TENDAYI SITHOLE

Dedication
for the man himself
Johnny Mbizo Dyani
(1945-1986)
and
all souls he inspired and continues to inspire

SCRIPT I: THE FIGURE

Strange letter to Mhlekazi Dyani

Dear Mhlekazi Dyani
I am happy we met
It is not strange that you are dead and I am alive
We never saw each other
The music came to me through Witchdoctors Son
The faces looking at me at the frame of the green and yellow CD cover
The music sounded alive and I repeated Magwaza over and over again until I pressed the repeat button on the remote—the rest, as you know, was history
The whole idea of life was turned upside down—you were alive and I was alive

A friend of mine Joja warned me that you will cause me to be committed to the psychiatric institution and I will be lobotomised
Nothing strange about this
Madness is not a stranger
Strange thing
Music by a stranger
Stranger who has never been in my music, strangely we groove as if we were not strangers
Being vulnerable to the strange as I am going black and sublime

The strange music that evoked the strange feeling of being estranged from music

I write this strange letter
It is a sonic letter which is strange in these strange times where letters are taboo
It is the strange time of your posthumous without the post of the after life
The strange form of existence which is estranged from death
No maggots to eat your flesh

No rot or decomposition
Life is your soul—immortality beyond transcendence
You have never been flesh but soul
How can maggots eat your flesh then? Is it not strange? Not eaten—it is clear and there is no need for an autopsy

Strange that autopsy is dead
Strange that obituaries and tributes were inked
Strange that the ink was written on the mine who is alive
Collapsing from the stage in Berlin still remains a mystery of the dead man who is alive
Stage as a strange play to die a beautiful death which is the signature of the life of love
Strange stage which brings many accounts on how the black curtain fell in 1986
Strange year with the strange tightening of the state of emergency
Strange day in 24 October

I write to you this letter in a sound mode
Strange sonic letter with words in the air but not on “air”
No radio
It has always been Bantu Radio
Your ANC Radio Freedom is still fugitive where air is stolen to hear narratives outside apartheid propaganda
Strange that you are mentioned scantly in the archives of this radio—no radio
Only one draft of the biography/obituary declaring you dead—strange how you could be marginal while the concert was for those who you are fighting for
Strange how the fight for the people can be just an impasse where rigidity sets itself against fluidity

My sonic letter has no musicality in it
A dead letter
A letter to you is mute while it is in the language of music
Strange
A sonic letter in blue with my sincerest strange regards

Being and text

the name coming from the bass
precarious jazz scene, the domain of expression of joy and pain—all blues in black without colours mixing but entangled—the black blue
blues as blackness ushering the sound that is joyful and painful
being and text in blues
joy of blues, pain of blues
blue vibrations shaking the sky not the land where our black feet are firmly rooted

being and text as fighting culture
fighting being
fighting text
the incarnation and incantation of Fanon’s national culture

Mudimbe’s idea of Africa
Spillers’ idea of black culture
the inscription of being and text
testimony of black in black for blackness as the womb of blues

the name came from jazz
the name in paintings
the name in drawing
the name in texts
the name in photographs
the name in all sensibilities is the name of the black in blues

being and text as the call—imbizo
the call to let the textual mark to come to life
the ebb and flow of being and text as the subprime reign of love.

The body

the grotesque body
condemned for nothing but being black
flesh falling but the spirit remains standing

free spirit blowing notes in thick air contaminated with death
free music delivered
free music free spirit

the grotesque body
the embodied spirit
supreme beautiful in no hierarchy

combative plucking of barbed wired will eloquence
ABCD notes beyond notes to electrified folly
blood flowing from the lick of the barbered wire to nourish the grotesque body plunged in unbreakable thorns

Liner notes

narrating the narratives
contextualising the album
testimony of the album
endorsement of the album
album narrative

SIDE A
1.
2.

SIDE B
3.
4.

textual commentary
the textual authorisation
visualisation of listening
knowing about the music
reading the lines of what is not in line.