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6
Contents
editorial
KEVIN DAVIDSON
“Soulbrother #1”
TESHOME GABRIEL
Ruin and The Other: Towards a Language Of Memory
MLADEN DOLAR
Singing in Pursuit of the Object Voice
Theme Graham Newcater
STEPHANUS MULLER
Sapphires and serpents: In Search of Graham Newcater
ARYAN KAGANOF
Of Fictalopes and Jictology (2018)
MEGAN-GEOFFREY PRINS
Toccata for Piano (2012): The gift of newness
OLGA LEONARD
The Leonard Street Meetings (2008-2012)
ARYAN KAGANOF
Her first concert - 15 October 2011
STEPHANUS MULLER & GRAHAM NEWCATER
Interview (2008, transcribed 2010)
AMORÉ STEYN
The Properties of the Raka Tone Row as seen within the Context of other Newcaterian Rows
STEPHANUS MULLER
The Island
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CONCERTO in E Minor Op. 5 (1958)
ARNOLD VAN WYK
A Letter from Upper Orange Street, 14th June 1958
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Concert Overture Op. 8 (1962-3)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations For Orchestra Op 11 (1963)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Nr.1 Klange An Thalia Myers (1964)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Allegretto e Espressivo (1966)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations de Timbres (1967)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
String Quartet (1983/4)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Songs of the Inner Worlds (1991)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE I For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE II For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
SONATINA for Pianoforte (2014)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CANTO for Pianoforte (2015)
LIZABÉ LAMBRECHTS
The DOMUS Graham Newcater Collection Catalogue
galleri
TAFADZWA MICHAEL MASUDI
Waiting For A Better Tomorrow
ILZE WOLFF
Summer Flowers
NIKKI FRANKLIN
Sans Visage
BAMBATHA JONES
Below the Breadline
TRACY PAYNE
Veiled
STAN ENGELBRECHT
Miss Beautiful
ALEKSANDAR JEVTIĆ
We Are The Colour of Magnets and also Their Doing
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Augenmusik & Some Tarot Cards
EUGENE SKEEF
Monti wa Marumo!
borborygmus
PASCALE OBOLO
Electronic Protest Song As Resistance Through the Creation of Sound
AXMED MAXAMED & MATHYS RENNELA
A Conversation on the Bleaching of Techno: How Appropriation is Normalized and Preserved
FANA MOKOENA
A problem of classification
PHIWOKAZI QOZA
Choreographies of Protest Performance:
MASIXOLE MLANDU
On Fatherhood in South Africa
VULANE MTHEMBU
We are ancestors in our lifetime – AI and African data
TIMBAH
All My Homies Hate Skrillex – a story about what happened with dubstep
TETA DIANA
Three Sublime Songs
LAWRENCE KRAMER
Circle Songs
NEIL TENNANT
Euphoria?
frictions
LYNTHIA JULIUS
Vyf uit die Kroes
NGOMA HILL
This Poem Is Free
MSIZI MOSHOETSI
Five Poems
ABIGAIL GEORGE
Another Green World
OMOSEYE BOLAJI
People of the Townships
RIAAN OPPELT
The Escape
DIANA FERRUS
Daai Sak
KUMKANI MTENGWANA
Two Poems
VADIM FILATOV
Azsacra: Nihilism of Dancing Comets, The Destroyer of the Destroyers
claque
ZAKES MDA
Culture And Liberation Struggle In South Africa: From Colonialism To Apartheid (Edited By Lebogang Lance Nawa)
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The Promise of genuine literary stylistic innovation
ZUKISWA WANNER
[BR]OTHER – Coffee table snuff porn, or...?
SEAN JACOBS
Davy Samaai The People's Champion
KNEO MOKGOPA
I Still See The Sun/ The Dukkha Economy
CHRISTINE LUCIA
Resonant Politics, Opera and Music Theatre out of Africa
ARI SITAS
The Muller’s Parable
ZIMASA MPEMNYAMA
CULTURE Review: The Lives of Black Folk
RIAAN OPPELT
Club Ded: psychedelic noir in Cape Town
DYLAN VALLEY
Nonfiction not non-fiction (not yet)
DEON MAAS
MUTANT - a crucial documentary film by Nthato Mokgata and Lebogang Rasethaba
GEORGE KING
Unknown, Unclaimed, and Unloved: Rehabilitating the Music of Arnold Van Wyk
THOMAS ROME
African Art As Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, And The Idea Of Negritude. By Souleymane Bachir Diagne.
SIMBARASHE NYATSANZA
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Making Africa visible in an upside-down World
ekaya
BRIDGET RENNIE-SALONEN & YVETTE HARDIE
Creating a healthy arts sector ecosystem: The Charter of Rights for South African Artists
KOPANO RATELE
What Use Would White Students Have For African Psychology?
NICKI PRIEM
The Hidden Years of South African Music
INGE ENGELBRECHT
“Die Kneg” – pastor Simon Seekoei in conversation.
SCORE-MAKERS
Score-making
off the record
BARBARA BOSWELL
Writing as Activism: A History of Black South African Women’s Writing
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
MUSIC AS THE GOSPEL OF LIBERATION: Religio-Spiritual Symbolism and Invocation of Martyrs of Black Consciousness in the Azanian Freedom Songs
IGNATIA MADALANE
From Paul to Penny: The Emergence and Development of Tsonga Disco (1985-1990s) Pt.2
ADAM GLASSER
In Search of Mr. Paljas
TREVOR STEELE TAYLOR
Censorship, Film Festivals and the Temperature at which Artworks and their Creators Burn
PATRIC TARIQ MELLET
The Camissa Museum – A Decolonial Camissa African Centre of Memory and Understanding @ The Castle of Good Hope
IKERAAM KORANA
The Episteme of the Elders
OLU OGUIBE
Fela Kuti
MICHAEL TAUSSIG
Walter Benjamin’s Grave
ANTHONY BURGESS
On the voice of Joyce
feedback
FRÉDÉRIC SALLES
This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection : Cinema without the weight of perfection.
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Social Media Responses to herri 5
the selektah
boeta gee
Hoor Hoe Lekker Slat’ie Goema - (An ode to the spirit of the drum)
PhD
MARY RÖRICH
Graham Newcater's Orchestral Works: Case Studies in the Analysis of Twelve-Tone Music
hotlynx
shopping
contributors
the back page
DANIEL MARTIN
Stuttering From The Anus
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    #06
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ZIMASA MPEMNYAMA

