This week we visited new media artist Simphiwe Xulu, aka Mr MediaX, at Assemblage Studios to check out the beginnings of the logo he created with Sanele Omari Jali for the “I Make Africa’ project being hosted in Harare. We also share some behind the scenes footage from our latest cover shoot with the talented Zandi Tisani, who let’s us in on what she is working on at the moment. Rosie Parade chats to us about bringing Ikonika over to SA for a teaching residency and her first gig at Kitcheners. Slice Frederico serves us our fashion feature for the week. We also visited the new spot in Braam, Kota Kings, and chatted to co-founder Tankiso Tank Makwela about how they are switching up the way you eat your kota.
Tag: scene
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Maramza: Low-key but Kwaai-fi
“Low-key” is a phrase Maramza uses multiple times in our half-hour phone call interview and it’s an apt way to describe the ever-evolving producer. I’ve met Maramza, real name Richard Rumney, a few times and he’s always struck me as the quiet, reserved and observant type – someone who would rather listen than talk. When he does talk, it’s usually to ask a question so he can get some insight to process whatever it is he’s already thinking. So that I managed to get half an hour of conversation out of him is quite something. “I’m very introverted, I guess I’m shy, you know?” He explains when I ask him if he considers himself an introspective cat. “I don’t drink, I used to but I don’t anymore. I’ve been partying for over 20 years so when I’m out now, I’m just there and observing, listening to the music and chat to a few people, but I’m not like “Yo, this is my best life, I’m outchea.” That ended a long time ago. Since I’ve been doing Maramza, it’s been like that. The thing with Maramza, the whole idea was to be low-key. When I first started it was this incognito, low-key thing. I was just kinda not feeling Richard The Third and wanted to release a very different style of music. Originally, no-one knew who I was. But then people showed interest and I was like “Now I want the gigs and I want to be known.” If anything, now I want to go back to being low-key again. Which is kinda weird now that I’m on the Bubblegum Club cover.”
Originally from Joburg, Maramza, then known as Richard The Third, moved to Cape Town in the early 2000s to be part of the fresh wave of electronic music in South Africa. “In the 2000s, I was very inspired by Cape Town electronic music and I think that was a general feeling in Joburg, that Cape Town were the guys who were doing the most forward thinking shit at that time.” He tells me. “African Dope, Real Estate Agents, Felix Laband, Lark and even Goldfish, they were just doing the coolest shit, you know? and I was very inspired by that and that’s essentially why I moved to Cape Town, I wanted to be a part of that. When I got there that was probably the tail end of that era, moving into the kind of Discoteque, electro era and the dubstep era.”
The move did Maramza well and he soon found himself deep in a flourishing Cape Town scene he’d admired from afar, “For me, it felt like there were days when all of us in that scene were lucky. Discoteque was a weekly event, the dubstep parties were quite regular, it felt like there were quite a lot of venues, for a whole lot of us it just felt like a lot was going on club wise, event wise there was a very enthusiastic vibe happening, and there was just a lot to do.”
Since then, things have changed a lot in Cape Town. On a commercial level, people are following the global 4/4 to the floor resurgence, and in the underground, young folks are more politically conscious, and aware of identity, privilege, and power. Maramza makes note of this, “I feel that in Cape Town a lot of young people are woke now, you know? They’ve awoken and are looking at things, and a lot of young people are angry and they see things differently. I think similar groups of people hanging out in the 2000s weren’t so concerned or conscious of it, now they are. Especially around race, gender and sexuality. Not being okay with the way things are, justifiably, and not wanting to support things that aren’t willing to change in that way. As a result, I think there’s a transition, I’m hoping that we see the change now. There’s a crew called 021 Lit, there’re Uppercut parties on a Friday, and when you look at those, at the audience there and actually the DJs themselves, and you feel like, now I’m older now- I’m a guy who has been doing this for a long time- I look at that and think “This is what younger people wanna see. These are the DJs they want to see get put on and who they want to see become successful, who they want to hear making music.””
