‘Fuck your tuition …. Ready to take it without your permission’ goes the arresting chorus of Sehrrge’sNo Permission. Aka Dumisane Maseko from the Vaal, a BPharma student by day, the song moves political commentary into the trap era. With a slurred beat from Polo, Sehrrge talks about how young people in South Africa are caught in a web of debt slavery. In order to have a better life, society says, you have to be prepared to be in bondage for the rest of your life. The song acknowledges this sad state of affairs, while waving a defiant middle finger at it.
Student protests against fees have been an explosive force globally, but in South Africa is has been especially contentious. Fees Must Fall, and associated events, have come to stand for the dissolution of the post-Apartheid ‘rainbow nation’ project, when many feeling that reconciliation really just meant a rebranding of racism and structural inequality. Sehrrge’s artwork for the song ( a piece which he has called ‘Digital Ballot’) reflects this era of flux- Mandela below the AWB flag, against the melting face of Jacob Zuma. This schizoid imagery speaks to the dissolution of what he calls ‘ the democratic Utopian South Africa.’ Facing up to unpleasant reality puts him with the small group of South African hip hop artists who have chosen to confront politics head on. In the past, Cape Town’s Prophets of Da City had their radical songs censored by the Apartheid regime. In the 2000’s, Godessa spoke of Social Ills, while Teargas were named for the beloved substance of violent police. More recently Dookom courted controversy with Larney Jou Poes, a searing attack on the deplorable conditions of farm workers.
Fortunately, Sehrrge knows how to keep his politics engaging. Out of nowhere, the song dissolves into a hazy Take Care style late nightclub scenario. He may be criticizing consumer society, but he is as enthralled to it as anyone else. In fact, such contradictions have been central to some of the most politically potent rap. The tense space between consciousness and materialism, bragging about skill and bearing witness to the world. NWA and 2Pac made timeless protest music while espousing some deplorable views about guns and violence. Currently, no-one embodies this better than Run The Jewels. On their two albums to date, Killer Mike and El-P have critically dissected society while also making hilariously depraved boasts and threats. In a comparable vein, No Permission succeeds precisely because of its hedonistic swagger.
Sibusiso Tshona, aka Suup Zulu, is a young rapper and producer from the township of Alexandra. Over the last year, he has been steadily winning attention with a diverse body of solo tracks, like his debut Uyezwa and various collaborations.
His production style is simultaneously contemporary, while also casting an ear back to South Africa’s musical past. Zulu’s growing library of work, catalogued on his Soundcloud page, is defined by its hypnotic style. Beats are piled on, while disembodied vocal choirs and keyboards spring to life. His vocals cut in like lasers through a dense fog of smoke. It captures the woozy feeling of being in some dank nightclub basement at 3am- both falling asleep and totally wired. Bleary eyed, unsure of what’s real but wanting to keep going anyway. This mysterious aspect of his works perhaps comes from his exceptionally deep feeling for history. In a short interview he did with The Alex News last year he listed his influences as both the contemporary urban reality of Alex and the Zulu tradition of oral storytelling. Titles like Gomora Kingdom Comes and Bayete highlight the influence of choral and gospel music on contemporary pop. King Kong Nkalakatha directly connects the 50’s jazz musical with early 2000’s kwaito, bridging half a century of township style.
His work also highlights how South African musicians have linked hip hop and electronic music into a compelling local hybrid. It’s only been more recently that US rappers have made this fusion. On Life of Pablo, Kayne built Fade entirely out of vintage house samples, while Danny Brown’s upcoming The Atrocity Exhibition will be released on Warp records, better known as the home of Aphex Twin and Autreche. Supp Zulu shows that this blending has long been a facet of local music. But rather than being some abstract intellectual exercise, his songs are as hazy and alluring as a Highveld sunset.
The frustrations and brutalities of urban life have often lead artists and musicians to depict cities as Hell. For Percy Shelly, smoky London was the abyss while a century later Bertolt Brecht saw it in sunny Los Angeles. More recently, Hell has been central to Hip Hop. In the 90’s Mobb Deep unleashed Hell on Earth while Tricky offered it around the corner. In 2014 Vince Staples confidently predicted ‘I’m probably fitting to go to hell anyway’. And now Cape Town based producer Big Hate is taking us on a Permanent Vacation in Hell.
