Tag: johannesburg

The Bag Factory: An artistic alcove of cultural exchange twenty-five years in the making

Nestled between the edge of Newtown and Fordsburg, the once industrial warehouse now exists as a space of continuous cultural exchange. “You are always absorbed in a mix of cultures and experiences. The location is central, just outside of the CBD it gives you a real everyday engagement with the city and a space for reflection at the same time.” This experience of environmental interaction has influenced artists like Diana Hyslop and Blessing Ngobeni. The geographical location positions itself as the intersection between artist and city.

Initially inspired by the early Triangle and Thupelo workshops in the late 80’s – based on mutual exchange and collaboration – founders Dr. David Koloane and Robert Loder created the Bag Factory. Formed in 1991, “David & Robert wanted to recreate a permanent creative environment which would benefit artists of all races.” The notion of ‘learning through exchange’ remains at the core of its practice.

An excess of 300 artists that have come through the Bag Factory doors in the last twenty-five years – engaging in studio practice, workshops as well as residency programmes. An extensive calendar has been developed to meet the needs of local and international artists. “[The Bag Factory] now transcends its early notions into national and international projects focused on the supporting and developing artists in South Africa.”

An ‘open door’ studio policy ensures a level accessibility – artists and the larger public are able to frequent the space regularly. “We encourage younger artists to visit regularly and access the wealth of information that the artists have.” The notion of access is a crucial element to the process of cultural exchange within the space. Education and shared knowledge are also at the core of the organization. The David Koloane & Reinhold Cassirer award programmes, residencies and artist outreach projects articulate and enable these ideals to manifest tangibly.

On the eve of its anniversary the space boasts a full house, in many ways symbolic of its success. Artists on Residency include Lady Skollie, Barclay’s L’Atelier Merit Award Winner (2015) Gideon Appah, Sheekha Kalan and Ausuka Nirasawa (Japan). We also have our David Koloane Mentorship Award, which will be featured at the Jhb Art Fair in September with finalists, Shenaz Mohomed, Minenkulu Ngoyi and Carmen Ford.

22 August 2016
Sehrrge- No Permission Needed

‘Fuck your tuition …. Ready to take it without your permission’ goes the arresting chorus of Sehrrge’s No 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.

16 August 2016
Naadira Patel: Imagining Invisible Cities

“Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents” – Italo Calvino

Subtle grey lines form an urban landscape, bending to the contours of buildings. Collective pockets of rectangular forms build silhouettes of the cityscape, steeped in personal memory of both the familiar and the strange. Tehran and Johannesburg are artfully articulated through subjective experience, made manifest on paper pages.

Multi-disciplinary Johannesburg based artist, Naadira Patel, recently returned from a collaborative residency and exchange between the Bag Factory and their partnering institute, Kooshk Residency. The dual month-long exchange programme allowed for an immersive experience and exploration of the two geographically located spaces – separated by 10 828,6 km the cities are in many ways, worlds apart.

Tehran boasts a population of 16 million people, and where Johannesburg is relatively flat and sprawling, this city is filled with high-rise apartments. Patel navigated architectural landscapes, punctuated by fortuitous friendships made in cafés, neon highways, amusement parks and a resident cat called Gonbad – “dome” in Persian. She was intrigued by the “ways in which people operate in space, according to or against certain rules and frameworks, a constant negotiation of forms of control.”

For the first part of the residency, Patel was based between Newtown and Fordsburg at the Bag Factory. These two suburbs of Johannesburg are separated by an iconic overpass. Located in the familiar space, already imbued with personal history and memory, “I began looking at the city afresh, and I wanted to create something that would reflect that sense of understanding of place, but that also becomes a translation of how I understand the city.”

During the first part of the residency she created Daydream – a book of architectural experiences expressing the conflicting narratives of the City of Gold. A place often associated with hope and prosperity, juxtaposed with a reality of realized struggle. “[Johannesburg] is a hard city, a rollercoaster city, one that tests you and knocks you around, it makes you work, and despite its sometimes cold and concrete embrace, it leaves you wanting more, it asks you to dream and imagine more.”

Her time in Tehran was spent maneuvering through far less familiar terrain. “Tehran is a city of ambiguities and contradictions, it never quite gives you an answer, it never lets you in on the secret.” The lack of aesthetic cohesion between marketplaces, mosques and LED billboards is implicit of a transitionary space in the midst of transformation of discord.

The twin project Tehran, Jaan! is a manifestation of the enveloping experience. ‘Jaan’ is a very common term of endearment but also roughly translates to “the essence of being alive.” The project is an “interpretation of curious elements in architectural design, engineering, and patterns that decorate the many surfaces of the city’s important buildings.” Artistic intervention took the form of two ‘colouring books’ – influenced by a childhood experience. This allowed for the works to operate on a participatory platform. During the respective public programming in the two cities, local audiences were encouraged to intervene and collaborate on the pages. “The conversations that I’ve had with people at both open studio events have been crucial to my understanding of the project.” Strangers were able to share in the communal experience – drawing on their own memories.

“For me, the two interactions were also a testing ground, to see how people would respond to these translations of the city they live in. The drawings in the books are my translations of the city, extractions even. They operate, in my mind, as a record of an experience of space and time.”

15 August 2016
Taking back control over the black imagination: In conversation with Mary Sibande

It’s a special moment when one is given the opportunity to talk with their heroes. I first met Sophie during her exhibition as the main attraction in Mary Sibande’s solo exhibition ‘The Purple shall Govern’ in the Grahamstown National arts festival. Seeing Sophie, a life sized ebony skinned sculpture in Victorian dress, for the first time reminded me of one of my fond childhood memories of playing dress up. Just like Sophie I too would have a blue dress that would be shielded by a white apron. Like the little protagonist of ‘Alice in wonder land’ I wanted to be “pretty”, I wanted to be a lady and just like Sophie I would love to lather myself in layers of petticoats and puffy sleeves. Such, as I recall the memory, would act as a separation between me and my reality. The bigger the “poof” the closer to my own dreams. I would be able to situate myself fully submerged in my imagination.

