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10
Contents
editorial
NYOKABI KARIŨKI
On Learning that one of the first Electronic Works was by an African, Halim El-Dabh
MARIMBA ANI
An Aesthetic of Control
JANNIKE BERGH in conversation with HAIDAR EID
Even Ghosts Weep in Gaza
WANELISA XABA
White psychology, Black indecipherability and iThongo
Theme African Psychology
DYLAN VALLEY & BISO MATHA RIALGO
An Epidemic of Loneliness - introduction to the African Psychology theme section of herri #10
KOPANO RATELE in dialogue with ARYAN KAGANOF
Psychology Contra Psychology: In Search of the Most Appropriate Definition of African Psychology
N CHABANI MANGANYI
On Becoming a Psychologist in Apartheid South Africa
THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
African Psychology: serving as a reminder of human universals which have been lost or forgotten in mainstream Western psychology.
AUGUSTINE NWOYE
From Psychological Humanities to African Psychology: A Review of Sources and Traditions
SAM MATHE
Naming
ZETHU CAKATA
Ubugqirha: healing beyond the Western gaze
KOPANO RATELE
Dethingifying
PUMEZA MATSHIKIZA
A Psychological Explanation of Myself
SYLVIA VOLLENHOVEN
The Elephants in the Room
GWEN ANSELL
A New African String Theory: The Art of Being Yourself and Being with Others
ISMAHAN SOUKEYNA DIOP
Exploring Afro-centric approaches to mental healthcare
KOPANO RATELE
Four (African) Psychologies
LOU-MARIE KRUGER
Hunger
FIKILE-NTSIKELELO MOYA
"We are a wounded people."
CHARLA SMITH
Die “kywies” by die deur
KOPANO RATELE
Estrangement
MWELELA CELE
Sisi Khosi Xaba and the translation of Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth into isiZulu
HUGO KA CANHAM
Leaving psychology to look for shades and complexity in despair
MALAIKA MAHLATSI
When Black academics leave historically White institutions
PAUL KHAHLISO
AGAINST COLONIAL PSYCHOLOGY
KOPANO RATELE
The interior life of Mtutu: Psychological fact or fiction?
MTUTUZELI MATSHOBA
Call Me Not a Man
WILFRED BARETT DAMON
James Joyce En Ek
ASHRAF KAGEE
Three friends in Gaza: We grieve, we mourn, we condemn, we deplore, we march, we demonstrate, we attend seminars and webinars, we wave flags, we wear keffiyas, we show off our t-shirts, but still the killing continues.
KOPANO RATELE AND SOPHIA SANAN
African Art, Black Subjectivity, and African Psychology: Refusing Racialised Structures of Aesthetic or Identity Theories
galleri
DATHINI MZAYIYA
Musidrawology as Methodology
STEVEN J. FOWLER
Dathini Mzayiya – the sound of the mark as it comes into being.
NONCEDO GXEKWA
Musidrawology as Portraits of the Artist Dathini Mzayiya & his Art
NONCEDO GXEKWA & NADINE CLOETE
Musidrawology as Methodology: a work of art by Dathini Mzayiya
NJABULO PHUNGULA
Like Knotted Strings
SPACE AFRIKA
oh baby
STRAND COMMUNITY ART PROJECT
Hands of the Future
DENIS-CONSTANT MARTIN
The Blue Notes: Searching for Form and Freedom
DESMOND PAINTER
'with all the ambivalence of a car in the city...'
KOPANO RATELE
Ngoana Salemone/Mother
SOPHIA OLIVIA SANAN
Art as commodity, art as philosophy, art as world-making: notes from a conversation with Kopano Ratele on African Art, Black Subjectivity and African Psychology
ROBIN TOMENS
"Why don't you do something right and make a mistake?"
SIMON TAYLOR
On The Ontological Status of the Image
borborygmus
NAPO MASHEANE
Manifesto ea mokha oa makomonisi
MAKHOSAZANA XABA
Curious and Willing: Ngazibuza Ngaziphendula, Ngahumusha Kwahumusheka
RICHARD PITHOUSE
The Wretched of the Earth becomes Izimpabanga Zomhlaba
FRANTZ FANON/ MAKHOSAZANA XABA
The Wretched of the Earth - Conclusion
EUGENE SKEEF
Yighube!
VUYOKAZI NGEMNTU
Amahubo
MBE MBHELE
Who cares about Mandisi Dyantyis Anyway?
KARABO KGOLENG
Women and Water
BONGANI TAU
Notes on Spirit Capital
ADDAMMS MUTUTA
Conflict Cultures and the New South Africa
ADAM KEITH
A Conversation with Debby Friday
DICK EL DEMASIADO
Some Notes on Cumbia and Dub
MULTIPLE AUTHORS
