Bubblegum Club

Author: Bob Perfect

  • The Emotional Electronica of Rose Bonica

    Rose Bonica is a relatively new name on the 4/4 dancefloor but one that is steadily building, beat after beat, layer after layer. She hasn’t had much press (until now) but she’s been put on by artists who know their shit, like Jumping Back Slash, and has put out some enchanting and hypnotic releases worthy of your time (One of which is the live mix she did for JBS). I got to Skype the producer/quite-a-few-things just after she returned from the from the Wet Dreams compilation launch in Jozi (in association with this fine publication). “It was a cool turn out, the bar didn’t have a card machine though.” She jokingly nitpicks when I ask how it went.

    Rose Bonica, real name Natalie Rose Perel, is a bit of a perfectionist and comes across as hyper-aware, but also candid and open. She’s dabbled in a few things, like, she has her honours in video editing and learned to code so she could work on her dad’s company’s website, but it’s with music that she’s finding a way to express herself. “I’m an emotional person,” she explains, “But only in the last 2 years have I really been a bit more open. Although I’m emotional, I’m very, you know, just put a smile on my face and move on. I guess not a lot of people very close to me know what I’m feeling, but music’s helping me with that.”

    Personally, I find it harder to connect emotionally with house and techno music, but Rose explained how she expresses herself through sampling,”I think it’s the sampling aspect of music, how you can use samples and how that can be your story. I always found in editing, what always carried a film or a video or anything was the music behind it. You could change the mood by changing the music behind it. When I was watching Montle make music, which is what made me want to try, he’s also very expressive, the way he makes his songs is storytelling. Chopping samples together you can literally show someone who you are, and I think that that’s what I want from Rose Bonica.”

    Montle aka Big Space is Rose’s boyfriend and watching him create music is what sparked her interest in music. “I didn’t even really listen to music before I started making it,” she says jokingly, but not as a joke. Montle is also the reason why she has had some doors open for her. “I definitely was lucky in that I had a jump start being with Montle and having access to his connections that he already had. Nepotism, for once, has actually worked in my favour. But I do know that the people who have been backing me and what I’ve been doing- most of them are 40 year old men who, if they didn’t like something, wouldn’t support it.”

    The thing is, whilst Montle has helped open some doors, others have closed because some people think Montle is making Rose’s music. “I know a lot of people, at least in Cape Town, think Montle is my ghostwriter, which kinda blows my mind seeing as I’ve used computers all my life. It’s not actually that hard, most electronic “musicians”, producers, aren’t musicians, they’re not trained, like, at all. I think that could be something else. It’s quite a common thing I think, with women, is men are always waiting for you to be exposed by playing premixes.”

    Now I can’t tell if Rose is making her own music all the way from my flat in Umbilo, but if she got booked to play live more, she could show what she’s made of. “I was booked over woman’s day week,” she tells me when I ask if she plays live much. “That sounds like tokenism,” I reply. She laughs, “And by female bookers. So I played 3 gigs in 1 week, it was quite amazing, it was really fun, I would love to play again.”

    It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster for Rose since she’s started making music. Whilst jaded 40-year-olds are putting her on, cynical youth are blocking her from making moves. That just means that Rose will have to find ways to change things and put herself on, which, after the Wet Dreams launch, is exactly what she plans on doing “I’m thinking of actually trying to make a change  because I know in life that you can’t expect things to change unless you change them yourself.”

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  • Zakifo: A Different Kind of South African Music Festival

    If you’re tired of going to music festivals with 37 different versions of Shortstraw, or if you’re tired of 40 straight hours of trance being called a music festival, you should check out Zakifo, an actual music festival. Now in it’s third year, Zakifo has found it’s feet and it’s voice as a uniquely curated international buffet of music, held in Durban of all places. If you’re not a Durbanite, you probably haven’t been before, but with Damian “Jr Gong” Marley as this year’s headliner, chances are that might change. While the first 2 editions of the festival provided a broad sonic pallet from around the world, they lacked the support they deserved because they lacked that universally known draw card that helps build critical mass. There aren’t many artists as universally known, and loved, as Bob Marley’s youngest son. It’s a monster booking that has generated hype for the young and ambitious festival, but is not all they have on offer. For those of you making your way to Durban from the 26th to the 28th of May, you’re in for a real treat.

    Let me be clear, Zakifo has been a vibe from the start. The first year was a weekend long street party outside the Rivertown Beerhall. It was ambitious in its scope, with 2 stages and a lineup that probably would have drawn better in other cities, but still managed to get most of Durban’s creative community dancing in the streets. We’re talking Mi Casa, Make-Overs, The Soil, Felix Laband, Madala Kunene, Christian Tiger School,  Durban acts like The Wolfpack, Veranda Panda and Raheem Kemet (All as they were making names for themselves on radio), and an international lineup that featured artists from France, Reunion Island, Mozambique and my favourite act of the weekend, the enchanting Flaviah Coelho from Brazil. Sounds like a good time, right? It was, you should have been there.

