FAKA
WAIT LORRAINE (PERFORMANCE) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzJyF1QIyrA
UMDIDI OYINGCWELE (SOUND) https://soundcloud.com/non-records-1/ faka-umdidi-oyingcwele
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ISIFUNDO SOKUQALA https://soundcloud.com/faka-4/isifundo-sokuqala 2
PROJECTS
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FROM A DISTANCE: A Gqom-Gospel Lamentation for Dick
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THABISO: Gay CBD and the Complexities of Nivea-ness
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ILLUSTRATIONS: Pioneers of Queer Creative Culture
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PORTRAITS: Black Queer Culture in Johannesburg
SISQO: The complexities of Soccer Player Dick
ABOUT FAKA 5
The founding members of FAKA: Desire Marea (left) and Fela Gucci(right) Photo by Kristin-Lee Moolman
ABOUT
FAKA FAKA is a cultural movement established by best friends Thato Ramaisa (Fela Gucci) and Buyani Duma (Desire Marea). The project began as a performance art duo, exploring alternative expressions of black queer identity in a characteristic lo-fi, glitchy aesthetic. Through this the pair realised the need for others to express their stories and experiences, and so expanded FAKA into an online platform that voices and promotes young black queer voices in current South Africa’s sociopolitical sphere. Through a hybridised expression of intersectional body politics, FAKA aims to humanise all the faces that bring forth underrepresented realities.
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FAKA https://www.facebook.com/faka0000/?fref=nf
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1. FROM A DISTANCE
A GQOM-GOSPEL LAMENTATION FOR DICK
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“We regard this as an ongoing performance celebrating the third world aesthetics that often do not have the space to be validated on a large scale in contemporary creative culture,� 8-
“We feel that there is an exclusion of a certain demographic of valid voices and expressions due to lack of resources, specifically Black/African voices who could strongly contribute to the progression of global culture. This is an economical factor, and coming from disadvantaged backgrounds this is something we have been confronted with. Even within the supposed progressive art world there is a classicism that excludes this demographic.� 9
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WATCH VIDEO VIA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doHNuXe534
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2. THABISO
GAY CBD AND THE COMPLEXITIES OF NIVEA-NESS
THABISO: GAY CBD AND THE COMPLEXITIES OF NIVEA-NESS Thabiso, a lean figure that would rouse rampant suspicion in the skinny-shaming society that lurked outside the shut door, carried a strong face with eyes that danced with miscalculated intensity. My gaze journeyed lazily along the smooth silver landscape where the moonlight licked his skin; his body paralysed by the emasculating failure that lingered like frankincense in the fabric of my sheets - he could not get hard. He failed dismally at it and, as a result, we decided against the premeditated strictly top/bottom dichotomy that we were comfortably abiding by. It only felt fair for the continuation of that highly desired and aggressively pursued ritual that I penetrate him instead. I did. And the pressure, coming from all dimensions of the universe, caused me to last only three seconds. I bowed my head behind his hot neck in shame while giving my last thrusts with a depleted dick in desperate denial. He eventually asked me if I had come. My nervous sigh said yes while the wrinkled grape scented latex around me said I was halfway through my second pot of tea already and it was time to leave. A bitter taste became my mouth. I never thought I would ever relate to one of those posters that sell performance enhancers with bold iridescent word art at every street corner.
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Emasculated and displaced in our own sexuality, we lay next to each other. We both failed to execute a single one of the pornographic positions that were promised only minutes before in a heated post-badoo WhatsApp thread. How could we? Thabiso tried to climb on top of me again but his eager pelvis met my defiant foot. “Stop. No. Can I walk you back to your apartment?” I asked, with my hand gently playing an awkward symphony against his faint ribs while staring at the ceiling which seemed to go on forever in the darkness. “I have experienced violating sexual experiences lately and I’m really not comfortable with having you here anymore. I am sorry, I hope you understand.” I finally looked into his eyes that seemed oblivious to the urgency in my glare. Any guy with good manners would be fiddling with his last button by now, I reasoned. Instead, he just lay there as still as the hot air around us. “It’s 3am” he finally whispered. “The security locks the gate at 12 and I don’t have my phone with me to call him” he insisted after I assured him that it was safe to walk at that time. There was no way out. Once again I was stuck with a stranger in my bed. I talked myself out of the cry that doesn’t belong to us “men”, just in time to hear words I never thought I’d hear spoken in my bed.
