PALESA MOKWENA

Born at Lady Selborne, Pretoria in 1949, Lefifi Tladi is a visual artist, poet, jazz singer and percussionist currently based in Sweden. Beyond his creative output, Tladi is known for his political activism during the apartheid era in South Africa.

Tladi was born a year after the apartheid system began (1948-1994) he has lived and witnessed the country go through different transitions and he contributed spiritually, creatively, intellectually to local and global cultural landscapes. 

I situate his literary and creative oeuvre within the Black Consciousness Canon and I propose that the pedagogical space created by Tladi and the Ga-Rankuwa/ Pretoria collectives exemplifies ways in which visual culture and spiritual work constantly respond to the changing socio-political landscape by remodelling themselves, philosophically questioning their purpose and continuously defining themselves through ideas and the imagination. 

My research also provides an intimate look at Tladi’s upbringing and his intellectual work as a mentor and I look at Tladi’s creative process and what informs it. And through this one can get a better idea of the impact that Tladi’s work continues to make on South African visual culture – past and present.

Chain Poem For Lefifi Tladi
Title: Spring    – by Palesa Mokwena (year: 2006)

Lefifi if forests sprout tessellated divinations spring guarantees salubrious sentiments
Singing gales slap prescient trees sanguinely
Yesterday’s sterling gloom meanders still Lefifi
I imagined dowsing gypsies sighting geomantic companions 
Summers sombre excavations stifled dendrophilous spirits
Springs sedulous splendor reparates sorrows searing gloom
Mystics saw wistful lithomantics studying glistening stones
Studying glistening stones …saphires, steatites, serpentines, sards, sardonyx…
Xenoglossia affects sanctimonious stichomantics 
Asclepius shared divine epigrams 
Seers scare epistemophobic compatriots 
Solipsistic Cassandra avatars stimulate eremite exemplifications 
Soon no oneirophobic companion needing gratuitous sympathies shall loathe somniphobia
Achluophobia abashed somnolent timorous sleepers, so optomophobics spend days sharing glorious sagas seeking garrulous 
Scotomaphobic contemporaries
Sometimes sorrow walks, supporting gregarious somnalists, surreptitious shadows
Sheppard delirious saints
Sunshine effusions seer rhapsodomantic children 
No one encountered demonomantics summoning giggling goblins 
Such heliophilous spirits slaughter rheophiles 
Spring’s serene eglantine embellishments seduce envious sages.   

In a society driven by ego and evidence-based logic, the creative spirit rides on wings of providence, soars above the realm of reality and unreality, its kaleidoscopic feathers rustle against the winds of the imagination, journeying freely into the unknown. The imagination knows no bounds, it confronts all that which challenges human comprehension and it refuses to discount that which cannot be seen with the naked eye. Its ethos is rooted in the wonderment of the unknown. 

The imagination or the omnipotence of the creative spirit humbles us and reminds us that we still have a lot to learn about ourselves and the spaces that we occupy. In The Imaginary, French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre (1940:29) explains that the imagination “is a magical act. It is an incantation destined to make the object of one’s thought, the thing one desires, appear in such a way that one can take possession of it. There is always in that act, something of the imperious and infantile, a refusal to take account of distance and difficulties”. 

For Sartre, the imagination has a magical and transformative power. The act of imagination or creating art is about making things appear, and if the object of one’s imagination is brought to life or into the world, this means that one possesses evidence of the object’s existence. And this state of possession or consciousness of a concrete object is able to occupy a collective consciousness which includes the consciousness of others. 

With this being stated, one can say that creative productions are consciousness raising tools and to be a creative simply means that one participates in the rise and fall of consciousness from an individual as well as a collective perspective.

In Biography of Lefifi Tladi by Paul Link, Lefifi Tladi (2017:01) shares that “the key to the success of poetry is to have the correct consciousness”.  In Part 1 of this 2 Part essay, that was published in herri 9, I explained that creative productions are consciousness raising tools and if Tladi’s idea of creativity is centred on acquiring the “correct” or a specific type of consciousness, then this poses a question about the methods we use or we might utilize to measure consciousness. If a measuring unit for consciousness exists then one may have to start thinking about a comparative unit of consciousness. 

For example, if one is aware that consciousness is being raised and measured, what can we compare this raised and measured consciousness to or against? Or to put it bluntly, we might ask ourselves, ‘who was it that had previously set the standard for art making? And is a careful examination of how the work functions as a consciousness raising apparatus necessary? And again, what are the measuring and comparative units of consciousness? 

