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“We fight Rhodes because he means so much for oppression, injustice, & moral degradation to South Africa - but if he passed away tomorrow there still remains the terrible fact that something in our society has formed the matrix which has fed, nourished and built up such a man.”
One of the most famous streets in all of Africa today is Vilakazi Street in Soweto, Johannesburg, famously known as the only street in the world to have produced two Nobel Peace Prize winners. This street is named after the first South African to receive a PHD, the father of Zulu literature, the poet Dr. BW Vilakazi.
There is something softly solemn to Lorin Sookool’s musing on South African coloured identity and the sense of living with an instinct to defend oneself in a world that confines you. Like living in prison, it can be a life unfulfilled. Sookool’s film The Blunt Blades of Bravado contemplates this confinement of personhood that turns people of colour into stereotypes of violence, and at the same time, the film breathes into the wound of living in constant fear.
It is this conversation that Makhafula Vilakazi invites us to in this year’s solo show titled Concerning Blacks. Perhaps even more than just a show, he invites us to a moment of self-reflection, where we are left with no choice but to confront ourselves and what we have become. In his work, Makhafula minces no words, pops open the rotten wound caused by ‘post’-apartheid deception.
The award-winning pianist, recipient of both the coveted ‘UNISA National Piano Competition Award [2015] and the ‘Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year’ Award [2014] in the Jazz Category was selected for the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s [SABC 3] ‘21 ICONS South Africa Season III’ [November 2015] for “his ability to transcend cultural barriers by using music as an art form to communicate commonalities and differences across diverse nations.
Bokani Dyer’s latest album ‘Kelenosi’ was produced during lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic when access to other musicians and live performance were non-existent. ‘Kelenosi’ is Setswana for ‘By Myself’ and was Bokani’s creative outlet during this time.
I could not leave of course before I thanked my ancestors through the much beguiled J&B Jet. It is the reason I’m on this Whisky sojourn after all. As we bumbled our way out at the end of the evening, I heard someone say same time, same place next year, and I realised It was a grand event for grand laaities who lost their sophistication somewhere between the Glen Grant single malt and Michael Kors’ rather pricey fragrances.
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