    Last year, they scaled up yet again, with 3 stages at the old Natal Command. A music festival on land that used to be a military base feels like a small symbolic victory for the arts. They bumped up the international acts and audiences got more than they bargained for from the likes of Ghanaian-American Blitz The Ambassador, Too Many Zooz from New York, Mali’s Songhoy Blues, Estere from New Zealand, and the SA contingent of Moonchild, Maramza, aKing, Tidal Waves BCUC,Gigi Lamayne… it goes on for a while. The booking for Zakifo has been on point and unlike any other festival in South Africa. You may not recognise all of them, but you don’t see too many of the names on Zakifo’s lineup on other SA festival bills, and therein lies its value. You’re not going to see anything else like it.

    Zakifo is an ambitious festival and this looks to be be the year that ambition pays off. While Damien Marley is a superstar booking that has given the festival more visibility, the rest of the lineup is on the level with some of the coolest festivals in the world. Birdy Nam Nam are the 2002 DMC World Team Champs and all around French electro legends, but you probably recognise their name from working with A$AP Rocky and Skrillex on Wild For The Night. Tiggs Da Author’s ‘Run’ will be familiar to FIFA fans, but most notably, the video, which is now on over 2 million views, was shot in South Africa using the talents of local drifters. London’s Nova Twins are bad bitches who play “urban-punk”- bass-laden post-punk that sounds like Guano Apes after listening to Death Grips. The South African contingent this year is also phenomenal, there are the legends in the form of Ray Phiri and Thandiswa Mazwai,  the inspiring Bongeziwe Mabandla (who we’ve interviewed before), the phenomenal Petite Noir, and a cappella group The Soil, who hold the honour of being the first act to perform at Zakifo twice.

    While the South African music festival has mostly become known for giving international indie and alt-rock acts a pay day once they’ve lost relevancy, festivals like Zakifo (and AfroPunk) are booking acts that are current as fuck and that appeal to more than just the privileged white kid demographic. Things have felt a bit stale on the SA festival circuit for a while now- repetitive lineups of 70% white boys backed by an international headliner just doesn’t really cut it anymore. I don’t doubt that Oppikoppi and Rocking The Daisies teaming up this year is because of “The Rand”, but you have to look at their lineups over the last few years and ask: How does this appeal to most South Africans? I can’t imagine things getting any easier for festivals like Oppi and RTD with more and more viable competition popping up. Competition that offers something unique, whilst they’re sharing headliners. With AfroPunk coming out of the gates swinging, and Zakifo building on its solid foundation, South Africans have more choices where to spend their annual festival budget and more opportunities to experience something different, something that actually feels South African.

  • Otarel Seeks Balance Through Her Raps

    In the current era of hip-hop, it says something about a rapper when they approach Ready D to mix and scratch on their mixtape. It says they know and respect the history of their craft. It says they’re not trying to do what everyone else is currently doing. It says they rate themselves enough to ask a legend to put their name behind their talent. But what does it say when a hip-hop legend like Ready D agrees to work with that rapper? It says that you should probably give them a listen.

    Otarel’s debut release, ‘Dirty All Stars’, has to be a SA Hip-Hop Awards contender for Mixtape of the Year. Not just because Ready D put his deft touch on it, but because Otarel can R-A-P better than your fav. In a time where hooks typically outweigh lyricism, and the combo a rapper wears is more important than what they have to say, Otarel takes it back to the days where knowledge reigned supreme over nearly everyone with boom-bap and jazz influenced beats. I asked her how she navigates being a lyrical rapper in the era of the hook, expecting her to knock those who put more effort into one line than the rest of the song, instead she told me “I always seek balance. I’ve been rapping for 13 odd years and it’s taken me this long to release something that is mine because I needed to perfect a certain style that merges the hooks with the lyrical aspect, and I am still fine tuning it. I mean, we can’t stop a genre from expanding just because we have mastered a particular sound within it.” Fair enough. Hip-hop has been expanding since Day 1 and those who don’t adapt, die. Otarel knows this, “Adaptability is the MCee’s most important tool, as long as he can attain it without compromising themselves or their desires. I used to hate it though, ‘cause I know that that’s not all that hip-hop comprises of, and it dilutes the flexibility of an artist, but if an MCee wants to attract the ears of the people then it’s a good quality to have, balance.”

    ‘Dirty All Stars’ is a balanced release. At times Otarel comes across as the toughest woman in the world, at other times, her edges get sanded down and her soul is laid bare. “The toughness comes from being around dudes a lot, ne?” She explains, “I did a lot of sports growing up, I was tomboyish so I hardly had a lot of female friends, and I was raised by a strong willed single parent who never showed weakness unless she felt it was going to teach us something about humanity. Plus she whipped our asses if we fucked up, so that contributed. At some stage I got bullied in primary school, and had to do karate to build self defense, but as I grew up, I sort of toned down on the hardness cause it was no longer necessary and I just kept the bits so I could protect me against preying dudes in hip-hop.”