Adjusting to a scene whose identity is shifting away from your demographic can often be met with resistance. When asked how he’s adapted to the change in culture over the years, Maramza answered thoughtfully, “I think the simple answer is that you just need to be low-key, as low-key as possible. If you’re an older white guy, pull yourself away from any feeling of being offended, or wanting to see things in a certain way, or feeling miffed because things aren’t a certain way. Invariably, that’s going to be your privileged, old-school perspective coming through and that’s just not going to help. You’ve gotta lose that shit, just drop it, it’s gonna cause problems.”
It seems Maramza has learned a lot since being called out for culturally appropriating gqom, “I had this thing when gqom started blowing up, I was like “This is so dope, I want to do my own version of this” and I was actually called out on it online in an article. It really got me thinking, “Fuck, well, that’s true. I can’t do that.”” Maramza has since moved away from the sound and is more aware of his place in the world. “I’ve been very lucky, I am privileged, I’ve had a lot of things work out the way I’ve wanted. I just need to listen to other people and connect with the right people, that’s very important. It’s about proximity. Who do you spend your time with? Who are you listening to? You can’t force that but I think if your intention is out there to be like “I don’t want to be in a world that’s a white privilege bubble”, as much as that’s automatically where I fit in, especially in Cape Town, but if you put the intention out there, you’re more likely to be opening up and connecting with people that aren’t a part of that bubble and they will make you think differently.”
Maramza’s low-key vibe is also about putting others on. When asked what he’s currently working on, he casually replied with “Not much”, and proceeded to tell me more about other artists than his own music. “I started a kinda label project towards the end of last year called “Kwaai-fi”, and I want to do that which really looks to highlight corners of scenes in Cape Town that I think could do with a bit more love and I also would personally think would be nice to connect together. Like the bass music scene, the house music scene, the sjoko joko scene. The guys who I’ve already worked with for “Kwaai-fi”, Terrasoul, DJ Fosta, they all just have a fresh Capetonian, South African take on things. I wanna pursue encouraging those kinds of artists to put out music and remix each other and do it through that platform as “Kwaai-fi”.”
Maramza has already been such a crucial part of the SA music scene, but this next era might be where he has the most impact. Not just as a producer but as someone dedicated to continually pushing the culture of electronic music in South Africa. It’s important for the old guard to use their knowledge, experience, and connections to help the new wave successfully take over, and through “Kwaai-fi” and keeping it low-key, that’s exactly what Maramza is doing.
Photography by Luke Maritz
Styling by Luke Bell Doman
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Thabiso: Gay CBD and the Complexities of Nivea-ness
Thabiso, a lean figure that would rouse rampant suspicion in the skinny-shaming society that lurked outside the shut door, carried a strong face with eyes that danced with miscalculated intensity. My gaze journeyed lazily along the smooth silver landscape where the moonlight licked his skin; his body paralysed by the emasculating failure that lingered like frankincense in the fabric of my sheets – he could not get hard.
He failed dismally at it and, as a result, we decided against the premeditated strictly top/bottom dichotomy that we were comfortably abiding by. It only felt fair for the continuation of that highly desired and aggressively pursued ritual that I penetrate him instead.
I did. And the pressure, coming from all dimensions of the universe, caused me to last only three seconds. I bowed my head behind his hot neck in shame while giving my last thrusts with a depleted dick in desperate denial. He eventually asked me if I had come. My nervous sigh said yes while the wrinkled grape scented latex around me said I was halfway through my second pot of tea already and it was time to leave. A bitter taste became my mouth. I never thought I would ever relate to one of those posters that sell performance enhancers with bold iridescent word art at every street corner.
Emasculated and displaced in our own sexuality, we lay next to each other. We both failed to execute a single one of the pornographic positions that were promised only minutes before in a heated post-badoo WhatsApp thread. How could we?
Thabiso tried to climb on top of me again but his eager pelvis met my defiant foot.