In order to answer these questions, we must attempt to understand Lefifi Tladi’s creative and intellectual work. In my interview with Tladi, Tladi shared that:

I was born  at exactly 1 AM on a Tuesday at the home of the son of the South African bass player, Ernest Shololo Mothle.

The name Lefifi, is a SePedi word meaning ‘darkness after sunset’ and the surname Tladi is a Setswana word meaning ‘lightning’. Lefifi Tladi is the son of Nomazizi Zelpha Mnyatheli and Hosea Sekwena Tladi. Tladi is one of six siblings, in an interview he shared:

I am the oldest of 5 siblings, my first sister’s name is Antoinette Tladi (1950) who is followed by my late brother Felix Lesetja Tladi (1952) my sister Audrey (1956) and the youngest is my brother Collen Simphiwe Tladi (1960).

Tladi and his family lived at Lady Selborne and later relocated to a township called Ga-Rankuwa due to the forced removals that were carried out by the apartheid government during the late 50’s. In forced Removals and Migration: A Theology of Resistance and Liberation in South Africa, researcher, Selaelo Kgatla (2023:120) explains that “from 1960 to 1982 about 3.5 million South Africans were forcibly removed from their homes and land and dumped in barren and inhabitable areas”. 

Laws which anchored racial and residential segregation were put in place at a time when Tladi was just entering his teenage years. Tladi’s mentor, Geoff  Mphakati and the wife of Geoff mphakati, Stephina Mphakati also lived at Lady Selborne and later relocated to Mamelodi. In my interview with Stephina Mphakati, Stephina shared her recollection of Lady Selborne, she stated:

I remember that it was a friendly environment. We knew each other, we were like family. For example, my mother was a Ndebele woman, she often cooked in a big pot and never cooked for us alone. She cooked for everyone and shared meals with everyone and everybody did the same. We really  took care of each other and it was during the apartheid era in South Africa. But it was lovely there. I never knew that I would one day marry into the Tsonga culture you know, but unfortunately there were forced removals – for what good reason I can’t tell! Selborne was bulldozed –  they took us to Mamelodi. You didn’t get to choose where you stayed, it was like…hey you- stay there! And you stay here! And that was the end of our life at Selborne.

Stephina Mphakati remembers Lady Selborne for its warmth and vitality. She shares that even under the brutality of the apartheid system; there was still a sense of community and cameraderie amongst people of colour. Mrs Mphakati comes from an Ndebele cultural background and was married to the late Geoff Mphakati whose cultural background was Tsonga. Mrs Mphakati acknowledged and viewed her partnership with Geoff Mphakati as evidence of Lady Selborne’s cultural diversity. The Mphakati and Tladi families resided at Lady Selborne and shared common lived experiences of that environment as well as that period. 

In my interview with Tladi, he shared his earliest memories of growing up at Lady Selborne:

We grew up in Lady Selborne which was like a real Township. It was kind of like… very multi-ethnic because we had the typical black men, Indian, Chinese people… and I used to have a very good Asian friend, his name was Desmond. And we had usual football, football was our main cultural activity and there were tennis and basketball courts and two main soccer fields. –Very funny thing about Lady Selborne come to think of it as Raphael mentioned, you think about all the street names and realise how pretentious they were. Names like Barron, Hector, liberty, Diamond, Fortune- which have nothing to do with the extreme poverty we were living under.

Like Mrs Mphakati, Tladi remembers Lady Selborne for its cultural diversity. He proceeds to criticise the names that were given to townships by government officials, noting that the falsely positive names given to these places where people of colour were abandoned did not provide a true reflection of the actual living conditions which were dire. 

Relatedly, Kgatla (2013:121) adds “names given to the townships included Boipatong (hiding place), Bophelong (the place of life), Gugulethu (our heritage), Impumelelo (success), Masiphumelele (let us succeed), Refengkgotso (give us peace), Seshego (African Basket) and Thokoza (place of joy).

Another important thing that Tladi raises is the “cultural activities” that were available in Lady Selborne. He mentions sports such as football and tennis, which makes one realise that the environments that black people found themselves in led them to examine and yearn for better cultural activities and the problems that were identified within those environments might have led one to question the whole concept of culture in its entirety.

Tladi would later experience another cultural shift when he and his family decided to move from Lady Selborne to Ga-Rankuwa. This experience presented another new environment and the challenge of adjusting to a new school. And although Tladi avoids talking about his spiritual life/work, an introspective look at his childhood led me to think that he might have received and started battling with his spiritual calling early in his life, around this specific time when he moved to Ga-Rankuwa because it was a turbulent time and more telling is the fact that he was having concentration problems and struggled to learn and do well in school.