    Being a woman in hip-hop can’t be easy, I asked Otarel how the industry treats her as a female rapper, she laughed and told me, “Like I wear too much clothing and too little make up (laughs). I have had an experience where organizers would rather book a talentless hack, just because she semi-dresses, over me, because I just have too much to say and won’t fuck him for a slot on a non paying event. Imagine (laughs). But that’s why I have a manager person. He knows where I knock ‘em dead in terms of appeal and I am pretty good at what I do, which is the most important factor in a long lasting music career.”

    While she has to be tough to survive in a male-dominated industry, it’s her sensitive side that balances out Otarel’s sound and gives her an edge over her male counterparts. When I enquired how important it is for artists to be emotionally open with their work, Otarel explained, “Vital. Writing from the heart and from experience is what makes a person be able to relate to you as an artist. Having the ability to connect with a person simply because you are open to feeling. A lot of music now is based on energy and words, where the focus is on what’s being said instead of the emotional capacity of the music and  how it makes a person feel through the content and the expressions and the production as a whole.”

    It’s wild to think that Otarel has been rapping for 13 years yet this is her first release. It’s why ‘Dirty All Stars’ comes across as way more mature than your traditional debut. Nobody wants to put in their 10, 000 hours anymore and it’s lead to wack shit dominating the airwaves. I guess that’s why Otarel’s mixtape is so refreshing, you can hear that it’s a well developed piece of art that came from years of hard work, struggle and sacrifice. If you’re tired of hearing the same old shit from kids who don’t know shit, get an education in hip-hop and life from Otarel.

  • Go with Flohio

    UK MCs are straight up killing the game at the moment. Literally everyone has heard of Skepta and the Boys Better Know crew, Stormzy’s ‘Big For Your Boots’ just hit 23 million views in under 3 months, and for those of you who have been sleeping, we recently introduced you to Lady Leshurr. Whilst their American counterparts are mumbling through hooks, Brits are bringing the fear back to rap with grit, grime and in the case of Flohio, ‘Dirt’.

    ‘Dirt’ is the latest single from the 22-year-old rapper representing south London’s TruLuvCru. It’s a menacing yet uplifting track from a woman who sounds like she could mug you, but instead actually works as a graphic designer when she’s not rapping. Originally from Nigeria, Flohio found her love for rapping when her family moved to south-east London. Judging from the chorus, ‘Dirt’ is an ode to growing up in the south and the spirit of those streets instilled in her. “You can tell by the way that I get back up// Been pushed down but I never got stuck // Dropped out of class, still classy” she spits with conviction over a minimalist industrial type beat that Kanye would be into.

    At the end of the day, the song is about rising above your circumstances. Something many rappers have touched on over the years, but Flohio does it with a lot more conviction than most. She’s a straight-talker and there’s a ferocity to the way she raps that makes me believe her. While south London is half a world away from South Africa, there’s a relatability to ‘Dirt’ that almost anyone will get. I mean, who hasn’t fallen and gotten back up? If you’re currently down in the doldrums, and you need a little help, maybe ‘Dirt’ could be your Rocky montage music out of it?

    Check out her powerful live performance of ‘Dirt’ for Noisey’s “The New Breed”.

    And here’s the studio version.

  • Lady Leshurr is Coming for the Throne

    You know how Kanye has said that he knew when he wrote the line “light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson” on “Slow Jamz” that he was going to be a big star? When I heard “I’ve got a dark skin friend that looks like Rachel Dolezal, And I’ve got a light skin friend that looks like Rachel Dolezal,” on Queen’s Speech 4, I knew the same would be true of Lady Leshurr.

    The 28-year-old British rapper has risen/is rising (depending on if you’ve heard of her, I guess) through her punchy series of 6 freestyles titled The Queen’s Speech, each of which is accompanied by a single shot music video. The speeches are full of put-downs, pop-culture references, hygiene tips, British slang and visual wordplay that deftly straddles the line of fresh and cheesy. If you’ve been out on the jol and you’ve heard hooks like “That’s nasty, change your panties” or the succinct “Brush your teeth” in a thick Birmingham accent, that was Lady Leshurr. There’s a playful meanness to Lady Leshurr’s raps that would qualify her for the dais of any roast or as a guest on the now defunct Nevermind The Buzzcocks.

    The rapper has been putting out mixtapes and EPs as Lady Leshurr officially since 2009 but apparently dropped her first tape when she was just 14. After 14 years of working on her craft, Lady Leshurr is finally working on her first album with a truly impressive team of producers. We’re talking about the likes of Deputy (Bitch Better Have My Money), Bangladesh (A Milli, Video Phone) and Timbaland (everything in the 2000s), so if you hadn’t heard of the queen before today, it’s only a matter of time before you hear her everywhere. When exactly? I’m not sure. Her social media says she has a new single called “Juice” coming out “soon”, as well an EP called “Mode”, also coming out “soon”. So, it shouldn’t be too long after that she drops her debut full length. Until then though, you have 9 mixtapes and 4 EPs to get you up-to-date with the queen of the British rap scene. Trust me, this is one of those times you’re going to want to do your homework.

