famously, “I Will Always Love You.” ,tracks which gave the world permission to feel, to laugh, to cry, to dream, to remember where we came from and to believe that where we began does not have to determine where we end.

“9 to 5,” for instance, was ostensibly about the frustrations of the American workplace. Yet its central themes, hard work, economic pressure, dignity and the desire for a better life are universal. The song became a major international success and even reached the Top 10 in South Africa.

Dolly demonstrated that music does not have to sound African to speak to Africans. It does not have to be Afrobeats, highlife, juju, soukous or amapiano to cross the continent's cultural borders.

Whether singing about a woman named Jolene threatening to take away the man she loved, remembering the childhood coat her mother made from scraps of fabric, or bidding an emotional farewell to a professional partner, Dolly had an uncanny ability to turn ordinary human experiences into unforgettable stories.

That storytelling gift is one reason her music has remained relevant across generations.

It is also why her influence extends beyond the records she made herself.

Her remarkable career earned her 11 Grammy Awards, over 100 million album sales world wide membership of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and recognition across music, film, television and philanthropy.

Yet perhaps the most fitting tribute to Dolly is not an award or statistic.

It is THAT song.

“I Will Always Love You.”

With her passing those words now have universal poignancy.

Africa listened.

Africa sang along.

And Africa will remember her.

So, from Africa, we say goodbye, not simply to the Queen of Country Music, but to a storyteller, songwriter, humanitarian and global cultural icon.

Dolly, we will always love you.