Bubblegum Club

Tag: noirwave

  • Petite Noir – Future Wave

    The media coverage of last weekend’s South African Music Awards has been dominated by Riky Rick and AKA’s petulant responses to not winning any awards. Basically, they feel that they were snubbed. Shame.  Unfortunately this has overshadowed how another  of the night’s winners- Petite Noir’s La Vie Est Belle/Life is Beautiful (which won in the best alternative category) is one of the most innovative and sophisticated albums to have come out of South Africa in years.  Released through UK label Domino , Petite Noir (aka Yannick Ilunga) has been touring the world and winning critical acclaim for his pioneering ‘Noirwave’ style.

    On Life is Beautiful the ghosts of 80’s new wave artists like Depeche Mode and The Cure are mixed with contemporary SA electronic production and Afrobeat drums to produce elegant songs of romantic regret and personal disillusionment. ‘Freedom’  stabs like ice shards to the heart, while ‘Just Breathe’ is warm and elegiac.  The wildly infectious ‘Down’ sounds like a lost collaboration between Fela Kuti and The Talking Heads.

    Petite Noir’s closet contemporaries are bands like TV on The Radio and Wild Beasts, who trawl the sounds of Europe, America and Africa’s recent past to make cosmopolitan rock for the present. But the ‘Noirwave’ tag goes beyond just a sound- Ilunga sees it as complete aesthetic.  Defying backward or rustic sterotypes, Petite Noir creates a kind of retro Afrofuturism. This is showcased on the music video for ‘Best’, in which mythological imagery runs riot. As the notes for the video describe it  ‘ Best’  ‘’ looks at how only through visiting the continent can anyone gain a sense of one of its most fascinating features, that of its split identity; how incredibly and indescribably beautiful it is on the one hand, yet on the other hand, how raw and unforgiving it can be.’’  And aided by the imagery created by his collaborator and partner Rharha Nembhard, Petite Noir is taking Noirwave to the world- a style with no boundaries, at home everywhere.

  • Rharha Nembhard; NoirWave’s visual powerhouse

    Rharha Nembhard; NoirWave’s visual powerhouse

    The Drone Goddess is on a mission to live her truth, using her gifts to obliterate boundaries and silence stereotypes. The curator of  NoirWave, one RhaRha Nembhard, is home in South Africa on a break from her Masters degree in museums, galleries and contemporary culture. But to her a break includes so much work and travel that it reveals her drive and passion to be a working artist and contribute to the world with a progressive and powerful message. I had the opportunity to talk to her about everything from her inspirations to her upcoming projects but the crux of it is clear; her work engenders transformation and changes perceptions within institutions, art and culture to represent Africa and Africans as we are and have been. She formed NoirWave with her partner Yannick Illunga a.k.a Petite Noir and their message is finally being embraced in SA, with a SAMA nod for Yannick and both of them featured on the cover of Sunday Times Lifestyle, NoirWave is finally growing roots on homeground.

    NoirWave is telling the story of black glory through art. The hermetic principles and traditional themes referenced in the imagery of the movement are balanced by the perspective that the world is comprised of billions of people and we influence one another through travel and now the internet. ‘We are all hybrids of some shape or form’, Rharha says in reference to her broad perspective on identity and culture. Rharha was born in Jamaica, raised in SA and did her undergraduate degree in Bangkok. Having lived in Africa, Asia and Europe, she has come into contact with the world’s major civillisations and is able to draw touches of them into what she does. Pulling seemingly disparate pieces together to tell a new story about the millenial age and represent blackness within the context of futurism, high art and global connectivity.

    Traditional broadcast and mass media misrepresent the black experience. But the 21st century has brought us black superheroes, a black American President and rap in African accents. The Winds of Change are blowing and the anachronisms around Africa are being swept away. Rharha travels the continent extensively and her work references all the beauty and richness she comes into contact with. Yet, the messages proliferated about living here are often pervaded by negative sentiment, and while much of Africa’s reality is informed by conflict and the effects of imperialism this is also a vibrant, abundant place and our role within the global space is not that which is defined by the West but rather as the founders of civillisation and forebearers of modern science, astronomy, literature and religion.Colonialism obliterated African history and impressed falsehoods upon Africa of barbarism and ignorance.  As movements like NoirWave gain traction, new stories about Africans by Africans gain prominence; we are travellers and artists and activists and curators and writers and scientists, our brilliance is beginning to be liberated from the imperial gaze as we come to understand all that our continent and people contribute to the world.  Africa’s resources have been used to build so many major cities; London and Paris were nothing before brutally snatching Africa’s wealth and America would be a wasteland without the stolen labour of slavery. These are facts, and we are here to rewrite the story about this continent and its children.