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I grew up thinking, dreaming and naively pursuing the perfect image of love, the perfect romance, the picture of Lucas and Sammy rolling in the sands of Salem beach, the picture of that well built white male couple from the Gay Pages I secretly paged through but never bought from Exclusive Books as a teenager. Although all those ideals had been in the process of being unlearnt, in that moment they were shattered out of existence and the pieces pierced my inflated Delusions of Grindr. “It happened to me too” He said. “I was 19 and still living in Cape Town. My boyfriend was much older. He invited me over one night, but he didn’t tell me his friends were also going to be there.” His eyes didn’t leave the ceiling. “The pain….” He choked and I secretly hoped it was because of my strong cologne. “... I had to go to the doctor the next morning for the bleeding.” How many others? I kept wondering. These are not necessarily the things we discuss during/after (a failed attempt at) meaningless sex. These are not necessarily the things we discuss over wine or while waiting to pee at Great Dane. These are not the things we talk about when we are alone with our closest friends. Why? Well, the reasons are probably beyond my comprehension but from where I stand, I have observed a crippling shame attached to any feeling other than the unfazed nivea-ness one is pressured to portray in public spaces. The kind of nivea-ness that makes you ignore the guy you fucked the previous night when you bump into him at Shoprite the following morning; the nivea-ness that will force you to internalise your struggles out of fear that they might be used to moisturise another hoe’s scalp to your disadvantage; the nivea-ness that limits the way we love. Our own dancefloors, in the clubs that were not designated for us but occupied by us until we could claim them as our own, have started to echo the violent erasure of the queer experience and all its complexity. You cannot even dance if you want dick when the dick wants nothing but the straight-acting
Our own dancefloors, in the clubs that were not designated for us but occupied by us until we could claim them as our own, have started to echo the violent erasure of the queer experience and all its complexity. You cannot even dance if you want dick when the dick wants nothing but the straight-acting serenity of post-mig33 nivea-ness, dipping its tongue into the neck of a Savannah bottle there by the corner. Imagine if you wanted to talk, if you wanted to be nothing but yourself, to be transparent about the things that bother you: your poverty, your strained love life, the residual trauma of growing up gay in an anti gay world, the trauma of not being able to interrogate your own experience of sexual violence because misogynoir has become an integral part of your existence, a mere gaze that polices your horny, gyrating femme body into undesirable sub-human spaces where “tops” can force themselves into your anus even when you have said no because what else could you be asking for? You are gay. Gays love sex. My experience with Thabiso made me aware of this ever-spreading rash of unspoken truths hiding beneath dark veil of nightlife in the cbd. It made me cherish the bravery of those who danced, those who walked the streets at night either to the club or to a stranger’s bed, to live the way they wished in a dark city that promised everything. It made me realise the importance of creating safer spaces beyond the frills of our sheets, where we can express our true nature in all its strength and vulnerability without the violence we’re so accustomed to in the daylight. Because everyone on the Buffalo Bills dancefloor, still or mobile, is essentially an adult who was once a child who was probably teased, who probably hated themselves until they found in a deep dark place the courage to fight for the visibility of their true light. It made me realise the importance of loving each other, even if it’s for a night, even after a failed sexual experience that left you feeling worthless and unlovable. “I love you.” I told Thabiso. We never saw each other again.
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3. PORTRAITS 2015/
AN ONGOING ARCHIVAL PROJECT DOCUMENTING DIFFERENT MANIFESTATIONS OF BLACK QUEER CULTURE IN JOHANNESBURG
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4. ALUTA CUNT NOIR
AN ILLUSTRATION SERIES IN HONOUR AND RECOGNITION OF BLACK QUEER PIONEERS IN THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY
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IBHOKWE KHOZA PERFORMANCE ARTIST
SIMEMEZELO XULU
ACTOR, PLAYWRIGHT, DIRECTOR
HLASKO MUSICIAN
MAHLATSE JAMES STYLIST
FELA GUCCI IBHOKWE KHOZA PERFORMANCE ARTIST
JABU ‘MIC JAY’VILAKAZI SOCIAL MEDIA PERSONALITY
VUSI MAKATSI DIGITAL ARTIST
THAMI MAHLOBO ARTIST , ACADEMIC
MLONDI ZONDI
CHOREOGRAPHER, ACADEMIC
5. SISQO
THE COMPLEXITIES OF SOCCER PLATER DICK photo by Sipho Gongxeka
