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DEC 2018 / JAN 2019 R53 ( INCL VAT ) OTHER COUNTRIES R46.09 GQ.CO.ZA

Tambour Horizon Your journey, connected.

louisvuitton.com

#ThisIsYourTime

Letter from the Editor 12

GQHQ

FEATURES 70

King of comedy Our homeboy Trevor Noah 76

Issa Rae is so fresh 82

Is anyone actually friends anymore? A manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide to friendship in the 21st century 86

The war against infertility

Let us cohabitate How to live together 110

Pot of gold How the cannabis industry is going pro

ESSENTIALS 19

Woman we love DJ Gina Jeanz 22

Man of the moment Sommelier Tinashe Nyamudoka 24

Uncommon threads Go luxe with silk

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MANDEE JOHNSON/NETFLIX

Q12/18-1/1

DEPARTMENTS

M&CSAATCHI ABEL/24408/E

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

THE ESSENCE OF COMFORT The new Lexus ES is more than a car, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a feeling. Created by Takumi craftsmen who VSHQW WKUHH \HDUV SHUIHFWLQJ WKH DLU YHQWLODWRUV ZLWK QD RH DLU SXULoHUV WKDW P LVWXULVH your skin. Imagine that. Stepping out of your car is ju lexus.co.za

GQ12/18-1/19 ESSENTIALS

DRIVE 48

Move over, Knight Rider The Mercedes-Benz A 200/250 53

History on wheels

STYLE 99

The sweet life Breeze your way through summer with a 24/7 holidayready wardrobe 112

Grooming How to use a blowdryer

Smell like a work of art. Plus, protect your skin

118

Short story

Directory

Swimwear to suit your needs

120

12 Things hippies made cool

King of Catalonia Why Barcelona makes the perfect holiday

WEALTH 61

Mastering money

GQ&A

Manage your money like a grown-up

Writer and activist Kgotsi Chikane

64 36

3-Ingredient cocktails Plus, SAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most expensive drink

Turn and face the strange How to adapt in business 65

Built to last

I made my smartphone dumber

What the future workplace will look like

Spotlight on Muzi

T H E C OV E R

Mandee Johnson/Netflix

Design The Onyx and Cape Townâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s residential revolution 46

Clean your house in under hour 8 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

All prices quoted in this issue are approximate and subject to change.

P H OTO G R A P H B Y N I Q U I TA B E N TO

The Edit

G E N T L E M E N ’ S Q U A R T E R LY

EDITOR

Nkosiyati Khumalo Rust y Beukes FASHION DIRECTOR Leanne Botha AR T DIRECTOR Bernd Fischer CONTENT EDITOR Mira Leibowitz FASHION EDITOR Lauren Manuel MANAGING EDITOR Ruby Parker COP Y EDITOR Lauren Williams SY NDICAT ION MANAGER Luke Ruiters JUNIOR FASHION EDITOR Keenan Jeppe JUNIOR DESIGNER CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Dieter Losskarn (MOTORING)

* E X C L U D E S A N Y B R O A D B A N D O R M O B I L E D A T A C O S T S . A D D I T I O N A L T S & C S A P P LY. P L E A S E S E E P A G E 1 1 8 A N D V I S I T G Q . C O . Z A / W I N . * * P H Y S I C A L G I F T C A R D W I L L B E A T T A C H E D

CONTRIBUTORS Jamie Lauren Keiles, Adam Hurly, Paul Sephton, Paula Forbes, Sophia Benoit, Modupe Oloruntoba, Christopher Harvey, Zach Baron, Chris Gayomali, Brenna Carley, Kevin Nguyen, Brett Martin, Clay Skipper, Martin Mulkeen, Daniel Noah Halpern, Nicole Silverberg, Lauren Larson, Alex Siquig, Paul Henderson, Alex Godfrey, Colin Groundwater

PHOTOGRAPHERS AND ILLUSTRATORS Karl Rogers, Ghislaine Mutombo, Andy Lund, Anton Starikov, Henk Kruger, Ian Engelbrecht, Luke Kuisis, Naomi Driessnack, Teri Robberts, Kelly Makropoulis, Philipp Rupprecht, Sarah Dulay, Martin Schoeller, Mark Seliger, Simon Avranowicz, Michael Nash, Niquita Bento, Ben Kopp, Mandee Johnson

ACTING ADVERTISING SALES & BRAND DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Abigail Jacobs (CT) DEPUT Y SALES DIRECTOR Nokwanda Mhlambo (JHB)

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT MANAGERS Lorraine Bradley (JHB), Jacqui Erasmus (JHB), Wendy Robinson (JHB), Stacey Calitz (CT), Nadia Pereira (CT) ADVERTISING LIAISON Jamie Pillay (CT) ADVERTISING MANAGER Natasha O ’ Connor (CT)

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CONDÉ NAST INDEPENDENT MAGAZINES (PTY) LTD ACTING CEO Mbuso Khoza CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Sarah Buluma HEAD OF FINANCE Paul Myburgh DIGITAL MANAGER Megan Wridgway BRAND DEVELOPMENT CAMPAIGN MANAGER Desiree Kriel / EVENTS MANAGER Mpho Mokoena / BRAND PROPERTIES & EVENTS COORDINATOR Lindiswa Putuma / PROMOTIONS DESIGNER Nosipho Ngqula / CONTENT SOLUTIONS COPYWRITER Zeenat Mowzer / ONLINE EDITOR Molife Kumona / CONTENT PRODUCER Simamkele Matuntuta / DIGITAL CREATIVE EXECUTIVE Viné Lucas / SOCIAL MEDIA OFFICER Arthur Mukhari / PRODUCTION MANAGER Stefanie Wharton / PRODUCTION/ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Jean Jacobs / PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Charné Phillips / CIRCULATION MANAGER Sauhana Somaru / CIRCULATION ADMIN MANAGER Karen Shields / SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Bertina Ellis / FINANCE CONTROLLERS Lucia da Aparecida / ACCOUNTS EXECUTIVE Genevieve Johnson / OFFICE & ADMINISTRATIVE CO-ORDINATOR Sharon van Schoor / ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Shamiela Johnson