Yet it would be through Mary Sibande, the creator of this Sophie character that I would finally be able to engage with her motives for the character of Sophie. So often are we so emerged in our own idealizations that we forget that ideas made home within our minds have their own context from which they sprung. Our interview would be one of a debate about the character of Sophie and Mary’s process of delivering her work.

Motlatsi Khosi (MK): You “blew up” in 2013 as the Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner (SBYAA) and your images were regularly in public space such as billboards in the Johannesburg CBD featuring your work and the tag line “the purple shall govern”. And then you went silent. What have you been up to for the last 3 years? What has your journey been like as an artist moving from working within the private home to public space sensation within the art world and receiving all the international and local recognition?

Mary Sibande (MS): My prize as the Standard Bank Young Artist Award recipient in 2013 was the culmination of a few years of focused work. The acknowledgement of my work in this way presented the opportunity and challenge of finding other sources of inspiration. I have not had a solo exhibition since 2009, but the intensity has not subsided as I have responded to calls for my work to be shown internationally, mostly in group exhibitions, art fairs and residencies.

Due to being a recipient of the award my work titled “the Purple Shall Govern” went on a national tour, gracing some of the leading museums in South Africa. Beginning of course at the Grahamstown National Festival, making stops at Iziko National Gallery in Cape Town, Oliewenhuis Museum in Bloemfontein and making its final stop at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg.

I was invited to a residency in Michigan University at the Penny Stamps School of Arts. I was also given the opportunity to present a talk in Detroit. During my stay I was able to visit Toledo art museum in Ohio to witness the inauguration of my work at their Collectors dinner. In the same year, I presented my work in a group exhibition titled ‘My Jo’Burg’ at La Maison Rouge in Paris. The show was an assemblage of work that presented the diverse range of work and modes of visual and cultural productions by South African artists. I was also invited to participate in the prestigious 12^th Lyon Biennale in France. As well as Lagos Photo in Nigeria to exhibit photographic prints from my Sophie series.

MK: Your work has led you across continents and you have lead it forward. It has evolved from a particular context and history yet you yourself are growing in both your skills and ideas. The travels to unfamiliar places must have offered new contexts to influence your work. How did they influence your work?

As the show progressed I had to re-curate it according to space and context, this meant that elements of the show were added on and taken at different stages. My visit to La Maison Rouge coincided with my residency at the Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne (MAC VAL Museum) also in Paris. This was an incredibly rich residency where I conceptualized and made work using the hosts of resources made available to me there. I worked with talented textile and Fashion Students to create the work. I worked with a seamstress who was able to translate my ideas even though our different languages would be an obstacle to our work. I was assigned a foundry that was able to make my fiberglass figure. I eventually constructed an installation piece in one of the spaces in the museum and was met with great approval. The museum also commissioned some of the previous body of works to be made into billboard posters, making the little town of Vitry-Sur-Seine (outside of Paris) into a giant ‘Sophie’ gallery.

The body of work ‘The Purple Shall Govern’ has been seen in a few manifestations. The body of work seems to build its own momentum as it seems to attract the attention of curators from leading museums. One such invitation came from the Swedish sculpture park called ‘Wanas’. This was an exciting proposition for me as I was asked to create work that would be installed in a forest. The works durability had to be taken in consideration and so the installation was made entirely of fiberglass sculpture. It was here that my visual language would be thoroughly tested.

I have also participated in the Winter Sculpture Show entitled ‘A Place in Time’ at Nirox in Johannesburg, responding to an annual call for artists at their exhibition space. The commission made it possible for me to create a four meter steel sculpture titled the “Mechanism”, the work was a larger than life presser foot and needle of a sewing machine. The work was paying homage to one of my greatest tools that I use to make my work.

MK: Who is your character Sophie that features so prominently in your work? She has your face yet her image speaks to the South African story of woman, of black lives and a stolen collective humanity.

MS: Sophie is an ambiguous hybridized figure from my imagination. She is also supplemented by family histories or stories from my matriarchal lineage. To begin with, her naming is derived from the process of naming black women by their employers who considered their ‘given names’ too difficult to pronounce. This is one of many reasons for why I gave her that name.

I considered that naming is equally a process of de-historicizing, removing, obliterating, and or defacing and individual. I regard this being a violent process. My Great Grandmother was named “Fanedi” at birth. This tongue twister of a name was removed from her birth certificate and she would then be referred to by the Christian name ‘Elsie’.

The other source that Sophie stems from is the fiction that furnishes dreams or aspirations of this matriarchal lineage. I attempted to take the place of each woman and project what may be available to them as ways of escaping servitude. The fiction is informed by both my ideas and reflections given to me by these women.

Sophie is the embodiment of the maid, the ubiquitous domesticated body described by W.E.B Du Bois in the book ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ who served as a warning within itself and the context that nourishes these personal/political but omnipresent battles. Sophie is me, my mother, my grandmother and great grandmother working to re-engineer our history.

MK: I personally see two concepts in your Sophie character. The being of a woman in domestic garb reimagined in Victorian dress. Her agency, her dreams, a corporealized visualization in statuesque beauty. A black body one step closer to her mistress. Her story reminds me of Fanon’s Black skin white mask chapter ‘The Woman of Color and the White Man’ where for the character of Capecia her ascension into white society could be achieved through a white husband. For the character of Sophie it is being attained through clothing as a means of getting closer to white society. Both characters could be unfairly judged as suffering from an inferiority complex but I would argue that both show the contradictions of agency in what it means to be a black woman under a colonial maze.

MS: Sophie’s aspirations do not lie in wanting to be anything (i.e. white woman) other than what she is. She is a black woman and a mother. Sophie’s desires are located in an elsewhere space or dream space, the material objects of her desires are illusive and can only remain as dream objects. Closing her eyes is the only way to concretize them. Perhaps her desires can be described as ‘envious’, an adjective which is committed to attaining freedom in response to a context wherein freedom is denied materially. The dresses hybridize a different identity by forging the blue fabric that usually makes workers overalls with the suggested form of a Victorian dress. With this combination an alternative maid’s uniform is created, and symbolically attempting to transcend beyond the dichotomy set up by the racial ideology of the colonial and apartheid gaze. The women in my family have not responded to describing themselves as inferior, but present to me the possibility of multiplicity. Sophie attempts to disempower that constructed dichotomy.

