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Contents
editorial
KOFI AGAWU
African Art Music and the Challenge of Postcolonial Composition
PAUL ZILUNGISELE TEMBE
China’s Effective Anti-Corruption Campaign
DILIP M. MENON
Changing Theory: Thinking Concepts from the Global South
BEN WATSON
Talking about music
Theme AI in Africa
blk banaana
An (Other) Intelligence
VULANE MTHEMBU
Umshini Uyakhuluma (The Machine Speaks) – Africa and the AI Revolution: Exploring the Rapid Development of Artificial Intelligence on the Continent.
OLORI LOLADE SIYONBOLA
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence in Africa
CHRIS EMEZUE & IYANUOLUWA SHODE
AI and African Languages: Empowering Cultures and Communities
NOLAN OSWALD DENNIS
Toward Misrecognition. | Project notes for a haunting-ting
SLINDILE MTHEMBU
AI and documenting black women's lived experiences: Creating future awareness through AI-generated sonics and interpretive movement for the future of freeing suffering caused on black bodies.
ALEXANDRA STANG
Artificially Correct? How to combat bias and inequality in language use with AI
BAKARY DIARRASSOUBA
Bambara: The Jeli (Griot) Project
ROY BLUMENTHAL
Artificial Intelligence and the Arcane Art of the Prompt
AI GENERATED
"AI on Artificial Intelligence in Africa" and "Exploring its impact on Art and Creativity"
JULIA SCHNEIDER
AI in a biased world
MBANGISO MABASO
Bana Ba Dinaledi: Telling African Stories using Generative AI Art.
ALEX TSADO & BETTY WAIREGI
African AI today
BOBBY SHABANGU
Using Artificial Intelligence to expand coverage of African content on Wikipedia
DARRYL ACCONE
Welcome to The End of Beauty: AI Rips the Soul Out of Chess
VULANE MTHEMBU & ChatGPT
Hello ChatGPT - A conversation with OpenAI's Assistant
DIMITRI VOUDOURIS
Evolution of Sιήκ
STEFANIE KASTNER
Beyond the fact that most robots are white: Challenges of AI in Africa
MARTIJN PANTLIN
Some notes from herri’s full stack web developer on the AI phenomenon
galleri
THANDIWE MURIU
4 Universal Truths and selected Camo
ZENZI MDA
Four Portals
TIISETSO CLIFFORD MPHUTHI
Litema
NESA FRÖHLICH
Agapanthus artificialis: Biodiversität im digitalen Raum. Vierteilige Serie, Johannesburg 2022.
STEVEN J FOWLER
2 AI collaborations and 9 asemic scribbles
PATRICIA ANN REPAR
Integrating Healing Arts and Health Care
SHERRY MILNER
Fetus & Host
borborygmus
JANNIKE BERGH
BCUC = BANTU CONTINUA UHURU CONSCIOUSNESS
GWEN ANSELL
Jill Richards: Try, try, try...
VULANE MTHEMBU & HEIKKI SOINI
Nguni Machina remixed
AFRICAN NOISE FOUNDATION
Perennial fashion – noise (After Adorno).
RAJAT NEOGY
Do Magazines Culture?
NDUMISO MDAYI
Biko and the Hegelian dialectic
LEHLOHONOLO MAKHELE
The Big Other
frictions
KHAHLISO MATELA
At Virtue’s Zone
DIANA FERRUS
In memory of “Lily” who will never be nameless again
VUYOKAZI NGEMNTU
Six Poems from the Shadows
SIHLE NTULI
3 Durban Poems
SIBONELO SOLWAZI KA NDLOVU
I’m Writing You A Letter You Will Never read
OMOSEYE BOLAJI
People of the Townships episode 3
claque
SIMON GIKANDI
Introducing Pelong Ya Ka (excerpt)
UNATHI SLASHA
"TO WALK IS TO SEE": Looking Inside the Heart - Sophonia Machabe Mofokeng’s Pelong ya Ka
VANGILE GANTSHO
Ilifa lothando – a Review of Ilifa by Athambile Masola
ZIZIPHO BAM
Barbara Boswell found in The Art of Waiting for Tales
WAMUWI MBAO
Hauntings: the public appearance of what is hidden
CHARL-PIERRE NAUDÉ
Dekonstruksie as gebundelde terrorisme
VUYOKAZI NGEMNTU
Ibuzwa Kwabaphambili - A Review
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
Taking radical optimism beyond hope - Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in South Africa’s Shack Settlements
PATRIC TARIQ MELLET
WHITE MISCHIEF – Our past (again) filtered through the lens of coloniality: Andrew Smith’s First People – The lost history of the Khoisan
CHANTAL WILLIE-PETERSEN
BHEKI MSELEKU: an infinite source of knowledge to draw from
JEAN MEIRING
SULKE VRIENDE IS SKAARS - a clarion call for the importance of the old and out-of-fashion
GEORGE KING
Kristian Blak String Quartets Neoquartet
ekaya
PAKAMA NCUME
A Conversation with Mantombi Matotiyana 9 April 2019
KYLE SHEPHERD
An Auto-Ethnographic Reflection on Process
PAULA FOURIE
Ghoema
DENIS-CONSTANT MARTIN
The Art of Cape Town Singing: Anwar Gambeno (1949-2022)
ESTHER MARIE PAUW
Something in Return, Act II: The Blavet-Varèse project
STEPHANUS MULLER
Afrikosmos: the keyboard as a Turing machine
MKHULU MNGOMEZULU
Ubizo and Mental Illness: A Personal Reflection
off the record
FRANK MEINTJIES
James Matthews: dissident writer
SABATA-MPHO MOKAE
Platfontein, a place the !Xun and Khwe call home
NEO LEKGOTLA LAGA RAMOUPI
A Culture of Black Consciousness on Robben Island, 1970 - 1980
NELSON MALDONADO-TORRES
Outline of Ten Theses on Coloniality and Decoloniality*
ARYAN KAGANOF
An interview with Don Laka: Monday 10 February 2003
JONATHAN EATO
Recording and Listening to Jazz and Improvised Music in South Africa
MARKO PHIRI
Bulawayo’s movement of Jah People
STEVEN BROWN
Anger and me
feedback
MUSA NGQUNGWANA
15 May 2020
ARYAN KAGANOF / PONE MASHIANGWAKO
Tuesday 21 July 2020, Monday 27 July, 2020
MARIA HELLSTRÖM REIMER
Monday 26 July 2021
SHANNON LANDERS
22 December 2022
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Facebook
the selektah
CHRIS ALBERTYN
Lost, unknown and forgotten: 24 classic South African 78rpm discs from 1951-1965.
hotlynx
shopping
contributors
the back page
CHRIS BRINK
Reflections on Transformation at Stellenbosch University
MARK WIGLEY
Discursive versus Immersive: The Museum is the Massage
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    #08
  • ekaya
  • English
  • Mpondo