In Traditional Healing Practice using Medical Herbs, Philip Kubukeli (1999:01) notes “you cannot become a traditional healer until you have experienced a call to priesthood. This is recognised as an illness, the symptoms of which are caused by ancestral spirits who wish to possess the future healer”. For Kubukeli, in Africa, spiritual work is not something one chooses, but rather one must be chosen and one can never know when one might receive this calling. And usually, the spiritually gifted person becomes ill and the signs range from hearing sounds, seeing visions, being overwhelmed in crowds, having foresight etc. 

And this state of awakening consumes the individual and unfortunately spiritually gifted individuals end up withdrawing from societal activities such as schooling or maintaining a career. Spiritual workers are forced to discontinue/abandon societal roles in order to dedicate their lives to healing others and to appease the ancestors. According to Zwane (2021:28):

Ancestral spirits live within the Sangoma’s body in a ‘passive’ or unconscious state; this means that they are present but do not infringe on the autonomous everyday functioning  of the Sangoma in her everyday life. Specific rituals and objects can trigger the ancestral spirits which then move from being a ‘passive’, unconscious state to an active one. The ancestral spirits then assume joint autonomy of the corporeal body, along with the Sangoma, and they speak through her and deliver messages. 

For Zwane, spiritually gifted individuals experience a drastic shift in their lives, where spirits that have remained dormant transform into an active state. And this shift can be quite dramatic and life altering, you feel as though your body does not belong to you anymore, you become a whole new person. In my interview with Tladi, he talks about meeting Bra Geoff for the first time and recalls his state of despondency at the time:

I met him during the 60’s when I got expelled from boarding school. I had to go to Ga-Rankuwa High School and I still failed at Ga-Rankuwa High. I was very very hopeless when it came to education because I was actually a troublesome student. But after I got expelled, that’s when Bra Geoff,  who was a friend of my uncle – uncle Gabriel … we were talking about music and things like that and that’s when he told my father that I wasn’t as stupid as people thought I was. Bra Geoff said to my father: ‘he is just not interested in school, if you give him to me I can fix all of his learning problems’, and my father responded; ‘you can even pack and take him with you now’.

For Tladi, meeting Geoff Mphakati helped him deal with the cultural shock of coming into a new environment and school, Tladi also became aware of his capacity to learn. He realised he was able to do all the things that other students did but approached learning differently. Mphakati had succeeded in making Tladi conscious of the fact that even with his peculiarities and challenges, he too was exceptional. According to Hill (2015:21) :

The Mphakati’s shared more than their home; their collection of music, poetry, and literature was also freely available and Geoff shared his considerable knowledge of African history. Despite the banning of several titles, the Mphakati’s library included many books: popular in tricontinental liberation struggles of which BC was part. What arose in this time and place was a rich exchange with transnational blackness at its core.  

Geoff Mphakati’s presence in Tladi’s life allowed him to approach education differently and with the resources that were available in the Mphakati household, Tladi began to work on himself by learning as much as he could about being a black man in the world and also questioning the role of black creatives in the world. In Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive, Achille Mbembe (2015:07) holds “we have to create alternative systems of management because the current ones dominated by statistical reason and the mania for assessment, are deterring studies and teachers from a free pursuit of knowledge. They are substituting this goal of free pursuit of knowledge for another, the pursuit of credits”.

Mbembe’s critical look at the education system and its violent culture which promotes competitive learning over critical thinking reveals that there is a carelessness and neglect for students because the ‘pursuit of credits’ sets a limitation on the various unique ways that knowledge systems can be approached. I can also add that punctuality or time limitations also get in the way of creating healthy educational spaces. The time limitations of modules and assessments in learning institutions are often anxiety-inducing and hinder the students’ ability to learn and process information at their desired or normal pace. Because every student is different and so it is only natural for them to approach a problem differently. 

And whilst some students require a short amount of time to solve a problem, others take a much longer time to reach a conclusion. So being academically gifted or rather being efficient should not be measured only by speed but rather by merit or the quality of work produced. Looking back at the time I have spent with the artists, Motlhabane Mshiangwako and Lefiffi Tladi, I have realised that the two artists had their own unique ways of teaching or passing knowledge on, and both of them succeeded in making us teachable by exposing us to their routines and integrating us into their environments. It was a natural process, and they were able to instil a thirst for knowledge within us without intimidation or instruction.

Geoff Mphakati created a space for alternative learning and artists like Mashiangwako and Tladi continued with that tradition and I was lucky enough to have experienced these spaces of alternative learning which were in themselves a big part of The Black Consciousness Tradition. The creation of these spaces show that alternative systems of learning are not only important but are a necessity for the dignity and survival of spiritually gifted students and students who are dyslexic, autistic, deaf, blind, bipolar, schizophrenic, disabled, marginalised, etc. Learning institutions should recognize their students for their humanity first and acknowledge that students are not just mere participants in mechanistic grading systems.