MK: The second Sophie is woman overwhelmed by her once emancipatory garb. What was once Victorian luster depicted by the previous Sophie has transformed itself into malignant colonial nightmare? She is overwhelmed. Her face now overshadowed, her features fighting to make themselves seen or has she just give up to that fact that she will forever be locked in her own materiality. Does this work serve as a warning to choose our tools well lest they end up oppressing our own selves?

MS: With the body of work ‘The Purple shall Govern’, I push and strive towards an abstract space of emotions. I engage with contemporary fears and desires referencing as a starting point a historical event. The Purple shall govern was a slogan coined by the people in 1989 after they had been sprayed by the apartheid police, who laced their water cannons with purple dye to identify them after the teargas, gun smoke and dust had settled. This opens up ideas that are less representational and more abstract. The work engages with anger, violent reactions and a response to the bewildering apartheid and colonial after taste.

MK: I am also seeing two major themes in your work, domestic work and Victorian aspirations. Two opposing worlds which for South Africa has a major significance especially in relation to what it means to be both female and situated within the (continued) Apartheid. Within such a white supremacist space where Victorian dress still has major symbolism to those who would still revere a colonial past. The Victorian dress crudely representing white woman and the domestic dress crudely representing the black woman. In your works do you see these two words as cohabitating under the white supremacist masculine with Sophie being able to perform such heroisms as in your work depicting her on a life size horse or with arms flayed with staffing “putting a spell on the you”. Do you see the relationship as one that is toxic with one feeding on the other or is the story not as simple as “black and white”.

I find inspiration in women who work hard, juggling between being objects of servitude and being women. I find there is little room left to celebrate them and Sophie’s complexities become an aperture to contrast, contradict and challenge a mono-narrative. I recently listened to Chimanmanda Ngozi Adichie issue a warning which she called ‘the danger of the single story’, what I found valuable about this is that in navigating through their lives these women had agency and they expressed it outside their context of being exploited and used. They raised kids, had husbands and lived.

MK: Do South Africans who engage with your work respond to it differently to your viewers abroad? Has your work, instead, taken on a common understanding in how it has been received? One of the biggest contradictions can stem from the artists intention which can act in contradiction with how their audiences read their work. Are artist ethically responsible for work that speaks to their viewer, if so, does this mean that they have to carefully curate their work to suite their viewers?

MS: I find that the open-endedness of art allows viewers to engage with the work from any direction. The audience comes to the work with baggage and the combination of that visual and sensory experience can be fruitful. I do not try to fit the work to cater for an audience for I believe that the processes of making have their own integrity. The audiences have not determined what I make.

I have been on various residencies and with each one I have found suitable shifts in my work; the contexts have nurtured experimentation which I have welcomed. What has been interesting is the universal image of the black female which tends to be based on stereotypes, but with these images there are slight shifts and difference. I made a work titled ‘a conversation with Madame C.J Walker’, wherein I found an overlap of her story with my mother’s. I had been on a residency in New York during Black History Month in the US. Ms. Walker had found her wealth after slavery by making hair straightening cream. The concoction made her the first black female millionaire in the 1920’s. Although my mother is not a millionaire, she worked in a hair salon as a teenager which encouraged her to open up various small businesses when she left for Johannesburg. Their entrepreneurial ventures became the door to actualizing a freedom.

There is a universal relating to the work as the institutions of apartheid, colonialism or slavery where centered on limiting the black female body in all the possible forms. The work often opens imaginative possibilities of how to think of this body.

MK: My understanding of Sophie and what she represents would often be in conflict with Mary’s understandings but such, I ask the reader, should not be shied away from but rather fully engaged with. My discussion with Mary reflects the various interpretations on what it means to experience art, experience blackness as art and also the image of black in art. Such difference represented the diversity in what it means to engage with black thought and those who inspire its ideas.

Keep up to date with Mary’s work through her Instagram. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Editorial image credits

Photography: Brett Rubin

Styling: Jamal Nxedlana

Hair & Make up: Orli Meiri

Image 1:

Mary wears a gillet by Black Coffee, accessories from The Source and a Khanga head wrap.

Image 2:

Mary wears dress by Black Coffee, headpiece by Qba Nkosi, boots & accessories from The Source.

10 August 2016
Mashayabhuqe, the Modern Maskandi intersects tradition and the avant-garde to capture the millennial mood

Mashaya shows up to Father Coffee just a few minutes late for our interview and he quickly allows me into the landscape of his life these days. He is fresh from AfroPunk in Paris and we fall into step chatting about his experiences in Paris.

He is refreshed and ready to work on more music, now on the other side of Amancamnce mixtape, released last year with a host of cosigns from the upper echeleons of the creative industries along with a feature from his friend uMalume KoolKati and a sampling of the original Urban Zulu Busi Mhlongo.

The Black Excellence Show first released in 2013 introduced Mashayabhuqe KaMamba as someone to watch, and be enthralled by, it presented him and his unique blend of the traditional and Zulu with the digital and urban. He has even been successful enough to have a few copycats, but he’s already onto the next concept, and scheming on greener pastures.

Mashaya occupies a niche space in South Africa’s music scene, his influences and style collide the past and the future, and his perspective is about walking in creative purpose and pushing the boundaries of what performance and urban music mean within this space. An individual steeped in his tradition and culture, with a mind opened to the global possibilities of his craft.

‘Why are you here? Am I here to make things that are acceptable to the community or am I here to challenge people’s minds?’

With that said this alchemist of modernity and Maskandi is doing it like it hasn’t been done in a minute, and he has worked with some of South Africa’s legends. I mean real legends; KingTha For The Babies, was a groundbreaking challenge for emerging artists to win a free feature from Le Grande Artiste herself, Thandiswa Mazwai. Mashayabuqhe won it. Now, they have a song, ‘Izayoni’ together. We both geek hard for a second. Then he says, ‘She’s amazing. I listen to the song and pinch myself all the time, her music moulded uMashaya, noBusi Mhlongo, no James Blake and Bon Iver…’

For a moment I consider Mashaya’s forebears and then him as the next bearer of the legacy both Busi Mhlongo and Thandiswa have built upon. That pioneering perspective that broke new ground and resonated with the culture of coming to Johannesburg to follow a dream and grappling with urbanity and modernity, dealing with the anonymity and isolation of the city while using it to propel yourself to new heights. It is not a new story, but it presents us with a new face, a new hero every so often; some of them shed their skin and make a whole new persona, eschewing their roots for a brighter future. Mashaya revels in his culture and eschews expectations and definitions, consistently curating his own style, always looking to do what the industry is too afraid to; break musical ground, bring the truth of South Africa to the fore using its culture and its current permutation as an outpost of western culture, to tell the story that we can relate to and be inspired by.