PAKAMA NCUME

A Conversation with Mantombi Matotiyana 9 April 2019

Please Note: The conversation was planned to be in isiXhosa (as announced in the intro) but what will one hear and see in the transcription is not the standard isiXhosa language. The musician does not speak IsiXhosa as she is a Mpondomise, her language has Mpondo and Mpondomise dialects and as such the interview had to be switched to her language. English introduction and greeting the audience with brief introduction by Prof. Stephanus Muller. Pakama Ncume then takes a seat.

Pakama Ncume: Ngwanya (The musician’s clan name is used as a greeting).

Mantombi Matotiyana: Ewe (response).

PN: Unjani ma?

PN: How are you ma?

MM: Ndiphilile unjani wena?

MM: I am well and how are you?

PN: Ndiphilile nam ma.

PN: I am well ma.

PN: Ibe nde lendlela. Ndifundile, ndivile abantu babhalile ngawe, kodwa namhlanje ndirhalela usixelele into yokokuba njengemvumi ebhalayo, eculayo, edlala zonke ezi zixhobo zomculo; ukuba zithetha ukuthini kuwe ezi zixhobo?

PN: This has been a long musical journey for you. I have read what some scholars have written about you but today I would like you to tell us, as a composer, singer and instrumentalist (player), how do you feel when playing these various instruments?

MM: Ziyandonwabisa ezi zixhobo. Ndaziqala ndisemncinci, ndakhula ngazo. Ngoku ndithi noba bendicinga, ndiyeke ukucinga ndakuphatha ezi zixhobo. Ziphuma kum entliziyweni.

MM: These instruments make me happy. I started playing them when I was young and grew up playing. Even when something is bothering me, I play and they uplift my spirit. I am very passionate about them, they come from my heart.

PN: Ukhule ngezi zixhobo, ndinomdla wokwazi into yokokuba ngezantsuku zakho zokukhula zazidlalwa ngoobani, xa kutheni?

PN: As someone who grew up playing these instruments, my interest is to know who played them then and why?