The creation of alternative learning systems and the dignity and survival of students or individuals who think and learn differently or the differently abled, would enable us to understand what Black Consciousness really is because we cannot be truly conscious if we do not care or work on our altruistic sensibilities.

Because failure to concern ourselves about the lives of others is a failure to understand Black Consciousness. 

One can say that Black Consciousness was a philosophy; it was/is a way of thinking. And a resistance movement like this helps us see how oppressed people had to challenge their own ways of thinking and they did this by questioning their existence, value, purpose and began to solidify their humanity in creative productions. In this way black people managed to put themselves in a better position to contemplate and understand themselves better through their own creations. One sees in the efforts of the Mphakatis and those of the Black Consciousness artists like Mashiangwako and Tladi, that creating alternative educational spaces has been their life’s mission because they recognised in their own differences/abilities that they too had a bigger purpose and calling.

For Tladi, the Mphakati household became his intellectual home and in this space he found friendship and brotherhood in Motlhabane Mashiangwako. Their 39 year friendship helped both of the artists to grow artistically, intellectually, and spiritually. And these three factors modelled and shaped the culture of  Black Consciousness visual culture in South Africa. Interestingly, Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko, in I write What I Like (1978:106) insists that “a culture is essentially the society’s composite answer to the varied problems of life. We are experiencing new problems everyday and whatever we do adds to the richness of our cultural heritage”.

For Biko, culture provides society with answers or with evidence of collective productivity/productions and this can come in the form of visual art, literature, theatre etc. And while culture provides answers, it can also be used as a platform to question (critical thinking) a society’s achievements and goals. Meaning that a culture also reveals a society’s intellectual development. 

The Black Consciousness Movement presents an intellectual/mental shift  in society and as a society we have the opportunity to see how newly found ways of thinking influenced a change in history through creative productions. In Biko’s Ghost: the Iconography of Black Consciousness, Shannell Hill (2015:04) suggests that:

Understanding the value that culture holds to convey BC ideals, SASO organized a cultural committee (culcom) that began to solicit and field proposals from artists, and it hired them to perform at SASO events large and small. Lefifi Tladi appreciated the culcom members who visited him and others outside Pretoria because they were there to listen and learn and share and promote.

The formulation of a new culture (culture of thinking) was paramount to the Black Consciousness Movement and Visual Culture and the artists Mashiangwako and Tladi played a key role in challenging or instilling a culture of thinking within the movement. Visual artists as well as Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko would frequent Tladi’s home to discuss ‘Black’ issues. For Biko (1978:52) “being Black is not a matter of pigmentation, being black is a reflection of a mental attitude”. With a strong emphasis laid upon different modes of thinking and feeling, Black Consciousness ideas centre on the ability to think on an individual and collective level.

Black Consciousness ideas strove to bring into existence, African inspired (Afrocentric) creative productions which served to raise consciousness. In Oto la Dimo: Joint Retrospective Exhibition of Lefifi Tladi and Motlhabane Mashiangwako, Tladi in Hattiingh (1998:09) argues:

African consciousness is more profound than Black Consciousness, as blackness is a state of mind – that’s what Steve Biko said – and Africanness is the reality of the mind, body and soul. So we had to change this brain, [this] white-washed state of mind, into a real state of presence…that’s what consciousness is all about – to think within the context of your realities. 

For Tladi, replacing the word Black with the word African changes the concept and vision of the movement completely because what this essentially means is that the attention placed on human beings as being the centre is taken back and we are forced to acknowledge nature (African environment) as the centre because humans are nothing without nature or their environments. Tladi reminds us that consciousness is a ‘state of presence’ meaning that where you exist (Africa) should be all that matters. 

And no matter what race one is, if you’re born in Africa then you should be concerned with your African identity and heritage. And failing to do so shows that one is not living in ‘a state of presence’ and not living in ‘a state of presence’ is the equivalent of not existing. In Fear of Black Consciousness, Africana Existentialist, Lewis Gordon (2022:60) argues that:

Things of which we are not conscious come into consciousness. Such things stand out at that point we say that they exist. This is actually what the word “existe” means, as it arises from the Latin expression ex (out) Sistere (to stand). To stand out is to emerge or to appear. In French, “to exist” also means “to live”. 