His energy, wonder and sincerity are on a hundred this crisp Jozi morning; he lets me in on how he grew up in a village eNkandla and how most of his English was studied from the television and music he was exposed to at his family’s home. Then he wound up working in television in Jozi with his most faithful friend uMatsoso who has supported Mashaya’s career from its infancy and continues to call him to this day to inform him of the latest copycat to appropriate Mashaya’s sound. These simple things, these pieces of his history give context to the person I see before me now, that understands and reconstructs the relations between art, technology and tradition and refuses to be pigeonholed or defined by anybody but himself. And he’s already onto the next one.

‘I just dropped Sun City flow, and there’s a lot of attachments to it, it could be the jail, or the casino, or any city in Africa because there’s always sun. This song is about sharing my experiences with the kids; letting them know that if you’re a raw talent, they will try to chain you.’

Mashayabhuque chooses substance and creativity when it comes to his art, thus staying true to the source to leave awe and imitators in his wake while the world waits and watches to see just how far he takes it.

Editorial image credits

Photography: Hanro Havenga

Styling: Jamal Nxedlana

Image 1:

Mashayabhuqe wears a suit by Diego Ranieri, beret by Crystal Birch and a neckpiece by Pichulik. (Accessories stylist own)

Image 2:

Mashayabhuqe wears trousers by Diego Ranieri, beret by Crystal Birch. (Accessories stylist own)

Image 3:

Mashayabhuqe wears a shirt by Studio W, trousers by Diego Ranieri, beret by Crystal Birch. (Accessories stylist own)

27 July 2016
Live from Berlin: FAKA performing Bottoms Revenge and writing love letters to black men

2016 has been the year of FAKA. The creative duo of Desire Marea and Fela Gucci have outdone themselves and broken cultural ground with every drop and every performance this year. On the 21st of April 2016 they gave an exhilarating live performance that set the Stevenson SEX exhibit alight. While a new video for ISIFUNDO SOKUQALA – sensual with a touch of the supernatural – has them sketching an imprint on the local cultural scene. For queer culture, for trans culture, for bottoms, for women – for everyone who believes we should be able to be ourselves without fearing for our safety in our so called civilised society. Their performances enlighten and expose ignorance and their space within the current conversation around sex and gender is pioneering and so sexy. In consistently immaculate styling and composed, powerful performances they walk the line between provocation and seduction – posing challenges to the heteronormative hegemony and offering healing and inspiration to those brutalised by it. Currently at the Berlin Bienalle performing their highly anticipated piece titled ‘Bottom’s Revenge’. Their humour, vision and power transcend social censorship and reveal that seduction is a feeling, and sex is something society perverts and polices to serve patriarchy and its princes and princesses.

They took time out of their Bienalle schedules to answer a few questions for us. Read and weep.

When did you realize your creativity and identity could impact your environment?

We realised this when we realised that our own lives were actually conceptual, they were a well executed creative idea that came quite effortlessly from our need to cope with and transcend the social displacement that comes with being black and queer. Our growth as people made us realise that there are more effective ways to navigate the aesthetics, the artefacts, and all the movements that form our identities in ways that might threaten or influence the structural environment we are juxtaposed with on the daily. Seeing how this affects our everyday experience of the world opened us up to very intimate truths about our world and a lot of that informs our practice. We see art as an equally intimate way to communicate (not so) new truths, and it’s the best way to plant new ideas in the minds of people who consume it. Art has the power to influence culture and for us culture is the highest governing power

What does the future hold for FAKA in SA and beyond?

We are releasing our EP Bottoms Revenge very soon. Beyond that our focus will be to create tangible structures that can reflect our ideology as artists, structures that will hopefully be able to support the upcoming legendary children. We have been fortunate to receive multiple platforms and our voice is strengthened by that. Every young black queer artist deserves that but it is not the case and we don’t want them to go as far as we have gone to be heard.

What message do you have for other men trying to find ways to be loving and sexual outside the pervasive S.African toxic and violent masculinities?

Insert Fumbatha May’s “A love letter to the Black Man”.

This performance comes at a critical time for marginalized people’s internationally, do these events inform your work at all?

Yes, and they always will because we exist there too.

In a country terrorised by violence against the female, the queer, the trans and whoever else doesn’t fit into the missionary mould of god fearing christian or suited up capitalist, FAKA have come to remind us that the human body is for fun, for sex and we should all have the freedom to enjoy it without shame or fear. FAKA!

25 July 2016
The Artlifers – Turn on The Radio

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.

6 July 2016
Bringing the blood, guts and “come” back to performance art: In discussion with Emma Tollman

Who is Emma Tollman?

The reason you should be taking notice of this Johannesburg based artist and entrepreneur are due to her big plans for the often misunderstood and inaccessible genre of performance art. Her work, she explains, is located in the “avant-garde and hyper visual arts”. She explores the “deep metaphorical states such as love and how the stars fall”, so to speak. This is achieved through her focus on the “plurality of what is pure and what is the corrupt and how such manifests itself as life on earth”.

Such plurality is also featured strongly in her career path as Emma is the co founder of the V Company. This start up targets and encourages partnerships between the arts and business. It aims to create a platform to help young art professionals gain access to contract work. She describes it as a “tinder for the arts and business”.

Yet I would find most captivating about her work are the influences from Hollywood and how they have been allowed to permeate her work in the avant-garde. She comments on how “Hollywood influences may seem to push against her work format but they actually do work in the end”.