MM: Zazidlalwa ezi zinto ngoomama. Uhadi lukhaliswa xa kuza kulalwa, kuqale kube mnyama, aniyeke nilale, nothuke kengoku. Ngoku le (ekhomba umrhumbe) sasithunywa ngayo le, ubeke aph’emlonyeni kuthiwe yiya evenkileni. Wawubuya ngokukhawuleza okudibene nokungxama, uvela kuyothenga iswekile namagqabi, ufuna ukuphunga umama ngelo xesha.

MM: These instruments were played by women. Uhadi was played at night. Players would wait for people to sleep before playing but we were woken up by those sounds. This one (pointing to umrhubhe) was played even by us children. In order to come back from shops immediately when we were sent to buy sugar and tea, we would be asked to play it on the way. It was important to come back quickly as our mothers would be waiting for tea.

PN: Kweli cwecwe lakho, Songs of Greeting, Healing and Heritage, elisesona sizathu sokuba sibe lapha, ndilimamele njengo Professor Ndebele, ndafumanisa into yokuba lineengoma ezilishumi elinambini. Ndinomdla wokwazi ukuba yeyiphi okanye zeziphi ezona zithetha ncakasana nawe, zeziphi ezona othi ukuba uzicule uzive kamnandi?

PN: In this CD, Songs of Greeting, Healing and Heritage, which is the reason for this celebration today and which I have listened to like Professor Ndebele did, which song or songs speak more to you, song/s that make you feel good?

MM: Yile ithi umnke ngayo, emzini ndashiya abantwana bam nombona no Wachitheka

MM: It’s ‘umnke ngayo’ (refererring to track 2 in the CD – Xel’into omnke ngayo) and Wachitheka (track one in the CD – Wachitheka umzi wendoda)

Xel’int’omnke Ngayo
Wachiteka Umzi Wendoda2

PN: Yintoni eyona nto uyithanda kakhulu ngazo, ngumyalezo, sisingqi?

PN: What do you like most about these songs? Is it the message in the lyrics or the rhythm?

MM: Sisingqi nomyalezo.

MM: It is the rhythm and the message.

PN: Usebenze neli qela lootat’uDizu, lineezimvumi (ezi ntombi ezintle nomama abakukhaphayo); ooNcebakazi (no Michael) ukushicilela eli cwecwe. Ungathi gqaba-gqaba usixelele into yokuba belunjani olu hambo lokuba sibe namhlanje sithetha ngoba simisa into abantu abayibonayo. Bekunjani ukusebenza nabo?

PN: You have worked with this team of Dizu, these beautiful lady singers and dancers, Ncebakazi, Michael (she interposes) in releasing the CD; can you please briefly tell us how it was to work with all of them?

MM: Sisebenze kakuhle kuba kaloku mna ndandisuke ndisiz’apha kweli leentlanzi ndisuka kwelakuTsolo, kwilali ekuthiwa kukuJence, ndazotshwapha kweli lizwe, ndafik’apha ndasil’umqombothi, andaphatha ezi zixhobo. Kwaya kengoku sendilapha emqombothini, kwaphuma uDizu weza kum. Ezi zixhobo sendizilibele kaloku mna ngoku, andisazazi, ndandizikhalisa ngoko ndandisakhula. Kwafik’uDizu Plaatjies wandicela, ndala ndathi ndikholiseka ngulo mqombothi wam ndiwusilayo. Ndoneliseka yile ngoku, le undifaka kuyo yile ndingayithandiyo. Wandicela ndatsho ndangena, ndatsho ndawuyeka umqombothi.

MM: We worked very well. When I came here (Cape Town – she calls it the fish city as it is popularly known/called in our province) from Jence, my village in Tsolo, I started brewing mqombothi (traditional beer) for a living. I was not playing the instruments anymore and I had forgotten about them. Dizu approached me and asked me to play, something I flatly refused because I enjoyed and was satisfied with brewing the beer. He persuaded me, and I finally agreed and stopped brewing the beer (…to audience laughter)

PN: Awaphinde uwuthengise umqombothi?

PN: So you never sold the beer again?

MM: Andaphinde ndiwuthengise umqombothi. Ndavukuz’amazwe, ndakhwel’i-olopleyini ndatshakaza ndenjenje (ebonisa ngezandla)

MM: I stopped selling the beer. I started travelling the world on an airplane, an exciting adventure (she lifts her hand as if flying) … the audience gives an applauding laughter …

PN: Siphila kwixesha apho sithetha ngebuyambo kodwa izenzo zethu (MM .. azitsho..) ezisisa kwibuyambo azinamabakala abonakalayo kakhulu, asenza sibe nexhala into yokuba ingaba kanene siza kuba nalo na ikamva lalomculo wethu. Ucinga into yokuba yintoni enokusincedisa ukuwugcina umculo oyinkcubeko yethu uphila? Unowuphi umbono, yintoni orhalela ukuyibona isenzeka nanjengomama omdala ukugcina lomculo wethu uphila?