Thinking decolonially towards music’s institution: A post-conference reflection
frictions
AAKRITI KUNTAL
Still
FORTUNATE JWARA
In between wor(l)ds
KHADIJA TRACEY HEEGER
A Love Letter
SHAFINAAZ HASSIM
Take your freedom and run
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
10 New Poems
KHULILE NXUMALO
Two Poems For
HENNING PIETERSE
Translating Van den vos Reynaerde (Of Reynaert the Fox) into Afrikaans
OSWALD KUCHERERA
Words to Treasure
MTUTUZELI MATSHOBA
To kill a man's pride
KELWYN SOLE
Political Fiction, Representation and the Canon: The Case of Mtutuzeli Matshoba
SABATA-MPHO MOKAE
Maboko a ga Alexander Pushkin 1799 - 1837
NAÒMI MORGAN
Why translate Godot into Afrikaans?
TENZIN TSUNDUE
Three Poems
claque
DILIP M. MENON
Hugo ka Canham’s Riotous Deathscapes
BARBARA ROUSSEAUX
Undoing Fascism: Notes on Milisuthando
WAMUWI MBAO
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Reclaiming the Territory of the Mind
SISCA JULIUS
Ausi Told Me: My Cape Herstoriography
SERGIO HENRY BEN
Read. Write. Relevance. A review of Herman Lategan's Hoerkind.
MARIO PISSARRA
the Imagined New is a Work in Progress
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The city is mine by Niq Mhlongo: A review
KARABO KGOLENG
The Comrade’s Wife by Barbara Boswell
DOMINIC DAULA
Pain, Loss, and Reconciliation in Music and Society
KNEO MOKGOPA
Normal Bandits: Mix Tape Memories by Anders Høg Hansen
ADDAMMS MUTUTA
‘Southern Cinema Aesthetics’: broadly imagined in multiple frames
RUTH MARGALIT
Writing the Nakba in Hebrew
LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG
Coming to Johnson
ekaya
KOPANO RATELE
From "Wilcocks" to "Krotoa": The Name Changing Ceremony
ARYAN KAGANOF
The herriverse: Introducing a new kind of Research Method, one that is Structural or even Meta- insofar as it exists in the Reader’s Navigation of the Curated Space and the Possible Contingent Connections as much as in the Objects being Curated; an Epistemic Construction therefore, that is obliquely but absolutely determined by Ontologically Unpredictable Exchanges.
MARTIJN PANTLIN
Introducing herri Search
off the record
UHURU PHALAFALA
Keorapetse Kgositsile & The Black Arts Movement Book Launch, Book Lounge, Cape Town Wednesday 24 April 2024.
PALESA MOKWENA
Lefifi Tladi - "invisible caring" or, seeing and being seen through a spiritual lens
CHRISTOPHER BALLANTINE
Edmund "Ntemi” Piliso Jazzing Through Defeat And Triumph: An Interview
DENIS-CONSTANT MARTIN
CHRIS McGREGOR (1936-1990): Searching for Form and Freedom
SHAUN JOHANNES
In Memoriam Clement Benny
VEIT ERLMANN
"Singing Brings Joy To The Distressed" The Social History Of Zulu Migrant Workers' Choral Competitions
SAM MATHE
Stimela Sase Zola
MARKO PHIRI
Majaivana's Odyssey
EZEKIEL MPHAHLELE
The Non-European Character in South African English Fiction
BASIAMI “CYNTHIA” WAGAFA
Hyper-Literary Fiction: The (meta)Poetics Of Digital Fragmentation – an interview with August Highland
feedback
DIANA FERRUS
Thursday 20 February, 2020
LWAZI LUSHABA
Saturday 4 April 2020
NJABULO NDEBELE
Sunday 5 December 2021
BEN WATSON
6 June 2023 20:50
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Facebook
herri_gram FEEDBACK
Instagram
the selektah
LERATO “Lavas” MLAMBO
Real human person – a mix by Lavas
SIEMON ALLEN & CHRIS ALBERTYN
Celebrating the genius of Ntemi Edmund Piliso: A mix-tape of twenty five tunes recorded on 78rpm shellac in 25 years – 1953 to 1968
ALEKSANDAR JEVTIĆ
Stone Unturned 18: The Static Cargo of Stars
PhD
WARRICK SWINNEY
Stick Fighting against extinction: end beginnings and other dada nihilismus polemics
hotlynx
HOTLYNX
hotlynx
shopping
SHOPPING
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contributors
the back page
ELMI MULLER
Fugitive reflections on pain, death, and surgery
DICK TUINDER
Rob Schröder (13 November 1950 - 6 July 2024)
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    #10
  • off the record