This is no threat on her part. As an audience I could see this paradox at play in her latest work presented at the Basha Uhuru Freedom festival, titillatingly

Entitled, “Meat, Purge, Lust”. The work was performed at the men’s prison at the Constitution Hill Museum in Johannesburg. We are greeted by the work, bodies draped on the wall, scantily clad, exposed to the cold evening. As the audience we are guided to the cold stone setting. The weather seemed to warn the viewer of what to expect, the icy chill of death and violence would have to keep the audience warm for the remainder of the piece.

The lighting was striking, set low it cast giant shadows of the performers over its viewers as if to show us that giants would walk among us during this piece. The performer’s movements are erratic at first. Bodies contorted, primal sounds gushing from jerking bodies. A woman scantly clad in bubble wrap and sneakers moves slowly across the crisp cold lawn with a wash bucket filled with what looks like red pieces of fleshy clothing. She slowly tears at the soaked pieces of cloth and hangs them on a flimsy washing line. There seems to be much confusion over what is going on from the audience and there is much laughter from the crowd as performers cut through the crowd demanding their attention.

For me the first hint of the familiar would be found in the music. From a single powerful speaker blasted what sounded to like a movie soundtrack. The violin screaming from the speakers reminds the viewer of the dramatic tension to be found within the performance. Viewing this spectacle my thoughts would move on to how the big-screen music worked against this intimate piece of movement-theatre. I was not happy in this confusion but would be patient to see where Emma would be leading her performance to.

The method of madness

Yet the source of this piece’s veracity lay in its method of contradiction or rather its unsettling method that her performers are thrown into. For Emma the real pleasure lies in her ‘sadomasochist’ enjoyment in the struggles experienced by her performers as they try to make sense of her work. She enjoys the “conflicting and automated language [of movement] in which her performers inhabit and sees this as being the source of the surreal mental states that result from this confusion”. It is this state that we see the breaking of their artistic boundaries.

In order to achieve this methodological destruction she prefers to work with non-dancers. For Meat, Purge Lust they would come from different career backgrounds: a ballet dancer, a body-tech personal trainer and a Kundalini yoga instructor. She sees their panic, fear, their reality, their strong criticism to her works and self reflection as leading from the rehearsal process, continuing to the final moment of performance. It is such moments of confusion that lead to panicked states of the performers that forms the basis of her work.

Her very artistic practice is born out of a misplaced identity crisis of being a philosophy student practicing art. Unable to fit into a specific portfolio she has managed to create her very own niche. For her the post-university experience has been the exciting journey of finding a place in the arts. She describes herself as “Not making theatre and not making static art”. Her field is that of “work[ing] with bodies work[ing] with movement”. She inhabits a space that aims to work with “broken bodies” and dance as a “means in which to dismantle the static structures found within our dance styles.”

Even within the creation of the basic element of plot the process is constantly changing for Emma and her crew. For her the script would ironically consist of detailed instruction describing every movement, expression and tone for each of the scenes. Yet the script itself is in constant re-write going through as many as 7 to 11 draft before opening night! She describes her method as ‘iterating’, “a reactive style where as a result of confusion the performer will receive their script”. This explains the constant need for the re-write and is a symptom of the continuous stages of confusion within the rehearsal process. Yet for Emma “the confusion is what keeps me up at night. It is the catastrophe of not knowing what is to be at opening night that makes it performance art”.

She celebrates the element of surprise and uses it to guide performers through the pieces twists and turns. Even through the performance she and her “dancers” would be dealt with various performance set backs. The crowd was unexpectedly large for the venue and they were unable to see each other for their cues, having to rely on the music and instinct. I argue that this would translate to the viewer as being the feeling of constant (inter)action throughout the different performance spaces.

One scene would start with the setting of another. It had the feeling of being inside the movie where even after viewing a crucial plot scene you would need to move to the next but the previous character would continue being themselves. There was beautiful confusion in the faces of the audiences as they were left deciding which gyrating body they would choose to follow. For me the choice would be decided on which crowd had the best viewing angle and the shortest bodies in which to look over.

Experience the madness

Emma is forced to guide the performer in the rehearsal as well as the audience. During the piece ushers would sometimes point at the direction of the action to be seen. One of my favourite moments of the piece was when I did not heed their instruction to move down the steps and decided to move to the scene up stage. I found performers in their positions but one was also being dressed by the stagehands. They were battling to get her shoes on for the next scene and she had to break out of character and instruct them. Chaos can result in the breaking of the fourth wall but its end result can mean something captivating for both viewer and performer. I found this moment comical in its intimacy. There is nothing more humanising than a beautiful actress unable to put her damn shoes on!

Yet even Emma has had her reminders that she is doing something right in her work. “I have been called crazy and have been asked if I was okay and whether I needed to ‘take 5’. But at the end that same performer came to me and said that the experience was unbelievable and they would do it again with me any time.”

For her the process has to be collaborative for it to work. She works interactively and is deeply active in the intellectual process throughout the rehearsal process. This also translates into the design and composition or the ‘world she creates within the audio.’ Through the highly conceptual ideas she uses basic tropes in order to deliver the message. Using the imagery found in popular culture of stock characters and dabbling in the visually shocking the body becomes the living embodiment of the idea.

Her work features the tropes of a Black Jesus performed by Sthe Khali wearing an Aluminium crown of thorns. He fornicates with a black mother resulting in what I believe to be the most beautifully intimate presentation of a sex scene. Both receive moments of unbridled bliss at the peak of their ecstasy. He kisses her on the forehead as if in gratitude to her, then leaves her in foetal pool of sensual despair.

The Black “Mary Mgandela” trope (performed by Tembela Mgandela) is introduced to us through her domestic work of hanging the blood soaked sheets. Soon after her intimacy she falls pregnant and gives birth to a black goat’s head. This imagery is powerful considering how the head can be traced to pagan and satanic iconography, the sort of dark practices considered the antithesis of Christian belief and the immaculate conception.

We are also given the comfort of death in the image of a Hijab clad, sword wielding angel of life and angel of death performed by Imaan Latif. She watches over the performers throughout the play as warning of their eventual demise. We are also finally given the image of the seductive blonde who wields her sexuality as her weapon. She is played by Ricci Lee Kalish as the Butcher’s wife who would also fall victim to the stereotype of blond screaming for her life in dark forbidden places.

All must die in this story as the characters represent a sense of potentiality in the pervasive ability of human kind of agency within one’s own limitations. From sheer ecstasy of movement must come the finality of death as all bright lights eventually are extinguished.

