On the 17th anniversary of Brenda Fassie’s passing, Johannesburg gets to experience the theatre adaptation of Koleka Putuma’s Hullo Bu-Bye Koko Come in.

Blackness as a state of being exists relatively on the periphery. It is a form that is almost always expected to relent and equivocate even when its comforts are disrupted.

“In order for a people to know where they are going, they must know where they come from” opens Mapungubwe: Echoes in the Valley.

It is not clear how I became a writer. There was no definitive moment. Growing up, I would journal, and also had stints trying rap and poetry. After all, where I come from there were no writers.

Fela Kuti’s shrine which stands today with his clothing on display serves as nexus to represent the politics of what this man stood for; anarchy and rebellion, through music and his clothing.

The creators of this theatre piece aim to tell this part of king Shaka’s story and also highlight the death of his mother, uNdlunkulu uNandi waseLangeni, a tragedy that broke his spirit and probably the one thing that weakened him and saw him taking decisions that other members of the royal household deemed as irrational, leading to his assassination.

Across cultures, borders and countries, spirituality is firmly ingrained in music. These melodies and rhythms tell of mythology and history, as well as spiritual beliefs held by its people.

The significance of the 19th of October 1977 ban, may however regrettably be diminished, when chroniclers recall it, under the problematic reference of ‘Black Wednesday’. ‘Black Wednesday’, was coined by the Apartheid regime’s propaganda apparatus