     

  • Sibot dishes out an “L”

    L is for love, or in the Facebook era, a like. If you’re a Scott Pilgrim fan, L is for lesbians. L is for lush or libations if you’re a bit of a drinker. To a cartographer, L is for latitude and longitude. For social media managers looking to hit that millennial market, L is for lit. L is for the lavish lifestyles presented to us by pop stars. L is whatever you make it, but in Sibot’s case, I think it probably stands for legend.

    I remember the first time I heard a Sibot track. It was on one of the old SL compilation CDs from back when print wasn’t dead. Those CDs held a lot of gems back in the day, even if they did put out Candice Hillebrand’s first single they also put out a version of Sibot and Watkin Tudor Jones’ ‘Super Evil’ that, to my knowledge, was never officially released. I’d never heard anything so fresh. While Waddy’s “kreepy-krawly” line still cracks me to this day, that beat is infectious and experimental as fuck. This was like 12/14 years ago. A year or so later, after a late night LAN party, I found myself with a folder labeled “the fantastic kill” with no track titles, but after clicking play, I immediately knew who I was dealing with. It was on that album I was introduced to Spoek Mathambo and it was from there that I’d follow everything Sibot, Watkin Tudor Jones and Spoek Mathambo did.

    Sibot has continued to grow as a producer, putting out an impressive body of work and developing one of the best live shows in the country. With Toyota on visuals, it’s an unrivaled onslaught of sight and sound. Mswenkofontein was probably his biggest track in recent years but he’s put out a few noteworthy releases, 2013’s “Magnetic Jam” was put out by Mad Decent, Red Bull Music picked up “Arc-Eyes” and last year he dropped “new age kwaito 2010” on his ace. Each release unique in sound and direction, each still coated with Sibot’s signature bass tones.

    His latest project is an album he’s releasing as four EPs called “V.L.D.T”. The tracks on the EPs are numbered where they are on the album and once all four are out, you can piece them together as one body of work. It’s a unique way to put out a project and gives Sibot an opportunity to highlight the different aspects of the album before people get to hear it as a whole. The first was put out a few months ago, It’s called “V” and it’s mostly in the Arc-Eyes/Magnetic Jam sphere, we’re talking heavy beats broken up and smashed together, but his upcoming EP, “L”, is closer to “new age kwaito” and sees Sibot playing in the 4/4 realm as he flexes his techno and house skills.

    The new EP, or the second part of the album, is notably different from what we’re used to from Sibot. Instead of flinging my body around the room and getting whiplash from whipping my hair back and forth, I find myself swaying from side to side, head bopping and shoulders shrugging to the hypnotic beats. “L” feels like a futuristic throwback that reminds me of sliding around club dancefloors in the mid-2000s. I’ve often prefered the heaviness and discombobulating beats behind Sibot’s music, but “L” is welcome relief to the usual chaos and an expertly crafted release that shows the production range the pioneer is capable of.

    “L” comes out on the 11th of April and adds 3 dynamic tracks to any adventurous house/techno DJ’s arsenal. It’s certainly not what you’d expect, or at least, not what I expected, but by now we should know to expect the unexpected from the local legend. I’m intrigued to hear the next 2 releases after “L” and see how the whole album fits together once it’s all out there. We’re only half-way through it’s release but V.L.D.T is shaping up to be Sibot’s most dynamic and diverse project to date. If you’re looking for something different from one of SA’s stalwarts of electronic music, check out Sibot’s soundcloud on the 11th of April.

  • Bongeziwe Mabandla aims to Inspire with Mangaliso

    5 years after releasing his critically acclaimed debut album Umlilo, Bongeziwe Mabandla is back from touring the world and the SAMA nominated afro-folk musician is eager for you to hear his sophomore offering, Mangaliso. Mangaliso means “marvel” or “miracle” in Xhosa and it’s meant to represent the highs and lows Bongeziwe has experienced since his last release.

    Like many South African artists who go against the grain, Bongeziwe has had to venture overseas to find audiences who appreciate his art. Some of his best gigs have been in Canada, Australia, and Japan. I asked him how the love compares at home to overseas. “I find that sometimes there’s a bigger appreciation in other places for the kind of music I do. I mean, it’s kind of refreshing, you know? The difference I find when I play in Joburg or South Africa, I’m always trying to convince people, a lot, about the kind of work I’m doing. Whereas I find that people are more open to the kind of sound that I’m bringing in Canada. It’s such a folk music kind of country.” But being away from home is tough and some of the lowest moments for Bongeziwe were “being away for so long and not having the right opportunity to make new music.”

    With Mangaliso, Bongeziwe certainly has had the right opportunity to make new music. Bongeziwe has signed to Universal and teamed up with Tiago, you know, the legend from 340ml and Tumi and The Volume, on production (Spoek Mathambo is the lone feature). For a young musician, an opportunity to work with someone so talented and experienced is a game changer. I enquired about the process and what it was like working with Tiago, “I had these songs written on guitar, very much in a folk type of space, so when I met with Tiago, we wanted to make them more interesting and more to what the world is kind of doing at this point in time. Kind of mixing genres, a very folk sound with a very urban, electro, hip-hop sound. He’s such a creative and hardworking guy and he puts those kinds of aspects in me. Getting to work with him was very exciting. As soon as we started to work on the songs, we knew that there was something special in the studio.”