PN: We live at a time where there are talks on ibuyambo (back to our roots) but the strides may not be that big/visible to achieve this (MM says they do not show). This leaves one worried about the effects of these in preserving the music which forms part of our heritage. What would you suggest, as an elder, can be done to ensure that this music does not perish?

MM: Ey, ndiyathandabuza andazi noba ndingathini na ngoba kaloku abantwana bethu abayifuni lento. Bathi, ‘Yho makhulu, wena uthetha eza zinto zakudala. Zayekwa, sifun’iTV thina’. Kodwa ke ndiyanqwena ukuba bangene apha kulomculo, lo siwenzayo thina bantu badala. Sasisenza ezi zinto thina, singazazi ezi zinto zeeTV. Ndirhalela ingase nabo bawufunde abantwana bethu ngoba thina sesibadala, bafunde ezi zinto mhlazimbe ikhona indawo bafunde, kodwa babuye ke beze kwezi zinto bazifunde, kodwa baqale kulaa ndawo inemfundo.

MM: I am hesitant/have doubts, not sure what can be really done because our children don’t like this music that much. They will say, “Grandmother, this is outdated. We want to watch TV”. It is my wish though that they learn this music, that there be places to teach them because we are aging now, learn it without abandoning their studies as well.

PN: Xa sijonga iminyaka yakho nethuba elithathileyo into yoba namhlanje ube necwecwe elilelakho, sijonge ukuba kwilizwe esiphila kulo baninzi abantu abanesakhono netalente abakhange balifumane ithuba lokuba babe nemini njengawe, babe necwecwe. Ungathanda ukuthini, ungathanda ukubapha awaphi amazwi okubakhuthaza?

PN: Looking at your age and the time it has taken for you to release a solo album and also looking at the skill and talent of the musicians in the country who have not yet managed to be released, what words of encouragement would you like to give them?

MM: Ey andazi, ndiqale emqombothini ke mna ndeza kulento yam. Kodwa ndiqale emqombothini. Ngokuna le, ngokunake ndibulela ukude ndinyamezele. Dizu Plaatjies kunye no Michael abandibeke kule ndawo ndikuyo namhlanje, ndingazi ukuba ndingaze ndizofika kule ndawo, bangcambaza nam kodwa ndisithi andifuni.

MM: I really don’t know what to say because I was surviving by brewing the traditional beer at first. That’s where I started, making traditional beer. I am grateful that Dizu Plaatjies and Michael [Blake] discovered me and that after much persuasion, I finally agreed and persevered. I have achieved this because of them. I never thought that one day this will be a reality.

PN: Yayiyintoni isizathu esibangela ukuba ungafuni?

PN: What was the reason for refusing?

MM: Ndikholwa ngulo mqombothi ndifumana imali namhlanje. Ndithengisa namhlanje, ndifuman’imali namhlanje apha, ndilale ndityile.

MM: I was happy with my beer sales because I was earning daily. I got money immediately with every purchase and the daily earnings enabled me to put food on the table.

PN: Le ingathi ingakucothozela?

PN: Did you feel like music was going to be slow for you (referring to making money out of it)?

MM: Le, ndayibona ukuba undifak’embambezeleni ke ngoku, undibek’embambezeleni. Oh! Lotsho’ilanga, kanti belitshona ndiyazi ukuba ndizodla ntoni.

MM: I had a feeling that this was not going to give me quick returns, it was going to be a long process and yet with my beer, I knew I had food every day.

PN: Bukhona ubunconwana oza kubunika abantwana.

PN: You have something to provide for your children.

MM: Ngoku le, yho yimbambezela

MM: And now this (referring to the music) was going to be a major financial delay

PN: Siyabulela kakhulu Jola, Qengeba, Mthwakazi, Ngwanya, ngethuba lakho. Andifuni kuyenza nde le ngxoxo ngoba namhlanje sirhalela nokuva umculo osiphathele wona.

PN: Thank you very much Jola, Qengeba, Mthwakazi, Ngwanya (her clan names) for the time. I don’t want to drag this conversation because we are eagerly waiting to hear your music rendition for the evening.

Wen’UseGoli (Remix) by Zulu Bravo
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