This ambitious mixtape is structured like a concept album based around a cynical trip through CPT, a city of ‘broken dreams and summer nightmares’. Its intention from the cover art onwards is to mock pretension and excess. It starts with a fake news announcement at the airport welcoming the listener to a bullshit trip through a ‘raggedy ass motherfucker’ of a city. As the ambient track swells, a vocal sample from Abel Ferreira’s crime epic King of New York is introduced. The lines of dialogue between Lauren Fishburne and Christopher Walken reappear as a distorted leitmotif throughout the project-:
Jump: Yo, congratulations, Frank. Congratulations, man. Them Columbian motherfuckers, they took permanent vacation in hell, if you know what I mean.
Frank White: Well, I must’ve been away too long because my feelings are dead. I feel no remorse.
The mixtape combines hyper-specific local references (City Bowl Sis Khetiwe, 1820 Settlers Bandwagon ) with music that draws inspiration from hip hop, kwaito and 90’s RnB. Smoky samples from Old Dirty Bastard and Ginuwine float through the murk. The satirical aspects of the work come through clearly on tracks like the acidly titled Trust Fund Yacht House Boyz. But at other points, it seems like Big Hate is really just revelling in being offensive for its own sake. The final track is an outrageous ‘tribute’ to musician Taliep Petersen, whose own wife plotted to have him murdered. On one level, I enjoyed the complete absurdity of this mocking song, but on the other it seems in terrible taste. Nevertheless, despite a certain puerility in lyrics, the EP is an enjoyably atmospheric trip through Hell.
Inanda is a sprawling township outside Durban, which at different points in its history was the home of both Mathama Ghandi and John Dube, the first president of the ANC. And, as the new short film Inandawood documents, it is now a home for independent filmmaking. A network of amateur directors and actors, centred around Vukani Ndebele, have been building a pulp library of low-budget productions which feature stories of rampant Satanists, shape-shifting serial killers and brazen gangsters.
When a young Ndebele was confronted by the lack of film-making opportunities around him, he decided to do it for himself. As shown in the documentary, his first major project was Thomas is Back, centred on a zombie returning to the township to wreak havoc. The film blew up through word of mouth, with copies being circulated throughout the country. The success propelled him into even more projects. And rather than copying Hollywood horror tropes, the films take their lurid inspiration from local mythology and urban legends. His artistic example has encouraged others in Inanda and surrounding townships like Umlazi and Kwa Mashu to release their own work, inspired by his no-budget approach of using amateur crews and available resources.
But this no frills approach doesn’t indicate that Inanda filmmakers are just out to make a quick buck. As Inandawood clearly demonstrates, these works are inspired by a pure passion to entertain, put together by creative people with no direct access to the infrastructure of movie production. The short film is reminiscent of acclaimed feature documentary American Movie, which focuses on aspiring horror director Mark Borchardt. Both works are tributes to the power of film, as they highlight artists making their work in the face of difficulties and restrictions. Along with documenting a regional scene, Inandawood is an innovative work in its own right, edited with floating text and distorted sound effects. This playful style conveys the gritty enthusiasm of its source material perfectly. Despite considerable resources, there are far too many SA movies which reflect a dour, social realist perspective which seems uninterested in the possibilities of film as a medium. Unsurprisingly, they have failed to connect with either local or international audiences. By showing what can be done with little resources, these films reveal that it’s not about money. It’s about imagination. At the same time, the KZN scene has an authenticity which can’t be replicated by bigger budget works, revealing both the realties and the nightmares of the people who watch it with stark clarity.
A few months before Felix Laband dropped his much anticipated Deaf Safari (2015) album, he played an early evening set at the 2014 Sonar Festival in Cape Town. The venue was packed as one of South Africa’s undisputed electronic masters showcased his latest work. The performance was accompanied with his collage artwork, which mixed up images of porn, politicians and eerie car drives through the depopulated urban fringe. The combination of the subtle music and jagged imagery was at once alluring and disturbing. And it contrasted sharply with the other acts that night. At one extreme were various bro-step EDM acts, trying to disguise their unimaginative beats with gaudy masks and blinding light shows. On the other end were ambient producers, whose wholesome soundscapes seemed clinically designed to induce sleep. Mindless hedonism vs self-indulgent introspection. The guiding aspirations to make a background soundtrack to take different drugs to, rather than any kind of engagement with the wider world. This lack of content was especially glaring because of the setting. Under the roof the Apartheid-era Good Hope Centre, a brutalist block of concrete in the centre of one of the world’s most socially unequal societies.
