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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
© 2023
Archive About Contact Africa Open Institute
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    #08
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SIHLE NTULI

3 Durban Poems

The Great Flood
based on the KwaZulu-Natal floods of April 2022

in a story of how rain broke the ground during the fall,

a 70-year-old Hindu temple was washed away,
while roads caved-in
                  under tense pressure from the water
walls releasing holds
                 under tense pressure from the water
roofs of homes collapsing
                 under tense pressure from the water. 

the blessings of rainfall had gathered to form an overabundance,   

our flaw was in the way we received
nature, her goodwill provoked by
a carelessness of how we channelled
the flow of water     & in our hubris
could we ever have dreamt of such
a sophisticated demise    as the gates
were left open for a great flood to enter.

how long have the clouds been holding back their intentions for us?

while we walked on     none the wiser
to hardening soil beneath our shoes

how has rain fallen to the earth & not been held 

by soft nurturing hands
that nature once provided?

amid the floods of fall      we came together
down on our knees    pleading with the clouds    
saying…        
           we are sorry    we are sorry    we are sorry. 

Zulu Mecca

Those who were there in-person will tell you of the miracle

of iBandla lamaNazarethe
uShembe marching through West Street
on their way to the Durban city hall in colossal numbers.

A sea of white traditional garb,
somehow managing to turn West Street into some kind of Zulu Mecca
movement of traffic inside the city centre 
coming to a complete halt.

Should we really have been surprised                                        
since the Nazareth Baptist Church
boasted the distinction of being among the largest
African churches in the country

Shembe was indeed the only way,
as bodies blocked the flow of traffic during
the overwhelming event.

They had come to protest strong divisions in their church,
following a long stand-off
between a nephew     & his uncle    who fought
over whom was the rightful heir to the church

Such a mammoth coming together in the name of religion
& for the rest of us
a fear of God left behind
in our eyes

In disbelief   that the congregants of Shembe yielded all that power
the ability to effortlessly bring
the city of Durban
to its knees

Princess Magogo Stadium
after Khulile Nxumalo’s poem ‘Orlando Stadium’  

blame the relegation of AmaZulu 
on the township tour guide

on the peculiar shape of Judas’
cold metallic finger,

a tip of sharp silver 
along his nail
into Mashu’s coffin 
our chests heavy heavin’    

the burial foreplay      
the poverty porn,            
the devouring vultures 
piercing into Zangaléwa,        
like township stadia refurbished
in the name of uMagogo kaDinuzulu

& what really happens to a dream deferred 
by grinding gold molars of a hustla   

like plight of Cameroonian war tributes 
a lamentation of African soldiers lost
fighting in World War II, 

a meaningful song swallowed
then regurgitated into Waka Waka
(this time [only a moment] for Africa)

freshly ground into the periphery
into a wound reopened
every four years  

& what of a World Cup that continues
a legacy of exploitation

finda, finda, here the tourists come
wielding their loaded… 
cameras, 

& don’t they realise people live here? 

These three poems are from the forthcoming poetry collection Zabalaza Republic

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