    Growing up being inspired by the likes of Tracy Chapman and Jabu Khanyile, Bongeziwe aims to do the same with his own music. “I guess, you know, the kind of music I listen to has always been inspiration music, and so I wanted to have something like that in my music. Music is about storytelling and very much about figuring life out and understanding life better, so I’ve always wanted to do that with music,” he explains. “As I grow older, I understand life better, I understand myself better and I always try and put those life lessons and what I know about the world into my music.”

    Since Bongeziwe wants to inspire others, I asked what inspires him? “I’m inspired by everyday situations. I don’t think inspiration is something specific. Sometimes you’ll hear something, like somebody speaking to another person, so it’s kind of, hard to be specific. But I’m really inspired by hopeful stories, by resilience, and specifically for this album, I was very inspired by people that are able to shift their life directions and change their circumstances.”

    While I don’t understand Xhosa, after listening to Bongeziwe’s music, reading translated lyrics and chatting to him, I got the feeling that there are spiritual aspects to his music so I asked him about it, “Yeah, definitely, especially this album. This whole album is very much about the spiritual revival I’ve gone through in the past two years, trying to search within myself and to look for answers in a much deeper way. So definitely that came into the music. It’s what’s really inspired this new album.”

    His first single off the new album, Ndokulandela, is a testament to this.  “The song is very special and I guess the best way I can explain it is that it’s about starting afresh.” Ndokulandela means “I will follow you”, and the song is written about Bongeziwe’s own life and the kind of direction where he wants to go when starting a new journey.

    Bongeziwe starts a new journey on the 5th of May as he releases Mangaliso. The realease will see Bongeziwe touring his new live show with a new band on the festival circuit in Africa and later Europe. Thankfully there are festivals like Sakifo, Bushfire, and Zakifo in Southern Africa that cater to alternative artists like Bongeziwe, and slowly but surely other bookers are catching on, but the industry is still lacking in its support of these artists. I asked Bongeziwe what he’d like to change in the industry and he told me “I think what I find is lacking in South African music is that music is often viewed in one way. That it should always be dancey and loud, but it would be great to understand that there’s different music for different situations. People do not just have one emotion. I think we should be open enough to understand different genres and understand more different styles of music.” I can’t help but agree.

    Towards the end of our Skype session, I asked Bongeziwe what he wants people to take from Mangaliso? “The last thing is that the album is really about hope and finding the sense of hope within us that sometimes can disappear. It’s about keeping it alive. That’s the kind of message I want.”

    bongeziwe x bubblegum club

     

  • Everybody knows but nobody talks

    “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

    Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

    Everybody knows that the war is over

    Everybody knows the good guys lost

    Everybody knows the fight was fixed

    The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

    That’s how it goes

    Everybody knows.”

    Everybody Knows – Leonard Cohen.

    Last week Saturday, Riky Rick, in his acceptance speech for winning best single at The Metro FM  Music Awards, gave a shout out to “all the kids who couldn’t get their songs on radio because they don’t have enough money, to all the kids who make music videos that never get their music videos on TV because they don’t have the money.” He then followed up by  saying “There’s a lot of people who are struggling to put out music in this country and I feel like there are too many structures that are blocking people from putting out the dopest music. 90% of the shit I hear on radio is garbage. The stuff is living on the Internet, everything is living on the internet right now. So if you’re a kid, and you’re watching this right now, forget radio. If they don’t let you play on radio, you better go to the internet  and make your songs pop on the internet.” It was at this point that Riky’s mic got cut off.

    Riky then took twitter with “STOP PLAYING WITH THE PEOPLE… WE NOT STUPID” and quoted his own lyrics to the song that won best single ‘Sidlukotini’, “If niggaz can pay for these fucking awards then my nigga I don’t want them.” Black Coffee then backed him up and for a few days, musicians from around the country were singing Riky’s praises for exposing the unfairness of the awards and the industry as a whole. The irony of some of them being award-winning millionaires was lost.

    Riky is right: The system is closed off to many artists. If you don’t have money or the right contacts, getting on radio can be hard. Getting an award? Even harder. Riky could have been referring to the SMS system of voting, which is just another way of taxing fans who want to see their favourite artists shine. The system is easily riggable by those with enough resources, and could be why Babes Wodumo and Kwesta left empty handed despite having 2 of the biggest songs of the year. Oddly enough, it was Riky’s Mabala Noise label mate Nasty C who took home the most awards.

    Judging from the fallout though, it appears that what Riky was referring to is Payola. A corrupt system of getting airplay that has been hated by artists since as far back as 2007, but more recently was investigated in 2015 by ENCA and last year DJ Vukani Masinga was fired for accepting bribes to play music on Ukhozi FM. Basically, it’s when artists or their management giving DJs and playlisters money to play their songs. If you’ve ever thought to yourself “Wow, this song is kak. I wonder how much they paid to get it played.” You were probably on the right track.