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SISQO: THE COMPLEXITIES OF SOCCER PLAYER DICK A fantastic opening line for this piece came to me while I was in the taxi to work but my pen and paper were too far in my backpack and I couldn’t stab the sombre-looking old man seated next to me with my elbow again, especially after he winced like doll getting a trim when I stabbed him for my taxi fare. Anyway, I had sex with a stranger the other day. It was fricky. He was a soccer player, a real man. “You need it” My best friend told me minutes before he left me alone with the apartment, with me clutching at my disillusioned sense of identity with the most avant-garde playlist on my mac, you know, anticipating my next careless sexual experience with the enthusiasm of the Jehovah’s Witness I had dodged like a bullet earlier, outside that KFC in Gandhi Square. If only I could dodge seductive robbers with the same precision. I could laugh, but it really isn’t funny. I fetched him at the robots, this mysterious man, who inboxed me via one of those very convenient contemporary cruising apps that make the rare occurrence of non-imaginary sex possible for many of us who fail to stomach the vicious yet parallel reality of gay nightclubs. It was hard to single out the wrong in what I was about to do. The dick was in my mailbox. Soccer player dick. What was I supposed to do? Mark as read and move it to trash? Never. I guess I am a bit of a slut, but I know the internet has my back in case a phantom saint tries to shame me on that count. Cnr Commissioner and Von Welliugh, Opposite Sheet Street. Hello, Hi. Casual public handshake. His name is Sisco and he is dressed like a soccer
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player who didn’t make it to the first team. No biggie, I am a humble Born Free Marxist Romantic so I understand that the capitalist whatwhat favours a few of this and that which doesn’t really deviate from the fact that Sisco has a dick in his sweatpants- Soccer player dick. Leave me! We started the walk to my apartment situated at the bottom of Marshalltown. Not the fancy, Previdar Magazine reading, Cotton On wearing, brim hat-clad type Marshalltown, but the other Marshalltown whose details I will elaborate another time. For now, let me get into what happened during the long walk that wasn’t too interesting apart from the fact that he complained about me walking too fast and I totally ignored him, like, it was 10pm, does he think I have clones of Bujy’s friends to protect me at every corner? We arrived at my very humble abode. The Babylonian odours of protein shake fartings and marijuana incense had disappeared much to my relief. I asked him “Tea/Coffee” in my most unconvincing travesty of Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s etiquette. “Couf” he replied. This guy is not planning on sleeping, I thought to myself, trying my best not to break into Fantasia’s rendition of Moulin Rouge; Yass Lawd! I decided to take a closer look at his face in the light, I scrutinised all four facial heys and that towering mountain of shimmering head smiling nervously at me. lol. It is what’s inside that counts. A fog of desire gathered in the space between Sisco’s face and mine. It thickened with time and, for what felt like an episode of Muvhango without subtitles, I stared at him through it with a teaspoon in
hand. The fog of desire sounded like an ensemble choir of mermen singing underwater and it smelt like. . . boiling water; the kettle switched itself off. I poured and stirred. We climbed the ladder to my bedroom and it was there that I made my big realisation that Sisco was not quite well. He began to tell me that it was his first interaction with a homosexual man, that he had ended up on a gay dating site because a friend of his forgot to logout after borrowing his phone which consequently made him curious hence he decided to create his very own vague profile that would allow him access to a bottomless grid of square impressions claiming to just be looking for friendship (with the exception of one or two considerate users who give you the full dimensions of their “monsters”). He then chose to message the full-lipped boy posing topless and open-mouthed in front of a mirror just so that he can take a taxi to his flat two days later, at 10pm, to sit on his bed and get more information pertaining to “This thing, maan. I am just curious yazi.” The shepherd in me decided to be up to the task of entrusting the queer gospel upon the lost neighbour on my mattress for he, never mind being able to navigate an ad infested dating site, proved unfit to undergo his righteous path unto Google. I gave him the real thing, being Son of Baldwin about my pussy. I took pauses in between my detailed yet simple explanations of how sexual identity has been abstracted by a vocabulary too insufficient for us to communicate every dimension of even a single one of the many different ways that sexuality can take form through the body. During the aforementioned pauses, I grew more conscious of the tattered strings that frayed halfway between what I was preaching and what I was living. Yes, I have a perception of my existence that transcends the bounds of vocabulary. But on many nights, such as this one, I am on my mattress trying to validate my identity as a homosexual(ish) man with the dick of a stranger. This is not to say I have no biological impulses of desire that make me seek the pleasure of physical contact but I have realised that is is more about the sense of belonging I
feel the next day when I am walking among the millions in the streets with a burning anus that reminds me of a recently verified connection to homosexual existence. I might not ever see the person who gave me the feeling again, but that’s part of the romance. I will tell my friends. Their envy will humanise me. Sisco later hunted for my anus with his fingers and pressed against it. He asked the final question: “do you guys turn on here?”. I rolled my eyes quickly while he was not watching and when he looked back at me I giggled and said ‘yes’. And the rest is a familiar history. I slept with an unfamiliar feeling, however, that Sisco could strangle me at any moment. It happens, you know, and the murderers walk free among the millions in the streets and we sometimes invite them into our homes to suck their dicks. I began to think beyond the feeling I would get tomorrow if tomorrow even came for me. Would I die at the hands of soccer player dick? Is soccer player dick worth dying for? Apart from using protection, what exactly is safe sex?
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