By combining personal obsessions with the tabloid visuals, Laband’s work came for an entirely different stream of electronic music than the rest of the night’s entertainment. It put him in a lineage of artists who have used synthesisers and samples to make out the dark corners of power, perversity and violence. A twisted family tree which might include post-punk extremists like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, confrontational industrial artists Einstürzende Neubauten, Skinny Puppy and Ministry, the insurgent techno collectives of Underground Resistance and Atari Teenage Riot. Currently, artists like Fatima Al-Qardiri and Vatican Shadow soundtrack geopolitical dread. In SA, the theme of revolt is central to Angel Ho’s production, while much of Gqom speaks to a sense of being trapped in an urban maze. Music that speaks of broken bones and riot shields, burning cities, forbidden pleasures.
With his visual collaborator Kerry Chaloner, Felix’s is plunging into this dark water of inspiration. Chaloner is an accomplished painter and visual artist, whose work wrestles with similar topics. As she put it an evocative personal statement for one of her shows ‘I think about learning how to make gunpowder and the alarms of the terrorist drills and not understanding and crawling under our desks. I think about the ash from the next-door hospital incinerators blowing onto our sports day doughnuts.’ They got in touch after Laband was impressed by the ‘bravery and naturalness’ of her video work. As artists they share a fascination with both the darker aspects of life which society tries to sweep under the carpet and the raw power of nature. ‘Our collaborations are about embedding our life in the work. We’re both nerds, big into film and watching wildlife and history documentaries, ’ says Kerry. ‘We’re also both interested in filming things in nature for fun, like playing around with spotlights to make ordinary trees and gardens look suspicious. Then we make mashups of our footage with found footage.. nature-horror-porn.’
Their collaboration coincided with Felix rediscovering his personal interest in visual art. While promoting his last album, he found himself increasingly bored with the limited format of playing for people in nightclubs, and wanted to stage more live striking performances. Having already incorporated his own collages into his show, Kerry’s input allowed him to focus exclusively on the music, while she conducts the visuals. Instead of just pummelling the audience with beats, they are working to create fully textured sonic experiences. Their ultimate goal is to further bridge art and electronic music, with a focus on performing residencies and bringing live vocals into the mix. A key influence for them both is the American avant-gardist Laurie Anderson, whose long career has spanned performance, pop music and film. Felix is planning to upgrade the practical scope of their performances ‘we’re focusing on buying more equipment, making the musical productions more ambitious.’
They don’t just want to make dry conceptual art. Instead they want to say something about what Kerry calls an ‘extremely tense’ global political situation, by looking at the things society would rather repress. The weight of history is something which intrigues them both. Felix’s father is an historian, and growing up in a house surrounded by history books he developed a fascination with how the effects of war and conflict linger on in the present. As an artist, Kerry is conscious of how colonialism and apartheid continue to structure South African life ‘anyone who comes from this middle class, white background must think of how to deal with this history. It subconsciously affects us in so many ways.’ Felix’s interest in the politics of pornography also speaks to this theme of repression, but it’s not without its tensions. ‘We’ve had a lot of fights about it because Kerry comes from a strong feminist perspective and wants to ensure that we always use it in a critical way.’ Kerry argues that ‘I want to make sure that it is not about being salacious or exploitative. It’s more about the politics of what people don’t want to see.’
A further point of convergence is their shared personal histories, as they both grew up in Pietermaritzburg, a small city where the weight of colonial history is especially glaring. ‘Growing up there shapes people artistically’ Felix remembers ‘it has this strange lost colonial outpost feel. But it has produced a lot of really good artists. I haven’t been there in a long time but I’ve been talking with Dave Southwood (photographer) about doing a project about it.’ Kerry also has vivid memories of the gothic strangeness of the KZN midlands ‘Pietermaritzburg was like Twin Peak with more race tension. There was a lot of beauty, trees, parks and mist, but also a real dark side. We both spent many hours as kids and teenagers in the same romantic forests, cemeteries and botanical gardens. There wasn’t much in the way of radical youth culture in Maritzburg… especially pre-internet. If you felt different you had to invent your own.’
Along with excavating the recent path they both have ambitious plans for the future. Kerry is continuing to focus on disruptive paintings and video art. Felix wants to take his next recordings into some unexpected places ‘I’ve always had this dream of recording sounds at World War Two genocide sites in Russia… I wonder does the earth sound different in Babi Yar?’
