ARYAN KAGANOF / PONE MASHIANGWAKO

Tuesday 21 July 2020

Dear Pone,

Thank you for your incredible patience with me. It was very hard for me to respond to you. Your compilation brought up so much emotion, so many memories and such a deep and profound sense of sadness that it became impossible for me to speak really. You know I met your father through Ntate Lefifi and Bra’ Geoff and almost all our interactions were in that context – a quartet. Sometimes a trio with slightly shifting members, but mainly as a quartet. And we laughed so much Pone. You know Bra’ Geoff and Ntate Lefifi are real raconteurs, those two can talk and then they don’t stop. So very often it was either Lefifi or Bra’ Geoff talking, and me laughing and your dad smiling because he had heard all these stories so many times before and indeed, had lived through most of these stories as a participant. Your dad did not talk as much as Bra’ Geoff and Lefifi, and when he did it was often faltering, because of his stutter, but every time he spoke, and I do mean every time, I am not exaggerating here, he spoke with a passion and truth and wisdom that battered the senses and made one take in what he said to the deepest register of consciousness. He wasn’t a small talk light and easy type of guy. He had that very heavy thing inside of him that came out in his art and came out in his eyes sometimes. It’s always trite and a bit condescending when so-called “white” people talk about black pain so it’s mainly something I avoid. But your dad was a man whose life had embodied so much of that black pain and yet, when I met him he opened his heart to me and allowed me in and gave me to drink from the fountain of his wisdom and artistry. And you know beyond all the heavy stuff is an even deeper valley where the four of us used to hang out, that rare space where men are just kids together, just chilling and causing shit. Once we were driving in my Vallaza (straight six 1966) and some motherfucker in an expensive brand new white Mercedes was coming along the road towards us and he was driving a bit too close to our side of the road and a bit too fast and I felt the devil come licking up in my soul and I put foot and that motherfucker got scared and pulled to the side as I knew he would because his car was new and mine was very old so you do the math. And the four of us just howled with glee. It was childish and I was twenty years too old to be pulling that mischief but it felt right you know? And your dad was like that. He always understood what felt right and he went that way. So his spirit came to me when I listened to your mix and I went silent on you Pone because it hurts to lose a soul connection you know? Those connections are very rare. God bless you man, thank you for bringing your father back to me in an Artist’s Prayer.

Respectfully,
Aryan

Monday 27 July 2020

Dear Uncle Aryan

Hope you’re well and taking care.

My deepest apologies for taking too long to respond, your message took me back to a time when the collective was together and you’d have your long conversations with my dad while perusing his art work and listening to music. It gave me so much warmth knowing that a piece of my father still exists in people like you Uncle Aryan. I remember when you gave him your canvases and he did his magic on them, call it a collabo; and the emotion you and Bra’ Geoff had when you saw the final product, made me happy because there was and still is oneness amongst all of you, true inspiration of what brotherhood is. An Artist’s Prayer was a dedication to all of you, not just my father because my memories of an artist are not just with him, but with the whole crew, hence it has always been his wish for me to learn from all of you; to study under Uncle Lefifi for poetry, to study under you for film, to study under Sir Ike for sculpting and so forth. It is still my wish to study with you, so that in the end, we could both make it into an indie masterpiece, that puts giants like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese to tears after bending the whole world over and penetrating it with lightning ha ha ha. What I’m trying to say is, as long as it took for me to find you, you’ve never stopped being family and you always will be. 

With love and respect

Pone Son of Si a.k.a The Modern Day Hippie a.k.a cthulhu
namaste🙏