Tag: SouthAfrica

Today’s Episode of “Fuck These Platforms. Let’s Just Blog About Ourselves Bro!”

What’s been keeping me up at night? We unhealthily compartmentalize the world burning of course. So other than the end of humanity as we know it, what else?

The abundance of indie/small pub/small label music and writing there is. In this crazy information age you find yourself constantly drowning. There’s good drowning and there’s bad drowning. The abundance of amazing art drowning tends towards the good I rate.

I posted about African Speculative Fiction earlier in the year. Keeping that line of thought, I’ve purchased and am excited to read Dominion: An Anthology of Speculative Fiction from Africa and The African Diaspora, Stephen Embleton’s Soul Searching , and I’ve been eying Mia Arderne’s Mermaid Fillet rather greedily. That sound’s gross somehow. The new issue of Omenana is coming in October, and the line up looks great! Also, I’m in it! Sorry, nobody has marketing budgets anymore, ok! We’re all our own promoters down here, in this grimdark rabbit hole.

On the music end, this weird thing’s been happening over the last couple of years where I’ve been interacting (on the internet haha, still don’t leave the house) with a lot of South African producers over the last couple of years. It’s a very surreal experience really. This all seemed to get rolling when I left Cape Town somehow. My cousin asked me the other day how I like rural life, and I told him it agrees with me. I told him I’ve somehow, very ironically, been networking more. The irony being, when I was right in the CBD and had access to everyone and everything, the madness of living in the CBD left me so mentally exhausted, I never had the energy to deal with people anyway. In person or online.

Somehow, now that my headspace is clearer I’m a bit more friendly. On the internet at least, can’t say much about phonecalls.  I’ve been engaging with South Africa’s producer scene a bit more, and have been finding amazing talent, and amazing music.  Seventhgaze, another South African talent, put together a really diverse list of South African music. This list isn’t just producers. It runs the gamut right up to our vibrant jazz scene.

Here’s the list: https://buymusic.club/list/seventhgaze-black-south-african-sounds

I can’t vouch for everything on here, as I haven’t listened to all of it. My intention is to go down the list, check out the stuff I don’t know, see what tickles my fancy. However, some projects or artists I’m familiar with.

I’m a huge Reza Khota fan, and his latest Liminal, is a phenomenal record. Also caught his quartet live when they were trying the songs out, so obviously it has sentimental value too. But it’s amazing. A journey. Find some time, sit down, and just listen to that album. The album art is also amazing!

I’m not too familiar with Asher Gamedze, but Buddy Wells (also on Liminal) plays sax on the album recommended on the list, and posted about it, so I’ll just assume it’s good. Blind buy good I’m assuming. (Update: I’m listening to it while writing this. It’s fucking good, what did I say!?)

Keenan Ahrends is on there. Not familiar with the project on the list, but I own his Narrative album, which is good, Nick William killing the keys like a mofo. So yeah, I’ll just assume that’s good too.

Tune Recreation Committee is one of Mandla Mlangeni’s bands, and you generally can’t go wrong there either. I have the previous album, Voices of Our Vision and its good. Good good!

The Brother Moves On is on there. Another local great! Amazing live shows! I’ve seen them play with Shabaka Hutchings whom they collaborate with frequently. So that album is a definite want as well.

I’m on there, lol. Next to some of my favorite people, which is sick! And weird…

That’s about all the stuff I know know, and honestly it’s mostly the jazz stuff. Specifically I’m saying I’ve delved into those catalogs, seen them live a bunch of times, that kind of thing. So this isn’t some kind of ranking system. I’m aware of a lot of the names on the list, and I can assure you there’s a lot of talent to go around, depending on your personal tastes. So if you’re not necessarily a jazz fan boy like myself, I recommend going down the list according to your own genre preferences. I’m sure you’ll find something you like!

Notes From A Presentation at The Luthuli Institute For Peace and Development

 

On Thursday 22 March 2018, The Albert and Nokukhanya Luthuli Peace and Development Institute launched, and held its first colloquium.  The topic of the colloquium was, Understanding The Culture of Violence as an Impediment to Development: Peace and Development as The Foundations For South Africa’s Future Advancement.

I was asked to do a presentation based on an article I published in The Thinker last year. You can find the article here: http://www.thethinker.co.za/resources/72%20THINKER.pdf. It’s called South Africa: A History of Cultural Violence.

The presentation and event in general went very well. It was empowering to interact and communicate with individuals of various ages and affiliations who share some common ideas and understanding.

Some difficult topics were discussed openly; many South Africans refuse to even accept, let alone even discuss some of these issues,  especially without degrading to name calling and insults.

Here are some things that were openly acknowledged , and discussed.

  • South Africa is a violent society. Both physically and structurally.
  • South African violence runs very deep historically and structurally.
  • The above point means there are no easy solutions to South African violence. Throwing police, PMCs, and military at everything just won’t cut it.
  • South Africa is an extremely racist, sexist, and classist society.
  • South African violence won’t go away if the above three issues, along with their nasty cousin inequality, are not meaningfully dealt with.
  • As Government and the Private Sector tend to fluctuate in their effectiveness, citizens likely need to take some matters into their own hands.
  • One such was is reaching out and interacting with Civil Society (we have various NGOs and activist groups) to heal South African society.
  • Strong Civil Society institutes may provide some kind of buffer against Government and Private Sector failure.
  • South Africans as a whole need to educate themselves more on peace studies, as well as learn how other societies with violent pasts, have instigated strong measures to ensure the cycle of violence and generational trauma does not ensue perpetually. Hint: there’s a reason America still has Nazis, while Germany does not. It’s pretty much because the Germans used their brains, and made Nazism illegal. Duh!

 

Here’s a link to the notes on my presentation. Oh, and don’t forget you can follow and support me directly via Patreon (it’s more music and fiction orientated currently), if you like what I do. Gotta throw that in there hehe! We still live in a capitalist society, and money doesn’t grow on trees. Meh!

Back 2 Basics Cultural Violence Presentation