On the 30th of August, Koketso Potsane Distribution Agency, Keleketla! Library and Deep South Books will be hosting a launch and celebration of the re-publishing of The Bavino Sermons by Lesego Rampolokeng featuring the Tumi Mogorosi Trio at Keleketla! Library, King Kong Building in Troyville.
On the 20th anniversary of its first appearance, Deep South has republished one of Rampolokeng’s finest works. The Bavino Sermons includes such classic poems as Lines for Vincent, Riding the Victim Train, To Gil Scott-Heron, Crab Attack, Rap Ranting and The Fela Sermon. Reviewing the original 1999 Gecko Poetry edition, Khulile and Sibusiso Nxumalo wrote “Passion drives this book. The Bavino Sermons are sermons of moral outrage…”
On the day, Lesego Rampolokeng will deliver poetry alongside Tumi Mogorosi on drums and Nhlanhla Radebe on double bass where poetry will meet jazz and jazz meet poetry giving you an improvisational “free” playing music experience.
According to Rampolokeng everything begins with sound and “we are music people.” Rampolokeng has written poems for Hymphatic Thabz, Robo The Technician and Johnny Dyani to mention but a few musicians he has livicated poetry to.
In an interview with Brenda Sisane of KayaFM on The Art of Sunday, Rampolokeng said he writes poetry in order to find himself and “it’s not up to the poet to provide answers, but it is [theirs] to question”.
In The Fela Sermon, Rampolokeng writes:
Politics a capital dance policy runs on finance
Profit on the rise the fall of conscience
Clean collar hearts dollar ride to sewer side
Information more than the next person
Principal position of intercourse
Read the gospel of Saint Karl Marx
The cliché is a clinch it clenches around the glitch
Life is a bitch yes disease & pestilence
Commerce dictates you fuck her in silence
Since 1990 Lesego Rampolokeng has written eight books of poetry, two plays and three novels, and collaborated with visual artists, playwrights, filmmakers, theatre and opera producers, in South Africa and internationally. His uncompromising voice and performance style have earned him a unique place in our literature.
The gig starts at 19:00 for 19:30 at number 6 Verwey Street, Keleketla! Library, King Kong Building. R80 gets you in and a copy of The Bavino Sermons goes for R150. There will also be an after party with DJs Mma Tseleng and Lerato Lichaba courtesy of Keleketla! Library and other radical African literary tingz courtesy of Koketso Potsane Distribution Agency will be on sale. If you are an audiophile and bibliophile, you can’t afford to miss this gig.
