Cecil John Rhodes: British Empire Hitman

“It is easier to paint Malcolm as the villain of Malcolm & Marie, but the film is simply a live illustration of the beautiful tragedy most romances experience when the perceived reality of one person is a fictional tale to the other.” writes Lazola Nomkala

It’s almost a year into various levels of lockdown and artists’ innovation simply knows no limits! The Joburg-based duo, Centipede, is giving us a taste of an alternative sound, they’ve been crafting throughout lockdown. Nandi Ndlovu aka Saylahasee, whom you might know from Kajama, joined forces with Hlasko aka Neo Mahlasela to create Centipede.

After 25 years of his Rolls-Royce of lies. And my long base Siyaya patience. Trying to build a home, with him in mind, for our children... I found BooSassa in bed with the help, Agrizzi. I would give up my kidney and Louella pair to turn back the arms of time, to uncry the manifesto of tears that elected to condense me into a soapbox of fools right there in front of our creased bed linen and their damp devil may care birth suits.

The world is in a crisis, not because of the perils of a constantly looming nuclear war between the world’s ‘superpowers’ or the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 or the evident collapse of western democracy, but because of the vast spill of the structural control of white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchal-racist institutions from the political, social, economic, religious, spiritual and educational.

Our languages get lost in translation. And because we have been so fixated and obsessed with mastering our colonizer’s tongue, we have completely divorced ourselves from the beauty and philosophical paradigms of our native tongues. It is my assertion that our languages, in their uncorrupted states, hold the keys to what and who we truly are.

27 years into South Africa’s democracy, one shudders about the National Party’s (NP) past obsession (after their 26 May 1948 election victory) under their dour leader Dr. Daniel Francois (DF) Malan. Their malicious imposition of ‘Apartheid’ as their official government policy, crudely endorsed ‘institutionalized racism’.