Our ‘killer’, performed by Emma herself plays the The Butcher, the one who fucks our blonde haired vixen in a violent lesbian sex scene so well performed in its mimicry that it left various audience members uncomfortable and the young viewer snickering. Her agency as Female-fatale becomes literal as our Butcher murders all in her path by taking on the masculine position in the play and, I would dare say, also within her spectacular sex scene. Female is distorted to masculine destruction, a warning to the viewer to destructive effect of unbridled power. Her acts are followed by the defining screams of her victims in the crucifixion of our Jesus. Her final pose is one where her butcher knife, the household cleaver, becomes the phallus between her thighs as she revels in the ecstasy of her carnage.

The experience of the viewer

With such works you cannot exclude the experience of the viewer as part of the performance. Within the high end theatre and stuffy gallery space the viewer is expected to remain the silent spectator except through the act of clapping in appreciation or the polite laugh. In such moments the audience’s can only contribute by invitation of the actor.

After the show I overheard one of the performers discussed in utter anger how she had been ‘cat-called’ by the audience members during her performance. She in her bubble wrap and bra costume had been reminded that no matter how “high” her art form was she still lived within a space of every day patriarchy where the short skirts and such are seen as an invitation. She was somewhat distraught by the experience and I would argue that this was caused by the performers being denied the protection of the artistic fourth wall that established the behaviour of the audience.

This fourth wall or the gallery space offers a sense of comfort to the performer that their work can be separated from those of sex workers as they present themselves in compromising situations. The performer is given a consolation that even though she may present herself as a sex object her intentions of her artistic merit will be made clear within the “gallery space”.

Yet this very safe space is only made possible through the privilege that comes with navigating an elite space that is mostly white and male. In this context it functions to protect the white female body where her acts are not seen as an infringement on their dignity. This ensures that the artists themselves are not touched in the interrogation and the experience of their works. It is an industry that would ignore the artists’ “transgressions” for the sake of their message but ironically would see the increase in value of their works when they are dead. Yet in the business world people have lost their jobs over racist twitter rants or indecent exposure but in the art world your work can increase exponentially in value if you resort to racist iconography.

In “Meat, Purge, Lust” the performers would loose some of this “fourth wall” safety net as their bodies are viewed as sex objects and they were given direct proof of such. I ask Emma to comment on such destruction. “I embrace and celebrate that that happened. The work of a performance lies in you being left in the conscious space of the unknown. I make work that is PG 13 and we experienced a very unusual set of audience members where the front lines of the audience were made up of teenage boys”.

I see Emma’s work as a reaction to this false sense of elite security or at least an attempt moving away from the safety of elite spaces. She adds “what I celebrate about Basha Uhuru is that it is free and accessible due to its location and it being an annual festival so it is very well known”. Her work would be taken out side of the usual space of where avant-garde performance where it would easily be politely accepted or at least not out-rightly criticized.

The unacceptable accepted

For Emma her task is to make the performance accessible. She does so by using the cinematic styles characteristic of a Quinton Tarantino film in his glorification of violence and its homage to exploitation films.

The final scene of “Meat, Purge, lust” pays homage to such as our angel of death becomes our angel of mercy. She is stripped bare in white cloth and entreats death to all the characters. No one is left alive as the stage is bathed in the blinding white light. A guitar solo typical to an Ennio Morricone soundtrack guitar solo soundtrack offered tender support to the whimpering lyrics of melancholic Zulu ballad marked the Pieces’ climax.

Our sin is that of our need as viewers of being enchanted by the very spectacle of violence and sex. Emma is giving us what we crave. “So much of performance are is seen as inaccessible. I aimed to create a block buster that filled seats, packed punch in a medium that has not seen a block buster”.

In her quest to fill the seats she has fed our hunger to be entertained though much to the audiences discomfort. Blood flows freely from the characters as they are sacrificed to feed our voyeuristic appetite. In the end Jesus and Mary were resurrected, their bodies living but with no movement. They are statues pinned down by their sins against the blaring wind of regret. The crucifixion of Black Jesus was not enough to save the damned souls of the characters as well as the audience that still remained. More blood had to flow, but there was simply not enough. Maybe, only the power of a white savour can save us all from state of habitual contradiction.

Emma’s next performance will be at the opening night of the 5^th Internet A MAZE gaming festival on the 31^st of August.

You can also follow her like her Facebook page or on her instagram.

5 July 2016
The Kool Out Phenomenon: how rooftops and hip hop can ‘put you in your place’

We use the word ‘place’ to mean many things. Most obviously, place is location — a space in the world. It may also be a ‘place’ in the social order, as in to ‘know your place’ or ‘be in first place’. In a third sense, place is performance: events ‘take place’. If there is any event series that knows how to ‘take’ and ‘make’ a place, it’s Kool Out. Whether it’s the mellow kick-back of Kool Out Lounge, a concert gig at Kool Out Live, or Koolin in the City over a Sunday skyline; the Kool Out crew know how to produce place with hip hop.

In its most recent edition, Koolin in the City saw crowds gather on a Troyeville rooftop. Shoulders slung over the balcony railings. Heads rested on the distant edges of Ponte Tower. Mouths pulling smoke, stoking orange light. Then exhaling Biggie, Erykah and Bobby Caldwell over the used car lot below. ‘Is this your first Kool Out?’ No-one said yes. These were pilgrims, like birds regularly migrating home, coming to rest atop another Kool Out skyline.

For the past eight years, Kool Out has been cultivating this sense of place. The brand began in Cape Town, founded by DJ ID (Akio Kawahito). ‘I was an old-school hip hop guy’, he explains, ‘and there wasn’t really that scene on Long Street’. The city’s hip hop heads had been ‘placeless’ since the early 2000s, when DJ Raiko had run Cape Town’s biggest hip hop night, The Lounge. They needed new turf and Akio set about finding it.

‘The way that I always found places to DJ, it’s not like I’ve been to a spot and I’m like, “Yo, this is the music I’m into. I wanna play here”. It’s more like I’m into a spot and I’m not even listening to the music. If it’s the vibe, I’ll play here, and I’ll play what I wanna play. But this is where I wanna play what I wanna play.’ Place was paramount from the start.