    The substance of NoirWave; the looks, the visual story is the vision of Rharha; her construction of imagery translates cultural knowledge into a modern landscape. Her collaboration with Lina Viktor and Petite Noir produced the striking imagery for La Vie est Belle and her art direction is behind the stunning videos for the album as well. Their shared objective of representing and bringing reverence and regalia to African experiences has produced stunning, emotionally stirring art. The imagery the produced for La Vie Est Belle projects the power and poetry in blackness and the abundant beauty of Africa.

    Rharha, the mother of all that is NoirWave, curates the movement with a cohesive and consistent message; Black is beautiful, deal with it.

  • Jet Life: Dope St. Jude’s global hustle and contribution to black knowledge production

    Monday April 10th saw Dope St. Jude and Kyla Phil, pulling up in Roeland street to scoop me en route to Dope St’s birthday dinner. We sped off towards Cape Town’s suburbs and a sanctified celebration of the life of this artist from Elsies River. Dope St. Jude gracefully glides through identities, wearing concurring crowns of artist and activist whilst embodying such potency it speaks to power and pleasure. An entertainer by nature, but also an educator through the proliferation of a persona that makes people wys about black girl magic and the inequalities of the beautiful and totally bogus racist Mother City.

    With the gift of keeping it real while rapping, Dope St. Jude is currently in Finland with Angel-Ho, performing, and contributing to the conversation about alternative platforms and methodologies for knowledge production on a panel at In-between: Art, Education and Politics in the Post-Welfare state, a week long event hosted in conjunction with Chimurenga and The Pan African Space Station at Checkpoint Helsinki. Her new EP is set to drop in the near future and the album artwork is already out. The images reference archetypes of femininity and Africa, and while contributing to the discourse around representations of black women, they also contribute to the refreshing representations of blackness and Africa coming from African artists. Through using our heritage and beautiful brown skin to tell stories these images enter a pantheon of other artworks rewriting the meaning of blackness a la the Noirwavers who set 2015 alight with beautiful artworks featuring blackness and Africa in regal, opulent sometimes even religious regalia.

    When you are born with dark skin and/or a vagina, your identity becomes something beyond you, potent in its ability to alienate and antagonise. These stereotypes are laid before us, having been produced and reproduced by misogynist white media and patriarchal white capital for centuries. But we are making a future where the truth about blackness, queerness, gender and Africa have representation in all spheres of experience; music, visuals, text, print, photography and so the list must go on until equality is won. It is this knowledge that artists like Dope Saint Jude propagate, and this is why her work and persona is so important. This reflection of the relationship between art and activism, emphasizes the role of creativity in contributing to changing ignorant and conservative perspectives. This is how artists like Dope St Jude are impacting our world, and it is a most wondrous and welcome change.

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  • Noirwave; reflecting alternative black identities

    Noirwave is telling the story of black glory, of Africa, through art. The creative collective of Petite Noir and RhaRha Nembhard form the heart of Noirwave and their collaboration with Lina Viktor reveals the beauty and diversity of experience that is being African.

    While the immorality and brutality of imperialism perpetuates much pain and suffering on the continent, its people and geography are more than elements or victims of an imperial agenda, or beneficiaries of international aid. Africa, Africans and the African diaspora make incredible contributions to the world’s culture, colour and creativity. From the Americas to Europe and the islands through which black people are positioned, we make the music that the world dances and drones too. And while our images are often used against us, the beauty of black people, the potency that melanin projects is undeniable, despite the hegemonic mission to make mockery of it.

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    Blackness progressively makes strides, against the forces that oppress and divide us. And as black people continue claiming our right to be ourselves without apology, there are black artists working to create reflections of blackness and Africa that are based in a perspective that educates and empowers. Enter Noirwave, a movement and collective making strides  towards progressive representation and integration of black identities. Synthesizing politics, art, fashion and music to tell a story about the incredible beauty of Africa and the diversity of experience black people exist in on the continent and beyond.

    Noirwave breaks the boundaries between the stereotypes and archetypes of Africa, projecting images that are progressive and positive. Africanness and blackness are not monolithic constructions of colonialism but shifting, complex identities and cultures that are also subject to the influence of the internet and form an important part of the international community. All of the above should go without saying, but the hegemonic powers that determine what we see and hear and consume would erase this unalterable truth if they could.

    In 2015, Petite Noir, RhaRha Nembhard and Lina Viktor produced images and sounds that subverted the status quo and offered a view of blackness that reflected Africa, Europe, America and Asia, that vivified the experience of walking the world in black skin while being a global citizen, reflecting the progressive forces that are working to unify humanity, as well as the historic fact that Africa is the home of humanity.  The video for Best, touches on the striking and emotive themes encapsulated in La Vie est Belle, Petite Nior’s critically acclaimed debut album. The artwork and music video for the album are rooted in Africa and use influences from artists and cultures the world over to tell their story. Noirwave offers the world beautiful music and visuals to enjoy and admire from a creative consciousness that upholds black beauty and promotes black love. The importance of these ideals cannot be underestimated in a world that tries to erase and divide us. So the struggle continues with new sights and sounds to take us into a noir future.