CULTURE Review: The Lives of Black Folk

“Kwisisu, akukho lonto (iCovid-19). Ndilambe ngoku. Ndingavuya noba ungandinika iR20. Ungandinika?” [“In your belly there is no such thing (as Covid-19). I am hungry as we speak. I would be happy if you would gift me R20. Will you give it to me?] a grimacing face asks a startled SABC journalist while pointing to his stomach area. His leathery brown face with high sculpted cheekbones paces up and down as he speaks, even reaching and grabbing the journalist’s microphone and handing it over to a fellow next to him. “Thetha,” [“Speak”] he says, forcefully. “Thetha ingxaki yakho… uhlupheka njani.” [“Tell them your problem… the ways in which you suffer.”]

The man, wearing a bright red hoodie and a bright yellow cap explains how he gets by selling goods at a scrap yard. With the first hard lock down in full force at the time, the man who was describing his biting hunger while living in a rundown hostel in Mamelodi, garnered support, sympathy, laughter and anger at how well he articulated the plight of those who found themselves without any source of a livelihood during the first catastrophic months of the pandemic. The first hard lockdown meant that all scrapyards were closed, leaving thousands of poor recyclers out in the cold. The man’s name is Doyi Whitey and he described how he respected the lockdown regulations and wanted to protect himself from the virus, but how could he, when he was becoming restless because of hunger?

“As starvation occurs, it is impossible for the person to consider themselves with dignity; as entirely human. They must encounter the reality of their mortality and descend into a desperation to survive. At the same time, possessing low energy and the self-cannibalising of their bodies, their minds descend into apathy, detachment and listlessness” writes Tshiamo Malatji, describing the physiological decay that the body and mind experience due to hunger. There is no way out for the African labourer, Malatji explains, “capitalism does not require the well-being of its labourers … Capitalism kills us as we work”. As one of the first contributions in the book, The Lives of Black Folk edited by Kulani Nkuna, Malatji tragically invites us to see not only the systemic deprivation which Black people suffer in the clutches of capitalist exploitation, but the bodily disintegration which accompanies this. How does one starve while they eat? How are we transformed from full human beings to labourers, numbers, cogs? Using Alfred Qabula’s poem, The Small Gateway to Heaven as a point of reference, Malatji’s piece, We Are Still Starving, Alfred Qabula might be interrogating the state of despair for mine workers, but it rings painfully true for all classes who work – from shop packer to academic in a university. Across the work spectrum, we are subjected to dehumanising working conditions for pittance pay to sustain an exploitative capitalist system which serves white men.