Gordon, like Tladi, looks at consciousness in a similar vain. For them, consciousness has to do with purposeful living or having a specific goal or mission. And one’s identity, or rather how one perceives themselves and their environment, is the ultimate test of consciousness. Embracing our African identities and recognizing that our time on earth is limited should make us strive for a more purposeful existence here on the African continent.

In The Psychological Perspective on Ancestral Calling: A Phenomenological Study, Nompumelelo Kubeka (2016:23) states

“if one conceives human consciousness as nature’s ability to be aware of its self, which is the capacity to know that we are living entities that will also die in the future, one can understand the need by human beings to understand their origins as well as their destinations. Ancestors provide this”.

For Kubeka, African spiritual work and practice gives us the opportunity to look at life  and death differently because receiving messages or knowledge from those who have long passed and helping others with that knowledge makes us aware of the time we are wasting while we are still alive. It makes us aware that education has currency in the land of the dead and in death knowledge is still of great importance and it is passed into the land of the living through spiritual workers. 

More importantly, an examination of African spirituality reminds us that we are never alone and that we are loved and cared for by our loved ones who have long left the land of the living. In my interview with Tladi, he recalls his near death experiences:

I know personally that I managed to escape death 4 or 5 times and I managed to escape it like what the fuck was that? You know? I can give you an example, one time Bra Geoff had visited me at Antoneitte’s  place at the U.X. Section in Mabopane. And then around 8pm….it was winter and Bra Geoff said he was leaving and everyone in the room said its winter and Geoff is old and maybe I should accompany him. And so I took my toiletries and weekend bag and went to the back of the house. And out of nowhere, I decided that I was not going anymore and Bra Geoff drove to Mamelodi alone. And to cut the long story short, we received a phone call from Geoff telling us that he has been in an accident. I told Antoneitte and D.K and we drove to the scene. And when we got there, I fainted….Boom!!! –thinking that I would have  died if I had been in the car. That car was flattened and Bra Geoff got out of that accident without a scratch and I just thought… what was it that told me that I shouldn’t go? Actually, daddy was telling me that ‘ja, you the horrible atheist always talking shit about God, maybe God is the one who is always saving you!’

And the next one… I was at the Hook of Holland in the Netherlands and I had plannes to visit Eugene Skeef in London. I was with Gun-man – a very good friend of mine, he’s dead now! And Gun-man and I were listening to jazz and having a good time – so I was supposed to take this boat to London and I had an open ticket and for some reason I suddenly was not in the mood anymore to continue with my trip, I just wanted to hang out with Gun-man. And in the morning Gun–man handed me the newspaper and I looked at him and said “you know I can’t read Dutch!” and he said that the boat that I was supposed to take yesterday to London sank. I trembled when I looked at the images and thought about the fact that I can’t even swim, and these are some of the things we call Amadlozi (spirits of the ancestors).

Tladi attributes his survival to the spirits that guide him. In these two accounts, Tladi instinctively knew what to do and because these near death experiences had occurred a number of times, he does not think that luck had anything to do with his safety and protection, he accepts that something must have intervened and that he was protected and saved by forces that were bigger than himself. Tladi candidly shares that this knowing that seems like it came from nowhere is the work of his ancestors. But being able to know what to do without evidence-based knowledge heavily depends on how someone is well attuned with her/his sensory perceptions and in this way, the ancestors/spirits can work collaboratively with the spiritually gifted individual.

Psychologist, James Hillman looks at these spiritual interventions as a form of “invisible caring”. In The Souls Code: In Search of Character and Calling, James Hillman (1996:12) explains that “despite this invisible caring, we prefer to imagine ourselves thrown naked into the world, utterly vulnerable and fundamentally alone. It is easier to accept the story of heroic self-made development than the story that you may well be loved by this guiding providence, that you are needed for what you bring and that you are fortuitously helped by it in situations of distress”.

Hillman like Tladi acknowledges that we are all protected and loved and that we are never alone in the world. And perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from the Black Consciousness Artists is that they saw people through a spiritual lens, they had/have the power and ability to see beyond gender, race, age and all the things that we are preoccupied with in the physical world. 

A look at the artistic as well as the spiritual work of Black Consciousness artists tells us that when we look at resistance movements around the world, we are looking at the work of people who knew how to love and care for others. And even if those freedom fighters and guerrillas are no longer here with us on earth, we are still surrounded by this “invisible caring”. And that alone should strengthen us to continue the work of love on this planet and we cannot work lovingly and carefully from a place of ignorance. Love is knowledge and sharing knowledge is the ultimate form of love.

The gift that both of my teachers gave me is that they were able to see me in my truest form, and ever since I was born, I can say that at least there were two people who knew me on earth, and knew me very well.