SHAUN JOHANNES

In Memoriam Clement Benny

I first met Clement Benny in 1998 at the Jazz Workshop. He never really spoke much and always seemed to be late for lessons. But I always remembered how he’d make a point of greeting a 16yr old me. I always marvelled at his peroxided hair, blue jacket, Adidas takkies and tracksuit that seemed to be his ‘office clothes’. Later in that time I realised that he was also the drummer at Lighthouse Church (Parow) at some point and that I had seen him play there.

Fast forward a few years after his return from studying in the US. I’m a 2nd year student and I get thrust into a mind-blowing band of Mark Fransman (Sonik Citizen) (Sax), Wayne Bosch (guitar) Clement on drums and youngster me on bass. I had my ass handed to me daily by all of them and over the span of a year or so I would be schooled by Clement on everything from odd-meter playing to salsa to playing in 5 while playing in 7 and everything else that would eventually become the bedrock of my own learning and teaching.

Our first gigging/band vibe opportunity to be the backing band for the legendary Mynie Grove on my very first tour to KKNK as ‘(M)AmaGroove & Stoom’. The band comprised of Quinton Jansen (guitar) and Clement (drums) and myself on bass (The smudgy picture with Quinton in the middle).

The only thing we managed to get done was a photo shoot!! Tragedy struck when Quinton lost his life when he was stabbed while trying to protect someone he didn’t even know. That was a bitter blow for so many of us (Athina Jansen)…thinking of you too, Chris Tait! Eventually we got the amazing Keith De Bruyn (drums) and Celeste Williams (keys/vocals) and I to be the backing band. I embarrassed myself spectacularly and was humbled (yet again!) but luckily they were kind enough to let me suffer through it anyway.

I spent my 21st birthday in rehearsals and on the day was staying on a ‘big 5’ game farm in a spectacular room with Egyptian cotton sheets being treated like royalty. This luxury would NEVER be seen again at KKNK for me And I got to meet Kim Cloete who came to interview us at the farm (you won’t remember and we will never forget!).

Our first big gig together came in the form of the ‘DA Band’ (Darryl Andrews) performing regularly at 021 Lounge at Swingers. I got my ass handed to me here too as we played almost exclusively salsa music with a ten-piece horn section, full rhythm and Denay Willie on vocals upon her return from a contract gig in UAE. To say I was out of my depth was a massive understatement.

Later on we would be the founder members of the group ‘Galumphing’ lead by Shannon Mowday. I would be hired and fired from that group several times and ended up being the most ‘regular’ member (unbelievably!). It was a star-studded group with Deborah Tanguy (vocals), Julio Sigauque (guitar), Honoring Andre Petersen (piano) and Tony Paco (Drums). The last version I played in went on tour to Berlin in with my brother Jeremy D Olivier (guitar), Kevin Gibson (drums) and Lars Andreas Aspesæter (piano). It was an amazing ensemble that taught me a great deal about how to be and not to be in a band. I will forever be grateful for the lessons learned there and for the opportunities to make music that it afforded me.

Over the years Clement would become a close friend and mentor to me never making me feel less than his equal while obviously being lesser on so many levels. I spent countless hours having coffee and biscuits at his mom’s place in Parow and I got to hang with his wonderful sisters Genevieve & Camella who are amazing vocalists too. Clement taught me about being honest about mental health and talking about how you feel.

Later Clement would relocate to JHB and we’d send each other the odd soccer score or some amazing drum video we saw. I got to see pics of his family and kids growing. Clement’s life was not an easy one and he chose to share with me the many losses he suffered. While I have adored Clement’s musicianship and hated how underrated he was when he was easily the most ridiculously gifted drummer I have ever met and learned from, he had demons that he suffered and it would overwhelm him. Even then Clement would never let you know that he was hurting and forged ahead regardless. He relocated back to CPT to be near his kids even without the prospect of work. He would man up because they needed him. I was all too happy to have my friend and mentor back and we did some sporadic gigs around town and I always pushed for him to get back into the scene but it never really took off again.

Today rocked me and brought back so many memories of so many things of my career as a musician. But the greatest of it all was reminding me of how eternally grateful I am to have been allowed to live my life doing what I love with amazing people who I would otherwise never have met if it wasn’t for music. People like Clement Gerard Benny. I will miss you, boeta. We all will…

An interview with Shaun Johannes is here.

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