It is now almost two years since the first hard lockdown in March 2020. With all that has transpired, the millions of lives and livelihoods lost, the conspiracy theories, the suspect vaccines, it is somewhat refreshing to read the initial thoughts and cautious optimism of Mbe Mbhele who writes about the lockdown and the possibilities for a “disturbance of ritual”. In a much shorter than is desired reflection, Mbhele writes, “anything that threatens the end of the world is not all together a bad thing for a people whose existence is characterised by misery – misery uninvited, undeserved”. Many in the ‘Left’ held similar sentiments at the time – anything that halts the everyday grind that the working class must endure, was welcomed. Seen as an opportunity to crush capitalism, move away from it and find new ways of being. Of doing. But, as Mbhele also admits, this sentiment was naïve optimism as, soon enough, the ruling class reoriented itself and continued to plunder in fresh ways, leaving people like Whitey crying of hunger – still.

The book, The Lives of Black Folk, is an anthology. A collection of essays, poems, art and reflections collated from the Culture Review online magazine. The articles are taken directly from the online platform, and maybe, this is why some of the articles feel short and end abruptly – they were written specifically for the screen (phone/tablet/laptop). But, maybe a direct transfer of material from the net to the page was necessary – the internet is not ours. As democratic as it may be flighted to be, we see everyday the risk of hacks, of certain ‘undesirable’ (to the state) sites being shutdown and the muzzling of radical voices in the main. But is this just paranoia from the woke gang that envisions itself as a threat to state power but is viewed by those in power as just an annoyance? A muffled buzz outside of the centre stage of power? Or, it could be that the desire to have a hard copy was purely an economic exercise. Be that as it may, the glossy looking anthology is divided into four sections which explore different broad categories – disturbance, abantu, culture and Azania. Each section has its highs and its lows. The two articles discussed above are taken from the first section, “A Disturbance”, and they are gripping, engaging and thought-provoking.

Katlego Tapala’s Bitter Fruit is poetically enthralling. One is taken through the journey of ukuthwasa [ancestral calling]. Like a fly on the wall, we journey through, and with, Tapala’s reawakening and rebirth. The spirit world is summoned. History is revisited. The contemporary is questioned. Who are we, how are we connected to those that have passed and why is death a constant feature of our lives? Side Simke Emhlabeni, Sibe Nawe Ezulwini (Dust to Dust) by Tshepiso Mabula ka Ndongeni is an ode to our mothers who left us too soon. Sombre, joyous, celebratory and dark, it tells the story of how mourners gather to bid farewell to a warrior woman and it does this in a way which is warm, sobering, tender and familiar. Palesa Nqambaza’s A Letter To All The White Women Whose Panties & Bras I Have Worn is both funny and relatable. Perfect Hlongwane’s letter to Bra Fikz (Dignity Isn’t Always Pretty) packs a punch. There are great lessons to be learnt in Mpho Matsitle’s Violence: The Thread That Binds Our Big Unhappy Family. Makhafula Vilakazi warns us of UmAfrika oleleyo and the dangers of this zombified state. One can’t help but read the poem with his bold and assertive voice ringing in your head. On the other hand, other additions like Nelvis Qekema’s Settler Impudence read like a stale, uninviting history lesson. Veli Mbele rehashes a script well known to anyone who has bothered to familiarise themselves with liberation theory. Black Power As A Quest To Call Our Souls Our Own drowns in its simplistic approach, both in form and in content. One wishes for more but never gets it.

Book projects like this one are almost always a labour of [Black] love. Much effort, time, funds and energy are pumped into making sure they see the light of day. And oh what a wonderful feeling it is to hold this thing – that one has toiled for, for months on end sometimes – in their hands. Voices that question the current status quo are rare. Even rarer, are voices which grapple with the place which Black people occupy in the world. A void. The underbelly. Death and deathliness. They exist in the margins – drowned out by the dizzying smoke of the rainbow nation dream. Why then would we not celebrate when we write. When we publish? However, reading The Lives of Black Folk requires patience. There are peaks and then there are valleys. It could be a matter of my own personal taste – or my being tired of recycled concepts and pretentious posturing towards sounding deep/intellectual/creative.  But, buried in the sterility and pretentiousness though, are gems. I can imagine this being a book people go to, for years to come, for many different reasons.

The Lives of Black Folk is available at Book Circle Capital (27 Boxes), 75 4th Avenue, Melville, Johannesburg.
Then via email at sales@culture-review.co.za and on whatsapp at 076-6162845

 

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