For the immediate future Felix will be touring the EU at the end of July, and is prepping an EP for release on Compost Records later this year. While other South African electronic artists have their sights fixed on a dimly lit dancefloor, they are keeping their eyes on the ominous skies above.
Felix Laband’s EU tour starts 27 July at Ortigia Sound System (Italy). He we also be performing at Nachtdigital (Germany) Garbicz Festival (Poland) and Mukanda (Italy).
One thing you don’t necessarily expect to see in Braamfontein are the streets shut down by thousands of kids having a rowdy, but fun, moshpit. Or what looks like a scene from a Nirvana music video being sound-tracked by Kayne West and Desiigner. But that’s exactly the positive energy that the Onyx collective have been generating with their various street market and ‘rage’ events. Bubblegumclub recently had an interview with group member Gondo, who provided us with an insight into the works of this collective of ‘black boys that have good ideas and exceptional vision’.
As he puts it ‘Onyx started as an attempt to make an event that we’d enjoy cause we didn’t like the event scene that people were giving us. We were always turned away because of the way we dressed and how young we were. The music they played at all these other parties weren’t what we’d expected, we wanted alternative music and all the stuff we weren’t hearing on the radio.’
The result has been a series of spectacular carnivals which have gathered major crowds. With regards to the Desiigner mosh-pit, Gondo notes ‘Yeah that shit was crazy! We’re the ultimate moshers. There is no average Onyx event. We always come in, play what we love, encourage the kids to be confident and to let all their aggression and issues out in the Mosh pit. Onyx events go on for as long as the music is playing, or until some official comes through to shut us down- which happened the day of the crazy mosh pit you saw. For our major events such as Street Market and Onyx Rage Festival we garner an attendance of 1500. I think this year is going to be crazier we might see a massive crowd of the kids come out to play in their numbers’.
For the future, Onyx plans to keep delivering special for its niche market.- ‘We’re very rooted in the progression of a culture of confidence and self-sufficiency in South Africa so we’re not going to run to corporations to make more money because of the money. We do it for the people’.
The next Onyx Steet Market takes place in Juta Street Braamfontein on the 09 July, from 13H00- 01H00.
Artlifers are a collective of passionate young creatives from Johannesburg whose interests connect art, politics, society, music and fashion. They first came together while at university, realising that their mutual interests could be better advanced as a crew. Their initial efforts focused on producing streetwear which won them international exposure on a Yahoo feature about South African trends. They also diversified into music with crew members putting in the DJ work at parties and events. But there diverse sociological concerns have now found their perfect medium- podcast radio.
Now on its fourth episode of season three, the Artlifers Show is both a vehicle to give exposure to young artists, while also discussing the frenzied challenges confronting South Africa. This might sound onerous but the crew adapt a laid-back and affable presentation style, which engages with the audience in an enjoyable way. A good example is provided in Episode Three. The broadcast discussed topics from the J.Cole concert to the AFDA film festival. These topics provide a springboard to discuss hefty themes like the climate of toxic masculinity in South Africa and the new moral panic about ‘lean’. As they point out, the media has become fixated on the dangers of cough syrup, while ignoring the far more serious problem of nyaope abuse. Because these topics are discussed casually and with wit, the discussion doesn’t sound like a message from the pulpit or soapbox.
And each episode shows this same subtle attention to tone. The most recent episode Indiependence Day highlights path-finding youth in a number of different industries. Cool Africa looks at the inventive work being done by expatriate South African’s. Along with the talk, each episode is served with a hefty helping of fresh music. South African radio is currently in a dismal place. There is a renewed attempt to enforce censorship on public broadcasters, while private platforms are dominated by self-serving egomaniacs. But with their podcast, Artlifers are keeping the spirit of radio communication alive, and updated for the internet age.
Earlier this year NASA released declassified files debunking a conspiracy theory which had grown up around the 1969 Apollo 10 mission. According to the legends, astronauts had reported hearing inexplicable sounds as they orbited the dark side of the moon. However, the NASA info revealed a more down to Earth explanation- hearing static from their radio statements, the astronauts joked that it sounded like ‘outer-space-type music’.
An entire library could be written on how the vastness of space, from our local system to the infinite cosmos beyond has inspired musicians. In the same year as Apollo 10, David Bowie had his breakthrough with Space Oddity, and shortly after Pink Floyd sold millions with Dark Side of The Moon. More recently, space themes have permeated hip hop. Outkast announced they were Atliensand Lil Wayne claims to be a Martian. DJ Esco and Future’s latest Esco Terrestrial seems obsessed with the search for life beyond Earth. And with his remarkable 2015 mixtape Gemini, The Good Dokta looked from South Africa to the stars above.
