Bubblegum Club

Tag: brenda fassie

  • The Sound of Black Joy: A New Year’s Eve Meditation

    There is a New Year’s Eve I remember vividly like the afterglow of a fireworks display. I was very young, barely five, enjoying the newfound victory of staying up until “Happy New Year”.

    I stood in the fog created by the multiple braai-stands, mystified by the happenings of black joy that intensified with every song that played on the chart, counting us down to the anticipated three-two-one and, most importantly, the song that was to carry us into the new year straight after.

    The moment finally came. I remember my mother screaming around the yard with her sisters, with 100-if-you-lucky shooters in hand, muting the stars with crickets. I remember blocking my ears to cushion the thundering blows of Ama-Bhomu and I remember the sound of zinc roofs trembling under the terror of Malum’ Mthoko’s Telefunken sound system. I may not remember the exact song that played at midnight that year, but the significance of “Ingoma Ehlukanise Unyaka” was something that stayed in my memory until today.

    The space between then and now is filled with many songs that defined the times that never stopped moving. From Brenda Fassie’s ‘Vulindlela’, Mafikizolo’s ‘Bhuti Ngihamba Nawe’, to the more recent ‘Umlilo’ by Big NUZ, and last year’s heavily meme’d ‘Sobulala u Van Damme’. I should also highlight the difference in tastes that resulted in one Metro-FM-listening echelon of our culturally diverse society “splitting the year” to Babes Wodumo’s Wololo, in the same year that ‘Sobulala u Van Damme’ did.

    It is now December 2017. The December of the vosho-induced paralysis and Gin salads, amongst many other things. New Years Eve is around the corner and many of us are ritualistically sacrificing the dick that is to stay in 2017, for the sake of our own wellbeing. More importantly though, we are about to find out which song is worthy of carrying us into 2018, the sonic epitome of alrightness in 2017.

    There are many contenders. ‘Omunye’ by Distruction Boyz, for one, had the entire nation proclaiming their wig-less-ness since the release of their much anticipated album titled ‘Gqom Is The Future’. If you listened to Gqom 5 years ago, back when The Boyz had their phone numbers at the end of their song titles, when GTi driving bhutis tried to silence Gqom ngoba lento inomsindo, you’ll understand why this moment is so important. The Boyz have worked from the start to carve their own space in an industry that was not really about them. Now they have one of the biggest songs and that kind of impact makes me look at them with the same vicarious pleasures my uncles had when they watched soccer players rise from similar circumstances and make it to some big squad or whatever.

    The other big contender is Midnight Starring by Busiswa and Moonchild feat. Dj Tira & Dj Maphorisa (in all honesty). Another Gqom gem. I’ve actually heard more of this song since I have been in Durban and that is very telling. 5-year-olds will scream “please call future baby” with their last niknaks breathe, aunties demand the song like “aw’fake i panty eline lace lapho”. It literally gets more iconic. Those lyrics, those voices, those yebo’s that demand that you agree – it’s all power, with the black femme face we deserve.

    When we reach the pivotal three-two-one this weekend, I would be happy if any of these songs took it. It’s not an easy task to get the entire nation gyrating into the promising arms of a new year. And it’s all the more significant now that it feels like it will be one of our own who will define the times that never cease to move.

  • Millenial nostalgia: reincarnating legends and giving high-fives to the past

    The paint on the door was quite chipped, but the black letters remained clear: “Nostalgia is one helluva drug” it said like an answer to a question. 

    And now, here in South Africa – specifically Johannesburg – we get through the day with our trusty dose of the good stuff.

    Defined as “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for a return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.” In the spirit of the times, nostalgia’s favourite hashtag is #ThrowbackThursday. In our local context, the yen spins an orbit around the time loosely defined as post-94.

    Most notably and obviously, the post-94 period represents South Africa’s technicolour transition from apartheid to democracy. The birth of democracy was potent and many nascent paths were forged spurred by the energy of the anomalous rainbow nation. For one, black people were free to express themselves without the fear of oppression. The new nation not only provided an opportunity for expression but a platform too. The national broadcaster, the SABC was restructured with the intended consequence being content that was reflective of, and responsive to, all of the people of the new South Africa. For the first time, the nation’s storytelling instrument reflected the full spectrum of the nation.

    At the time, nostalgia was simply illogical, and the future although splashed in rainbow hues was at least historically, unchartered territory. The present was the only option and the sentiment during that period was reflective.

    In turn, young South African creatives took advantage of the opportunity for expression and their pent-up creative energy birthed unmatched work that would later provide the fuel for current day nostalgia. The squiggly bright outline of “Hanging with Mr Cooper” said a lot about the 90s: there was a bright hue to everything.

    The door found on Albertina Sisulu Road, close-to but not-quite Braamfontein was found next to a long abandoned general dealer decorated with heavy locks that moaned when the wind forced its way through the City of Gold. 

    For examples of the current manifestations of millennial nostalgia, you don’t have to look too far, only a bit more carefully.

    Watch “Don’t Panic” by DJ Speedsta and Moozlie and witness the spirited reincarnation of Lebo Mathosa and Brenda Fassie embodied by Moozlie and DJ Doo Wap juxtapose with FaceTime conversations, Spice Girls’ chokers and Rihanna-inspired blue lippy.

    The work of The Sartists – a Joburg-based creative collective – sings of the past in a manner that is evocative, even if misunderstood. Telling the Noted Man website of their infamous arrival at the 2014 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (MBFW) dressed in 1990s Bafana Bafana and Kaiser Chiefs soccer jerseys, bucket hats and baggy carpenter pants. The duo was met with suspicion by security guards and guests, despite their carefully considered intention to celebrate the golden victories of the two teams, along with the matchless style of their supporters. Sports in apartheid South Africa were – much like everything else – largely the reserve of white people, and so, the significance of supporting the successes of the majority-black football teams goes beyond sport. The Sartists note that at the same event, they were offered an undisclosed sum for the Chiefs jersey by Kaizer Motaung Jnr himself, thrifting is imbued with new meaning when seen as a way to reimagine and reclaim the past.

    Okmalumkoolkat is another artist who blurs the divide between “what will be” and “what has been” simultaneously adopting the monikers “future mfana” and the “Zulu Michael Jackson”. Drawing cultural currency from 90s kwaito and hip hop, Okmalumkoolkat isn’t lying when he spits: “Back to the future and I’m chilling in the front seat” in his smash track, “Holy Oxygen”.

    Collectively, the aesthetic and work of the above mentioned is an act of time travel: to take back what was promised. Part-nostalgic, part-futuristic. Part-passive, part-active. Consumers of the global village rooted in South Africa, the purveyors of millennial nostalgia are powerful reminders that the past echoes until it is heard.

    Walking past the door, my friend noted that she had seen that very same quote on a sticker “somewhere in Berlin, I think” while she was waiting for the bus. 

    However, the sentiment of nostalgia is not isolated to South Africa – globally, it is most noticeable in the at-the-point-of-cliché hipster movement. Think flannels, artisan products, spectacles and a wartime haircut and on the surface you have the checklist for the “perfect hipster”, but upon further inspection – beyond the pretension – there is a real desire to return to what was, or more accurately what movies starring James Dean and the like, say “what was”.

    With regard to South Africa, the nostalgia is for a lived, real experience often witnessed with the optimistic glow of childhood innocence. Globally, however, the hipster movement represents nostalgia for an idea, and perhaps that’s why it is so seductive: ideas can be perfect, memory by nature cannot.

    Upon closer inspection, next to the door in small neat type, someone had written: “nostalgia kills happiness”.