“Stop. No. Can I walk you back to your apartment?” I asked, with my hand gently playing an awkward symphony against his faint ribs while staring at the ceiling which seemed to go on forever in the darkness. “I have experienced violating sexual experiences lately and I’m really not comfortable with having you here anymore. I am sorry, I hope you understand.”
I finally looked into his eyes that seemed oblivious to the urgency in my glare. Any guy with good manners would be fiddling with his last button by now, I reasoned. Instead, he just lay there as still as the hot air around us. “It’s 3am” he finally whispered. “The security locks the gate at 12 and I don’t have my phone with me to call him” he insisted after I assured him that it was safe to walk at that time. There was no way out. Once again I was stuck with a stranger in my bed.
I talked myself out of the cry that doesn’t belong to us “men”, just in time to hear words I never thought I’d hear spoken in my bed. I grew up thinking, dreaming and naively pursuing the perfect image of love, the perfect romance, the picture of Lucas and Sammy rolling in the sands of Salem beach, the picture of that well built white male couple from the Gay Pages I secretly paged through but never bought from Exclusive Books as a teenager. Although all those ideals had been in the process of being unlearnt, in that moment they were shattered out of existence and the pieces pierced my inflated Delusions of Grindr.
“It happened to me too” He said. “I was 19 and still living in Cape Town. My boyfriend was much older. He invited me over one night, but he didn’t tell me his friends were also going to be there.” His eyes didn’t leave the ceiling.
“The pain….” He choked and I secretly hoped it was because of my strong cologne.
“… I had to go to the doctor the next morning for the bleeding.”
How many others? I kept wondering.
These are not necessarily the things we discuss during/after (a failed attempt at) meaningless sex. These are not necessarily the things we discuss over wine or while waiting to pee at Great Dane. These are not the things we talk about when we are alone with our closest friends. Why? Well, the reasons are probably beyond my comprehension but from where I stand, I have observed a crippling shame attached to any feeling other than the unfazed nivea-ness one is pressured to portray in public spaces as defence. The kind of nivea-ness that makes you ignore the guy you fucked the previous night when you bump into him at Shoprite the following morning; the nivea-ness that will force you to internalise your struggles out of fear that they might be used to moisturise another hoe’s scalp to your disadvantage; the nivea-ness that limits the way we love.
Our own dancefloors, in the clubs that were not designated for us but occupied by us until we could claim them as our own, have started to echo the violent erasure of the queer experience and all its complexity. You cannot even dance if you want dick when the dick wants nothing but the straight-acting serenity of post-mig33 nivea-ness, dipping its tongue into the neck of a Savannah bottle there by the corner.
Imagine if you wanted to talk, if you wanted to be nothing but yourself, to be transparent about the things that bother you: your poverty, your strained love life, the residual trauma of growing up gay in an anti gay world, the trauma of not being able to interrogate your own experience of sexual violence because misogynoir has become an integral part of your existence, a mere gaze that polices your horny, gyrating femme body into undesirable sub-human spaces where “tops” can force themselves into your anus even when you have said no because what else could you be asking for? You are gay. Gays love sex.
My experience with Thabiso made me aware of this ever-spreading rash of unspoken truths hiding beneath dark veil of nightlife in the cbd. It made me cherish the bravery of those who danced, those who walked the streets at night either to the club or to a stranger’s bed, to live the way they wished in a dark city that promised everything. It made me realise the importance of creating safer spaces beyond the frills of our sheets, where we can express our true nature in all its strength and vulnerability without the violence we’re so accustomed to in the daylight. Because everyone on the Buffalo Bills dancefloor, still or mobile, is essentially an adult who was once a child who was probably teased, who probably hated themselves until they found in a deep dark place the courage to fight for the visibility of their true light. It made me realise the importance of loving each other, even if it’s for a night, even after a failed sexual experience that left you feeling worthless and unlovable.
“I love you.” I told Thabiso.
We never saw each other again.