Akio chose the Waiting Room, recognising potential in the above-street space, teetering on the pavement-edge of Long and Kloof. ‘The décor, the ambiance is cool. The crowd is there. You’ve got views of the city.’ He knew that the ways places affect us was not about individual locations, or even the bodies within them, but about the interaction between spaces and bodies — and how curators like Kool Out could connect people and place. In this first series, artists, lyricists, poets and hip hop lovers were strung together on a Cape Town rooftop.

‘This was before Waiting Room was what it is now’, Akio explains. ‘It was very much on an electronic tip. They said they didn’t do hip hop’. In spite of this, Akio began running Wednesday hip hop nights, having fooled the venue managers with an instrumental demo. ‘Really by the fourth month, it was poppin’ off’.

As Kool Out grew, it also ‘took place’, reclaiming territory. ‘For the first time, hip hop people — even black people in general — were going to the Waiting Room. Before that, it was like straight up a white spot.’

There were tussles over turf: the venue soon discovered what Akio was doing.

‘You can’t be doing this hip hop stuff’, they told him, ‘The crowd is too rowdy’. Kool Out was urged to relocate, but they held their ground. They knew their place, and quickly put the Waiting Room in theirs. Within a year, they were the city’s biggest monthly hip hop event.

In 2011, the crew moved to Johannesburg. Turntablist P-Kuttah (from Durban) and Emcee Reason joined the team. So did Banesa Tseki, Kool Out’s Creative Producer, whose role has been to put the vision in place — to make place happen.

‘Johannesburg has a beautiful downtown skyline. Within the last four years or so, people are starting to come downtown again. [We thought], “Let’s take something — a new space — and try build it up”’. The bricks and mortar would be immaterial things: the sound, the senses, the feel of a place. Using space like a ready canvass, this was about how to inject a site with meaning and attachment.

They began at Kitcheners in Braamfontein. ‘We always try to use a nice, small, compact space’, Kuttah explains. ‘So it gives you that house party feel’. Kool Out wanted crowds to feel intimacy and familiarity, as though they owned the place. Meanwhile, the team were also looking for their own place, to reclaim turf from venue managers. ‘We started off as artists [on the decks]. Then we became promoters [at the door]. But you know where the real money is? The motherfuckin’ bar! (usually claimed by the venue). ‘[So] we were like, “let’s take the door and the bar, cos that’s where the power’s at, you know”’.

‘We did site checks everywhere’, Akio explained. ‘Me and Raiko. We needed a place that nobody else was doing, where we could define it’. That place was the Kool Out Rooftop on Commissioner Street.

‘We saw a gap’, says Kuttah, ‘to do rooftop parties.’ No doubt there was something about being above the city that made it feel like it was yours. Like you could pluck the Hillbrow Tower from its place and pin back your hair with it. As night fell, Koolin in the City morphed: its people became a shadow-mass of silhouettes, while the city, all alight, was let in. It reminded me of that J-Z lyric from City is Mine: ‘You belong to the city, you belong to the night’.

Jo’burg is a city to which many belong — a place of many places. ‘The funny thing about Jo’burg’, Kuttah says, ‘I think about 70 percent of the people you meet in Jo’burg aren’t from Jo’burg. [They’re] from all over the nation.’ On stage at the most recent Koolin in the City were AKMG (out of the Eastern Cape), Kandy Koated (from the Vaal) and Durban’s Nasty C. Place has always been integral to hip hop, as artists make a point to ‘rep their hood’.

The culture of Kool Out is fed by Jo’burg’s cosmopolitan energy. By Kool Out is also literally fed by Jo’burg, where the crew have been able to live off their work for the first time. ‘We were on the top of hip hop in Cape Town and we were broke. Going out with hip flasks and shit’, Akio remembers. In Jo’burg, ‘you can make money off this shit.’ It’s like that Biggie lyric. Akio recites: ‘You never thought hip hop could take you this far. That’s how I feel! Everything is done from me being in hip hop. I own a house here. I’m buying a car next week, cash money. That shit blows my mind!’ While running an incredibly successful event series, Kool Out also consult for corporates and music festivals and have facilitated local tours for big international acts: People Under the Stairs, Ras Kass, DJ Babu, Talib Kweli and more.

Ask Kool Out pilgrims what keeps them coming back and they will say ‘the music’. That’s what transforms a non-descript space into a place where people feel they belong and connect. We hear a track and we remember where we were when we first heard it, how we felt when we first loved it. Then, in our communal recitation of lyrics, the memory is transformed into something shared. It is as though all of us here now, were also there together, at the time when we first loved this song. And so a bond is manufactured between us, like old friends and family coming together for a reunion — despite having never physically met. These days it doesn’t even matter where the venue is, coming to Kool Out means coming to a place that you know.

Kool Out works as this music meeting-place because DJs don’t just play the latest ‘turn up’ tunes. ‘We’re not trying to be about any trend’ Banesa explains. ‘We’re not dictated by who’s on radio. We’re not dictated by who’s big on social media. It’s not about who’s cool and who’s not. It’s just about what’s dope’. Interspersed with old-school hip hop nostalgia, Kool Out audiences will also be introduced to something new, discovering unchartered sonic territories together. ‘You get to kind of educate people on music’, says Kuttah. ‘It’s not subjected to you having to play commercial stuff all the time’. As such, artists are able to carve out their own space at Kool Out. ‘The funny thing is, even club DJs, when you put them here, they play different sets here.’

At Koolin in the City, those who come early enter free, after which tickets stay a reasonable R60. There’s no VIP and no price variation based on who’s performing. Whether it’s an international act like Sky Zoo or a massive local artist like Nasty C, it’s a normal Koolin in the City. ‘It’s not supposed to be artist-dependent’ Akio explains. ‘It’s difficult, but what you want it to be is: everybody loves your brand and they don’t care who’s performing. They go anyways. If it’s Nasty C, dope. If it’s someone you don’t know, then it’s probably somebody cool if these cats are putting him on’.

Underground artists and open mic emcee’s share the stage with big acts. Internationals and locals are given equal turf. Each has an option to claim and contest space. I saw young women (both female emcees and audience members) putting weak rappers in their place, attacking the dancefloor, and brazenly halting proceedings to call out misogynist lyrics.