This unfairly slept on project is the work of Durban born Dokta Spizee, who first came to prominence as one half of Dirty Paraffin. With Gemini he takes a giant leap beyond his earlier work, showing his strength and substance as a solo instrumental composer. The song titles reference emerging stars and black holes, red suns and exploding supernovas. And the music lives up to this grandeur. It is stirring and emotive and leaves you with a sense of glowing positivity. Dust (Nebula Theme Explodes) begins with a driving instrumental, before exploding into an anthemic vocal hook. The eerie Gravity replicates the sense of seeing the Earth from orbit from the first time. The End is the sound of watching the sunrise on a distant planet.
Awe, anxiety and majesty all together. This powerfully cinematic music owes as much to the soundtracks of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien and Interstellar as it does to hip hop.
The Good Dokta will be teaming with Chanje Kunda for this weekend’s TABOO event, an immersive performance experience held at Bubblegumclub’s Newton Junction headquarters. Running from 3 to 7pm on July 2, it is a must if you are looking to expand your mind beyond the bounds of Earth.
In the 1990s, South Africa experienced the subcultural supernova of Kwaito. Fuelled by post-1994 optimism, and inspired by international hip hop, dancehall and house, local artists created a thriving underground of music, dance and fashion, spread through cassette tapes and taxi sound systems. In almost no time at all, this became the mainstream with the youth captivated by the music’s style, fun and adventure. Kwaito was both populist in appeal and musically progressive. Songs like Alaska’s ‘Accuse’ and Fester’s ‘Jacknife’ still sound as fresh as ever. Although the genre has receded in visibility, its influence is still felt throughout contemporary music.
As a young person, Rangoato Hlasane (Mma Tseleng) was caught in this cultural shockwave. From a small village with no electricity, his first exposure to music was the 80s bubblegum and reggae blaring out of taxis. As 1994 came around, he was at a perfect age to have his mind blown by the pioneers of kwaito, as well as the US rap and R&B which flowed in as the country ended its cultural isolation. As a fan, Hlasane built up an extensive music collection, but it was only in 2009 that he found his true calling as a kwaito DJ and archivist. When a DJ failed to turn up at a Drill Hall party he stepped to the plate and has been playing live ever since.
Along with performing, he has also become a historian of the recent past. He started doing ‘boom box walks’ through Hillbrow, finding the spots where the early pioneers of Kwaito lived, played and dreamed. These trips were commemorated with a special map featured in the book Not No Place, by Dorothee Kreutzfeldt and Bettina Malcomess. The book itself is an excellent secret history of Jo’burg and Hlasane’s map is one of the highlights, showing the bars and nightclubs where some of the early sound was birthed. He also created the irreverent ‘limited edition cassette-sleeve publication that explored early industry beefs in Kwaito’.
With Malose Kadromatt Malahlela, they have curated a live memory project called Thath’i Cover Okestra, an evolving pan-African Okestra that investigates the meaning and importance of Kwaito music’s legacy for a new generation. Its premise – a speculation into the direction that Kwaito could have taken post-2004 positions the project as both nostalgic and futuristic, thus appealing to a wide audience that cuts across age, race and geography. Through this collaborative exploration, what emerges is a new super nostalgic African futuristic spiritual chant non-genre. The story of Thath’i Cover has thus far been featured in Tsitsi Ella Jaji’s magnificent Africa In Stereo: Mordenism, Music and Pan-African Solidarity (2014, Oxford University Press) and the recently published The Art of Public Space. Curating and Re-Imagining the Ephemeral City (2015, Palgrave) by Kim Gurney. Such interventions memorialise the living legacy of the genre and help deepen its impact on the present.
Mma Tseleng loves the late Lebo Mathosa, he made a song for her:
Johannesburg has a dark past of violence and exploitation, and even to this day is often presented as an urban dystopia. But the flip side of this is a long history of creativity, resistance, style and flair. In 2016, the city is keeping this legacy alive with exciting and overlapping developments in music, poetry, literature and fashion. Aiming to archive this current golden age, the Mushroom Half Hour started as a podcast in 2014. Its creators Nhlanhla Mngadi (Kool oNe Ebony), Andrew Curnow (Radio Robert) and Soul Diablo honed an eclectic space for rap, soul, funk and everything in between.