    Radio and TV will always be out of reach for many artists because of resources, but adding corruption to the mix only continues to make it harder for those deserving a break. After grinding to pay for studio time and getting songs mixed and mastered, now artists must line the pockets of professionals in the industry just to get heard? Fuck that noise.

    While Riky is right that young artists should use the internet to it’s full potential, it’s not always enough to sustain a career. One radio hit can help launch a career and the exposure radio and TV give artists is immense. It’s not enough for artists to make vague references to the system but rather, them and their management, those who have experienced this corruption first hand, need to expose those behind the system. It’s easy enough to call out the system but without taking any actions, what will change?

     

  • What we do online echoes in eternity

    What we do online echoes in eternity. Few people know this better than Montle Moroosi aka Big Space. “Damage has been done. There’s nothing I can do about it anymore. If I Google my name, it’s whatever it is.”

    If you do choose to google Montle’s name, you’ll see on the first page that in 2013 Montle and Max Barashenkov got fired from their jobs as writers for now defunct men’s mag, FHM, for making a joke on Facebook about corrective rape. Not the smartest move when you’re writing for a magazine about women, and a callous and insensitive thing to do even if you’re not. Things weren’t exactly helped by their public apology which tried to point the blame more outward than inward, and pissed people off even more. When I got asked to interview Montle about his Remix 52 project, the FHM firing was the first thing I could think about asking him about.

    It’s been nearly 4 years since Montle and Max got fired, and ever since Montle has struggled to get a job. I asked him how the firing has affected his life? He thought about it for a few seconds before replying, “Pretty bad but after a while, there’s nothing you can really do about it. I’m blacklisted. I can’t work at a major media thing. I can’t even get a job at a call center. I applied for that shit. I have degrees bruh. I speak better than most white people but I can’t get a job trimming pubes off a fuckin hamster. I guess it puts you down for a bit but hey, when life gives you lemons, take the lemons and throw them at Renee Zellweger’s face. Shit happens, and I’m not the first person it’s happened to.”

    As you can tell, Montle has a unique way with words. He has a propensity to fuck with people, a lot, and people naturally take umbrage to his offensive nature. I ask him if he ever thinks of the consequences of his words when he’s saying them, he replied “Ever since I started talking shit about people, the day I realised what my fucking personality is, I always thought ‘One day I’m going to get punched in the face’ or something like that, one way or the other. Of course, everything has a consequence like that. Every action has a reaction but also some people overreact. But I don’t think I’m infallible.”

    I followed up by asking him if he does it to get a reaction? “It depends. I guess back in the day, when I was writing more, you do something to get a reaction. That’s an old technique. Trolling was there before the internet.” .He continues, “Sometimes I just say something because I find it funny, I have a dark sense of humour that could be insensitive but I guess that’s my sense of humour, or maybe how I deal with things, but again, it’s subjective. I’m not Adolf Hitler, I could be Mugabe, or one of them real niggas. Pol Pot, he gets high. (Laughs) But definitely not Hitler, Pol Pot, maybe.”. Montle seems to always be trying to find a joke in everything. Kinda like The Comedian in Watchmen, although that’s probably not the most flattering comparison.

    What I find strange in the whole saga of Montle being fired is that his white compatriot, who was also fired, hasn’t had much trouble getting work whilst Montle has struggled to get hired again. Granted, Montle still has a habit of digging his own grave by saying offensive shit, but it’s something to take note of. I also find it strange that someone like Okmalumkoolkat, who was actually convicted of sexual assault, hasn’t really faced much professional backlash and his career is better than ever. Casey Affleck, who has been accused of sexual harassment and abuse, won an Oscar on Sunday. Mike Tyson is making Soulja Boy diss tracks and training fucking Chris Brown. All these men have committed crimes against women and no amount of thinkpieces or twitter dragging has stopped their careers from flourishing.

    It makes me wonder: Do you have to be famous first for the consequences of these actions to not to affect you? Do we let artists off the hook more because we like them? Or because they have value? If Montle was higher in the entertainment hierarchy at the time, would his career have suffered as much? It seems that if you can make bank, then you can say or do whatever you like about or to women, and the entertainment industry will turn a blind eye. As long as an artist draws money, they’ll be booked, regardless of their transgressions. However, if you’re on the lower rungs of the ladder, you’ll find yourself even lower for much longer.

    Montle has since tried to move on and put his past behind him as best he can. The not being able to get a job thing has allowed him to focus more on his music, which I guess is what you call a silver lining. Last year he put out 52 remixes, one every Friday. He’s worked with Jumping Back Slash and Okzharp, as well as managed a small, underground record label called Wet Dreams. The label features himself, his girlfriend Rose Bonica,  Vega -who used to live here but now he lives in Norway- and Mzu, “he’s a TV actor, SABC 1, but he also makes music.” Wet Dreams will be releasing a compilation, which according to Montle “is gonna be amazing.”. They’re also curating music for the SA Art Fair.

