JOHANNESBURG — Three men accused of murdering the South African reggae star Lucky Dube were found guilty here on Tuesday, just hours after two of them tried to bolt from custody on the way back to their trial.

Mr. Dube (pronounced doo-bay) was an internationally famous musician, and his murder during a botched carjacking in October 2007 once again brought the appalling rate of violent crime in South Africa to the world’s attention.

A recording artist with a strong social conscience, Mr. Dube, 43, had worked with Peter Gabriel, Sinead O’Connor and other Western artists. He often sang about the evils of crime, of houses broken into and bullets fired, wanting criminals to see their misdeeds through the eyes of their victims. He was killed while dropping off his two teenage children at his brother’s house in Rosettenville, near downtown Johannesburg.

Mr. Dube left behind a wife and seven children. After Tuesday’s verdict was read, his wife was too emotional to talk with reporters, but his son Thokozani, who had witnessed the crime, said, “We can now have closure.”

More than a dozen armed officers oversaw the proceedings after two of the defendants earlier tried to escape while guards transferred them from a truck to the courtroom basement. One prisoner hit a policeman in the face with a brick, according to a police captain quoted in a local news account of the episode. Warning shots were then fired, and the defendants were subdued in a scuffle. They arrived in court with their heads bandaged.

The three convicted men, S’fiso Mhlanga, Mbuti Mabe and Julius Gxowa, will be sentenced after a hearing where mitigating evidence can be presented. The death penalty has been banned in South Africa, though the Dube case has been cited by those who want its return.

The nation’s homicide rate, while declining, is among the worst. In 2006, it was about eight times more than the United States’ and 20 times higher than Western Europe’s, according to Antony Altbeker, a criminologist. Electrified barbed wire surrounds many of the finest homes in Johannesburg. South Africa exceeds international norms in its number of police officers, and by some estimates there are more than four times as many private security guards as police officers, with most companies promising their clients “armed response.”

Criminologists have long puzzled over not only the nation’s high crime rate but also the unusual amount of homicide and torture that accompanies burglaries and carjackings.

Mr. Dube had been driving a late-model Chrysler luxury sedan. According to the trial testimony of Mpho Maruping, who knew the accused men, they had been looking for just such an automobile the day of the crime.

The three men did not realize that they had killed someone both famous and widely beloved until they read the newspapers the next day. They had thought their victim “was a Nigerian,” Ms. Maruping said.

The mood was jubilant at S.O.B.’s on Tuesday, even as the night dragged on without any sign of Mavado, the dancehall reggae star who was supposed to be there celebrating the release of his second album, “Mr. Brooks … a better tomorrow” (VP).

The Hot 97 radio personality Jabba was warming up the increasingly restless crowd, chatting about things he didn’t like (the New York Police Departmentement mayor) and things he did (smoking weed, seeing “big mamas” dance). When a meek-looking record-label employee offered copies of Mavado’s album for sale, Jabba jokingly encouraged people not to rob him.

On the whole it was an optimistic room for Mavado, whose 2007 debut album, “Gangsta for Life: The Symphony of David Brooks,” had the unmistakable stench of death about it. One of the most promising dancehall debuts of the last few years, “Gangsta” showcases a bulbous, throbbing voice equally indebted to war cries and devotional singing.

His new album couches its tragedy in slightly warmer arrangements, a concession, perhaps, to Mavado’s ascending star. In the last two years he has collaborated with G-Unit and Jay-Z.

At S.O.B.’s, he arrived with a bandwagon, which almost collapsed for all the weight on it. Mavado’s mentor, the dancehall superstar Bounty Killer, came onstage early in the set and periodically ate up large swaths of it, his natural charisma too large for the room. Tony Matterhorn displayed an easy way with melody. Wyclef Jean rapped in English, badly, and in Japanese,

amusingly (and also badly). The longtime pop-reggae star Shaggy performed approximately four seconds of “Boombastic,” his first hit, wisely understanding this wasn’t a room that wanted to hear much more. The Brooklyn rapper Uncle Murda performed a bit of his song “Murdera,” which takes its hook from Ini Kamoze’s crossover hit “Here Comes the Hotstepper.”

With a pronounced forehead, wide-set, deeply sad eyes and a modest demeanor, Mavado didn’t always stand out in this crowd. He’s best when incensed or malevolent, but here he caught the wave of good cheer, seeming more at home in bawdy material like “In Di Car Back” than in his darker work. (“Weh Dem a Do,” his signature song, passed by in a flash, though “On the Rock” had the appropriate mix of gloom and triumph.) In the middle of “So Special,” his latest deceptively soft hit, he switched over to “No Games,” the pleading reggae-soul number by the singer Serani, who had opened the show with a manic set, and who joined Mavado throughout the night.

Serani sings plaintive vocals on one of Mavado’s starkest songs, “Dying,” performed here twice, and he joined in on Mavado’s new single, “Again and Again.”

With eyes closed, Mavado sang: “No rest, forever weary/ My eyes stay blurry from my friends that I bury in the cemetery.” Finally, the room hushed up.