The podcast has now flourished into its own label. Its focus is on bringing together artists from different genre and generations to create special experimental collaborations. The label has now launched a website- on the auspicious date of June 16. The website lands with four new instalments, each of which highlight the sheer amount of talent in the Jo’Burg scene. The website is curated to reflect different artistic formats, with each release contoured to theme .
Lab Sessions features special jam sessions and live performances. It launches with IthubaLoku Hlola a jam session featuring the likes of João Orecchia (Motel Mari) and various members of acclaimed rock band BLK JKS. The Word on Wax part of the site gives a platform to another form of performance with poets and singers dropping lyrics over special ‘vinyl-based soundscapes’. The pilot performance Makhafula Mushrooms centres on poet Makhafula Vilakazi, with backing from Nosisi Ngakane and Ngoma Makhosi.
In the Mixellaneous section, space is provided for mixed medium collaboration. 40 Years…June 16 honours the date by blending classical music with interview from people who saw the 1976 uprising first hand. And taking the theme of archiving further Choice Pickings hosts specially created mixes. New Power New Power is a journey through both old and contemporary tracks. Overall, the page is a must see portal for new sounds and images.
Although painful and brutal, break-ups and other personal crisis are a proven inspiration for creativity. Icons like Bob Dylan and Marvin Gaye made some of their most powerful work in the ruins of imploded marriages. In 2008, Kayne West changed the sound of mainstream music with 808’s and Heartbreak, and also created the template for professional sad-person’s Drake’s entire career. Doubling down on his own personal misfortunes, local streetwear designer Nokana ‘Dodo’ Mojapelo’s, of the D.O.C.C. brand, has teamed up with producer Hakim Malema to make the world’s first ‘post break up fashion EP’.
Inspired by an aftermath of a relationship, the first fashion component of the Booty Call project dropped last December. The clothes were inspired by bittersweet memories, with ‘ Dear Diary’ shirts and jackets emblazoned with ‘ I told my therapist about you.’ Dodo’s aim was to use fashion as a blank canvas to reflect on the past ‘I didn’t want to just be creative I wanted people to be attached and be able to reflect back on a time period using my collections like anyone does when hearing an old song and immediately they reminisce…. I want to make a relatable impact whilst giving the consumer confidence through design.’
And the clothes have now been joined by the EP. Comprising of four tracks and a handful of skits, the songs extend the theme of disappointment and cynicism. Dodo’s lyrics combine personal themes with some unexpected commentary on contemporary values. Online speaks to this generations social media addiction and futile attempts to escape from reality- ‘woke up it was summertime/no coins/dark time.’ The songs are powered by Hakim Malema’s pumping beats. With an eye towards the future he borrows inspiration from the vapor wave sound, which combined with classic SA minimalism, makes what he calls his ‘future weird’ style. The end product is to make personal misery danceable, finding meaning in dark times.
In the last decade superheroes have towered over the popular culture landscape. Although the market is dominated by the US, it’s clear that these characters have a global popularity. Marvel movies regularly clear up at the box office, while figures like Batman and Superman are universally recognised archetypes. South Africa has gotten in on the game, with the Johannesburg CBD being decimated by the Hulk in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
The CBD is also the site of a key action scene in Loyiso Mkize’s excellent series Kwezi. Focusing on the adventures of its teenage protagonist, Mkize creates brash pop art with a local flavour. Kwezi is an image conscious youth who uses his powers to fight crime while looking really great doing it. The first issue starts mid-action with him soaring through the urban canyons of Joburg, before teaching a lesson to arrogant SAPS officers. Straight off the bat, the series shows itself as a fantasy which is strongly rooted in everyday South African life. But as part of his hero’s journey, Kwezi soon realises that his powers mean more than self-gratification. The urban setting gives way to a hidden fortress high in the Drakensberg and tales of lost civilizations. Mzike takes inspiration from Zulu and Khoisan culture to map out new myths for 2016.
The artistic and narrative confidence shown in Kwezi has garnered international attention, with the massive ComicsAlliance site listing him as a creator on the rise. Born in the Eastern Cape in 1987, this project is a culmination of a career spent mastering graphic arts and design. After studying in Cape Town, he landed a job on the Super Strikas book, while also painting and exhibiting his own art. He has brought this artistic skill into his comic work, creating an entertaining story with hidden depths.