    Big Space also has a project with Spoek Mathambo coming which apparently has no rapping ‘cause “It’s weird being 32 talking about pussy on my mind.”. So that should be interesting. He also has an LP coming out in June.

    The cat has been keeping his head down and keeping busy, and there’s no doubt that he’s talented. That should be a recipe for success but I don’t know if audiences will accept Big Space now, or if he’ll ever be as big as he could have been if he didn’t say the things he did. That being said, the court of public opinion is a strange beast and many artists have been forgiven for worse crimes. Maybe people will forgive and forget, and maybe he’ll find an audience who appreciates his fucked up sense of humour as well as his music. Either way, Montle Moroosi will always have to live with the consequences of his actions.

     

  • Big Space Put Out 52 Remixes Last Year. What Did You Do?

    If you want to get good at something, you have to do it a lot. The cliche is to say something like 10 000 hours of practice but putting out 52 remixes in a year isn’t a bad way to go about it either. Last year Big Space aka Montle Moorosi put out a remix a week and learned a few things. “I learned that I hate social media, I learned I hate my friends, but I learned how to fucking make music super quickly. I learned technical, musical nerd shit.” So hey, if you don’t really care for social media or your friends, might be worth trying for yourself. If you really want it, you’ll sacrifice for your art.

    The project wasn’t all just about working on his skills but also served as a creative release valve. I asked Montle why he did and he told me “I wanted a way to keep releasing music for free but without the mental burden of worrying whether people will buy it or not or even care if it exists. So Natalie Perel (Rose Bonica) came up with the idea of doing a remix a week. That way I can just release the stuff because I don’t own the rights and its keeps me producing. Natalie also designed the site and many of the artworks so that kept her busy throughout the year too.”

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    From what I’ve seen online and experienced in a brief Skype session, Big Space is a bit of an eccentric cat so it makes sense that the songs he chooses to mix are an eclectic bunch. There’s a broad mix of South African representation with the first release being a dark rendition of Slyza Tsotsi, The Frown make multiple appearances, so does Sibot, there’s the Gumbo Ya-Ya’s, MUJAVA, and  Batuk round out the collection. On the international front, Yours Truly icon Mac De Marco kicks things off versing off with Father who also makes it onto a few tracks. Then Santigold and iLovemakonnen’s “Who Be Loving Me” get’s a dreamy rework that I’m going to play on Virtual DJ at a party because Big Space hates those DJs but also because people will think I’m great at mixing. Actually, a lot of these flow like live mixes – each layer building with repetition then whilst subtly changing into something completely different with the beat holding everything together. I’m not the most knowledgeable house music guy but Big Space seems to have a pretty good handle on it.

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    Montle’s favourite of the 52  remixes is his take on Jumping Back Slash’s Soft Slumps although I’m quite partial to his mashup of The Gumbo Ya-Yas and Talking Heads. I’m still making my way through the whole list, so far, I’ve mostly just picked out what I know and a few others that looked interesting. That’s the thing with remixes, I guess. Sometimes you pick a song because it’s familiar to people and you want to put your take on it, other times you do it because you want to expose your audience to something different, and put your take on it. I asked him what the challenges are in remixing that are different to producing your own work and he explained “The challenges are drawing the line between your work and another person’s work and where it transitions into an original piece of music.” Which he jokingly followed up with “The other challenge is telling yourself you’re not just one of those beatport edm producers who have a built a career on doing remixes only.”

    Putting out a remix a week takes discipline and dedication and now Big Space has a solid body of work and some technical nerd knowledge to show for it.

     

  • Red Robyn – The Sweet-voiced Songbird from Wentworth

    Birders of Durban feel shame no more. No longer shall Durban be known as the city with the world’s most annoying bird, the Indian Mynah, but instead, as the city that produced the songbird Red Robyn. Okay, so, Red Robyn is not red, or a Robin, or a bird at all. Obviously, why would I be telling you about an actual bird? Sorry Durban birders, you still have nothing to be proud of.  She is a songbird, though, or a songstress, I should say, and one you wouldn’t mind hearing at the start of each day. Or during the day. Or at night even. Like, literally any time is good.

    What are you doing right now? Here, listen to this…

    How nice was that? How playfully and succinctly does she just cut down the immature boy the song is aimed at. “I’m too old to play with toys, flowers in my hair, ain’t got time for do or dare, oh the shit you’re giving me is just too much and I don’t care, boy”. It would be brutal if it wasn’t wrapped in such vocal sweetness.

    The 21-year-old from Wentworth has a way with words and deftly uses cadence to back them up. This could be because of her background studying drama and music at UKZN, but Red Robyn, real name Ashleigh de Gee, has been musical her whole life. She’s been singing since she was a kid in the choir at church and with both her mother and father being musicians and her grandfather being in a band when he was younger, it’s safe to say that music is in her family.