Literary journalist, Joan Didion, once said that ‘ a place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that [they] remake it in [their] own image’.

This is how the geography of Kool Out has been made. There has been acute sensitivity to physical location, but also a devotion to the immaterial sound and sense-scapes that make a place what it is. And while Kool Out has cultivated a very particular sense of place, it has been with enough openness that audiences claim it as their own. ‘Everyone just feels like home’, Banesa says. ‘A lot of people say Kool Out is their church or their home’.

4 July 2016
The Good Dokta Outer Space Type Music

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 Atliens and 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.

1 July 2016
Capitalism for Black business: In discussion with Mzukuzi Soni, the founder of BrownSense

One cannot separate the business from the man. Though many would argue the separation of business and pleasure ought to also apply to the divorce of the Political from the business.

The BrownSense Group is such a group injecting the political back into business. Its Facebook page describes the group as being “about promoting, rating and supporting Black owned businesses. The intention is to also break the “stereotype” that Black service providers provide below par service. We break this stereotype by demanding excellence of ourselves and of others.“

Its direct engagement with the public is through their markets with their latest having happened at the Ellis art studios situated on the border of downtown Johannesburg. Though their produce is not necessary political in nature, its the intention in the creation of the markets that we find politics at work.

Mzuzukile Soni is the creator of BrownSense Facebook page and one of its administrators. He does not see himself as being an activist. He is a “24/7 father” of two spritely children and has a background in law. It was in 2006 that he moved into the corporate sector.

His passion for art and poetry would not be the route of his career but he would still find himself gravitating towards those in the creative field.

He describes himself as being “non-partisan but all about black ideas, particularly the views on what makes me a black man”, with his current personal pursuits being an examination on how it is we define black masculinity.

With his mind-set having always been inclined towards black consciousness, watching Spike Lee’s Malcolm X would ignite this particular spark. Mzuzukile describes himself as being “honest and straightforward”. He describes our current political state as being one of a bombardment of racist activities, encompassed in the Penny Sparrow debacle that would see a local estate agent referring to black people as monkeys. He’s also no stranger to direct racism and has been called a Kaffir on one such occasion.

It is from such experiences that he felt the need to do something. For him such action would need to go beyond the digital social activism and the creation of a Hashtag. He argues, “One of the best ways is to redirect our spending”. We need to adapt our activities, do what you normally do but it’s all about directing our intention as consumers”. He explains how we tend to criticise black people for being the consumers and not the producers. “Let’s rather take the consumption and place it back into our own. Let’s create a platform where we can make such intentions feasible and not just a Hashtag.”

The BrownSense Capital Facebook group would be initiated as a means in which black entrepreneurs could get in touch with each other, advertise their products and get in touch with other business owners. The site would also get shop owners connected with the BrownSense Black capital markets allowing them a space to sell their products with other like-minded people.

The latest market at Ellis art studios happened in June. It was through a friend of Mzuzukile that the venue would be provided. The previous BrownSense event happened in March and was hosted at the Kuhlcher Café in Maboneng. The performers and artists for the event would be paid in the form of Mzuzukile’s legal advice. The venue itself would benefit from the events patrons buying their food and drinks for the evening at the establishment.

“I believe in the law if exchange. You don’t have to rely on money to get things done but the artists work is still being paid in the form of services.” He does not believe in artists providing their services for free so as to get “exposure”. He sees such logic as being the result of the artists being fooled into thinking they are a part of something big in order to get their labour for free.

In creating such a space for black entrepreneurs during weekend markets he also sees the “inconveniences” of buying local. He sees the cost that goes to buying products made local as a major set back to the consumer and is also trying to address this by working directly with the business owners when organizing the markets. “Because we have a goal then lets work with the goal in dealing with this set back”. The cost is being engaged with by working with the suppliers and businesses so that they can also compete with the markets by lowering their prices. The market space becomes one where the seller is given the opportunity to grow their business skills with BrownSense and not just another space for profit.

Yet he also realizes a need for educating the consumer. They may want a bargain but they also needs to realize that such can come at a major cost. The cost goes to local economies and business that loose opportunities to overseas contracts that proved cheaper production costs and resources. He acknowledges that there is an entrepreneurial aspect to his work but there is also a “movement”. How we spend should not be about the bargain. He is about trying to change the mind-set of people over what is also important when it comes to being a consumer.

For him our current capitalism is not sustainable. He want to see the system develop to the point where we move beyond the “I want to take everything off the table for myself” For Mzuzukile it’s about redistribution. “We need to move beyond the ‘taking of more than you need Capitalism’ that for is greatly informed by fear.”

“We need to redefine how we want to do capitalism.”

In answer the question on the role he sees for young black entrepreneurs in South Africa today, he begins his response with “what would I have said to my younger self?”

“Try and live in the moment. Don’t be in a rush to be the better with age. Live with every breath and learn from all you meet”. He discusses how there is always something to learn and we must internalize those valuable lessons.

“Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. We are used to getting hidings in school that is why we are afraid. We must consciously learn from those mistakes and know that there is a lesson to be learnt with them.”

“We see the older as blocking us but there is something to be learnt from these older people”. For him the older generations are the one’s with so much knowledge and with their passing will mean the loss of valuable knowledge. “You must learn from everyone…every generation does the same thing”.

This is why for him getting oneself a mentor is so important. It is a means in which to gain access to the experience of others. Yet for him a mentor does not even have to be some one well passed your age. They can also be a peer that you see as also having the knowledge and talent. They are the one’s whose wisdom you can learn from to help grow your skills as a budding entrepreneur.

The next BrownSense market is on the 31^st of July in

Midrand. Follow the link to join the Facebook event and to receive reminders and updates on the event.

For information on BrownSense group, would like to get involved or if you are looking to set up a stall at their markets please contact Mzuzukile on mzuzukile@icloud.com.

28 June 2016
Mushroom Hour Half Hour website – Seeds Underground

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 Ithuba Loku 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.
[mixcloud https://www.mixcloud.com/Mushroom_Hour_Half_Hour/scamtho-shrooms/ width=100% height=120 hide_cover=1]

22 June 2016