Manthe is a vision, even on Skype. I see the muse and the magician in her. She is animated and open, ready to share. Her lips and nails are venetian red, a collection of tiny tattoos decorate the manicured hands she uses to enunciate and express herself. Effervescent and composed, Manthe’s eyes are bright and beautiful as she relays her journey from Johannesburg to the stages of the world. She is on tour in Europe, promoting her musical debut, Dumela 113 EP. The EP is a collaboration with OKZharp, aka Gervase Gordon. And while this may be her first foray into music as a recording artist, Manthe is an established performer and creator; she performed for Nelson Mandela at the ripe age of 8, danced with the V.I.N.T.A.G.E cru and toured with Die Antwoord, so singing is a logical expansion for her talents.
While Manthe is reared in performance, she is also a maven of the visual arts. The ongoing collaboration between her and the photographer and director Chris Saunders has produced incredible images intersecting, urbanity, fashion and beauty. The girl is gifted and grounded in her creative power, focused on making her voice heard and using art to tell stories about the self, and South Africa.
I ask about her experience with Die Antwoord and I’m thrilled to hear that she manifested the opportunity by sheer will and appreciation of their art. From obsessing over them as style icons, she met them per chance at a listening party for Zaki Ibrahim. Die Antwoord were intrigued and enamoured by her and the rest is history. The power of art and aesthetics to connect people is vivified in the online relations and cross-border collaborations happening between artists globally. Manthe went on to shoot a video and tour with them as a dancer. Now she sits somewhere in Switzerland promoting her music and regaling me with stories about her siblings and how dreams are manifested from surrounding oneself with love and like minds. I fumble around for an enlightened response, she sees me and says, “Sometimes it is okay not to be cool, and just focus on your craft and your loved ones.” The pressures of the entertainment industry are well documented and it is not every artist who survives the late nights and sycophancy to inspire others to dedicate themselves to art forsaking the ills of the business for what is truly important.
As we’re about to sign off Manthe imparts some of her inspirations to me, she mentions Mary Sibande, Nonku Phiri, Busi Mhlongo and Grace Jones, women who subvert the established and homogenous attitudes around art and beauty through powerful and honest art works. Women like her; magicians and muses, dark skinned dream girls.
One of the dominant aesthetics in Johannesburg culture is a focus on cultural-identity – and what does it mean to be African in this gritty and cosmopolitan city. Boosted by optimism about the future, this trend has influenced not only the cityʼs arts and culture, but has also filtered into everyday life, influencing the way people dress, socialise and engage with their space. However, more and more cultural practitioners are finding this focus on the local and on cultural identity restrictive. Their work draws on globally circulating culture images, sounds and ideas, fuelled by increased impact of the internet on daily life.They see culture as a site of possibility, to create new identities, expressions, symbols and mythologies, which capture the complexity of Johannesburg in the early 21st century – beyond even the city as an afropolitian space, they view it as a futuristic world city. At the same time these artists are wary of the danger of commercialisation and being turned into brands – in fact one of the reasons they have moved away from a focus on locality is that work that is strongly associated with only one context can be co-opted by global capital.