    The singer is not just a singer but an academic too. She’s currently working on a research paper in deconstructing the coloured identity. Well, she’s currently taking a break until next semester, with this semester being spent on making music. I got to interview Red Robyn a few months ago but it never got published. In our chat, she explained to me what lead her to her topic,“For me, it came from a point of searching for my own identity. People would always ask me, especially in high school, “What are you?” I feel like that such a weird question to ask someone, “What are you?” It came from my own sort of searching within myself to try and find my own identity.”

    I followed up asking her what was the most interesting thing she’d come across in her research? She told me, “The thing that fascinates me is that this generation of coloured people is starting to ask questions. For a long time, I think that coloured people have just accepted the way things are and there’s a generation that’s come out now who are asking questions about their heritage, and they want to know more and do better than the last generation. They want to succeed. There’s a lot of good coming out of being displaced. Just claiming our heritage and claiming our culture.”

    As a white dude, I obviously don’t really know anything about coloured identity. I know that representation matters and that the work that Red Robyn is doing, both on-stage and off, is important. With coloured Cape Town artists like Youngsta, Patty Munroe, Dope Saint Jude and Isaac Mutant getting well-deserved national and international recognition, it’s time for young, fresh coloured artists from Durban to also get some shine.

    Red Robyn will no-doubt get the recognition she deserves soon as she’s fast making herself the queen of collaboration in Durban. The groovy track you heard above is with shit-hot producer MISSU (I interviewed him for Noisey if you’re interested), and they recently teamed up again, along with trip-hop producer Tre Flips, on the deeply romantic and heartbreaking ‘Colours’. Last week she dropped a soulful number called Taekwon with her boyfriend and bandmate in the phenomenal jazz collective Blvck Crystals, Jaedon Daniel. You can hear it below. Her soundcloud is littered with cross-genre collaborations, and last night she let her Facebook fans know that she and Jaedon will be putting out a mixtape, and that she’ll be dropping collabs with Skata, Taylor Made, Easy Freak and Joe Music soon.

    I recently wrote that Red Robyn and Jaedon Daniel are part of a new wave of “young, independent, forward-thinking Durban musicians building themselves, and each other, through collabs with like-minded individuals.” But more than that, I think Red Robyn could be one of the prominent faces of this new wave. I guess time will tell, but for now, keep an eye and an ear out for the sweet-voiced songbird from Wentworth.

     

  • From the Bath to Inner and Outer Space

    I’ll tell you one thing, Song’s From The Bath is a fucking trip. I’ll tell you some more things, I just felt like that was a good way to start. What else do you want to know? Is it a homage to Max Normal’s Songs From The Mall? No, no it is not. Did Thor Rixon actually write it from a bath? Nope, I asked him. He said “The bath is a metaphor.” “Like”, “as”, that sort of thing. Oh, you want to know how the album sounds? I just told you, it’s a fucking trip. Have you ever done psychedelics? Yes? Well there you go. No? Then listen to the album. These songs may not actually be from the bath but they’ll take you to inner and outer space my dudes and dudettes. An adventure of magical musical discovery awaits.

    First though, a warning before you go adventuring: If you just fully don’t like experimental music, then maybe this isn’t the journey for you. Don’t listen to the album and then be like, “Why are there birds chirping? That’s so lame.” This is the type of album that has birds chirping follow hectic rave parts. But also, gentle, ethereal chords that linger and stick with you after being washed out by reverb and literal water as the next song kicks in. So yeah, it’s experimental, and emotional, and eclectic. It’s chaos intricately woven with order. There are layers to this shit. Deep, deep layers.

    If those sound like qualities you like in an album, you still might not be emotionally ready for it. I don’t know where you are in your life. I don’t know how this is going to make you feel. That said, you should listen to it anyway because trying new and experimental things is good for your personal development. Personally, I feel weird. I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I’m staring at the space between stars, contemplating my existence whilst my body slowly floats down through my chair. I feel like that’s a cheesy line, and I’m not even sure what the logistics of ethereal form would be, but bare with me. I’m trying to tell you that Songs From The Bath makes me feel, and it’s going to make you feel too. What will you feel? Well, that’s up to you.

    ‘Songs From The Bath’ contains 7 tracks with featured artists such as; Alice Phoebe Lou, Hlasko, Itai Hakim, Olmo, among many more. The album marks Rixon’s 3rd full body of work after 2014’s ‘Tea Time Favorites’ and 2013’s ‘Shared Folder’. ‘Songs From The Bath’ has also been pressed to vinyl and is available in limited edition blue or standard edition black vinyl, available from Roastin’ Records.

    Rixon will be hosting 2 live and improvised performances of the album which will be held in Cape Town at The Centre For The Book in Gardens on Wednesday the 1st of February and in Johannesburg at The Bioscope Theatre in Maboneng on Saturday the 4th of February. Each showcase will feature; Alice Phoebe Lou, Hlasko, Olmo, Pavlov and more. For more details regarding these events please visit;

    CT – https://www.facebook.com/events/1835599113395368/

    JHB – https://www.facebook.com/events/1785322511793234/

    Tickets will be limited and only available online via Quicket.

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