DIRECTORS CHAIRMAN Dr Iqbal Survé Cherie Hendricks Takudzwa Hove CAPE TOWN HEAD OFFICE Condé Nast Independent Magazines (Pty) Ltd, 10th floor, Convention Towers, Heerengracht St, Cape Town City Centre, 8000. PO Box 16414, Vlaeberg, 8018. Tel: 021-344-0500; Fax: 021-424-6222; Email: gq @ condenast.co.za JOHANNESBURG OFFICE Condé Nast Independent Magazines (Pty) Ltd, Block A Knightsbridge, 33 Sloane Street, Bryanston, Sandton, 2021. Tel: 010-880-2410

REPRODUCTION Hirt and Carter PRINTING Paarl Media Cape DISTRIBUTION RNA, 12 Nobel Street, Industria West, 2093 PRODUCT MANAGER Jannie Junius, 011-248-3500 © 2018 Condé Nast Independent Magazines (Pty) Ltd. Copyright subsists in all work published in this magazine. Any reproduction or adaptation, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publishers is strictly prohibited and is an act of copyright infringement which may, in certain circumstances, constitute a criminal offence. ‘The paper used for this publication is a recyclable and renewable product. It has been produced using wood sourced from sustainably managed forests and elemental or total chlorine free bleached pulp. The producing mills have third-party management systems in place, applying standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. This magazine can be recycled either through your kerbside collection or at a local recycling point. Log onto www.prasa.co.za to find your nearest sites.

ISSNs: 1562-4366

THE PERFECT GIFT The Netflix Gift Card is a prepaid voucher which lets you stream Netflix to the value loaded on the card. You can start enjoying Netflix from as little as R99* per month. Learn more at GQ.co.za

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INSIDE GQ L E T T E R F R O M T H E E D I TO R

Take a load off

Contributors L AU R E N W I L L I A M S SYNDICATION MANAGER

for the first time in a long time, and for the first time with some real intention behind it. The gym always seemed like a bit of a foreign concept for me – everyone in there always looked as if they knew what they were doing. I would walk past and wonder, where are the beginners? Are they kept in a back room somewhere until they pass Gym 101? O U T R EC E N T LY,

but that doesn’t stop me from rushing home to see if my biceps have grown as soon as the session is over (although they definitely have). And though some days my trainer, Evan Lieb, will push me hard, there’s that little satisfied sigh that manages to escape my zombified face after a particularly strenuous set. Satisfied because, although the act of calling muscles back from the undead f*cking hurts, the pain is worth it for the eventual payoff. I find December is that sigh. Finally, we can relax, exhale, and hopefully shed some of the tension we’ve been carrying around all year, be it from the stresses of the news cycle, fuel prices that just won’t stop climbing, way too much of Gigaba in our faces, or a thousand other things that took their toll on us this year. We’ve been through a LOT. But, with every spanner that 2018 threw our way, we learnt to adapt and work through it – and hopefully with our sense of humour mostly intact. Granted, some things we could have done without (really, Gigaba), but we’re stronger in any case. And that’s what’s helping me relax this season – knowing that every day we’re getting a little bit stronger, a little bit more resilient, a little bit more unflappable. We’ve put together a comedy special with some hysterical Hollywood heavyweights, including our very own Trevor Noah, to help turn that exhale into a cackle – because if you can leave 2018 laughing, you can make it through anything. Enjoy the issue.

M O D U P E O LO RUN TO BA PAGE 61 Modupe Oloruntoba is a Nigerian writer whose hobbies include tweeting and singing to stave off existential dread. She also spends way too much money on food and coffee, because Cape Town. A fashion design graduate, Oloruntoba started writing about fashion, beauty, lifestyle and culture while studying at CPUT and has since been published on Reﬁnery29 and Man Repeller.

P H OTO G R A P H BY YO N E L A M A KO B A

I STARTED WORKING

I suppose it’s not good advertising to have the not-yet-fit near the front windows – goodness knows most times my face looks like one of the Walking Dead zombies after anything particularly strenuous. That can’t be good for business. Where else, then, does a beginner go? I could have tried the plentiful fitness classes – and in a city like Cape Town, more and more pop up every month. Inevitably one of several of my friends will try the latest one (have you ever noticed – it’s always the couples), and soon it’s part of their social media content plan. So much so, in fact, that you start to wonder how they have the time to both take, edit and post photos, while also gymming religiously and working and seeing family and maintaining friendships and… And so even those trendy fitness classes sound like two extra chores wrapped up in one – the social-media sharing of your progress while actually making sure you achieve said progress. Too much pressure for me, thank you very much. So I went the old-school route and hired a personal trainer. I’ve found it very freeing to not obsess over one part of my body, and instead put the whole sack of potatoes into the hands of someone who’s looking at the whole picture, not just weight loss, but also from a mobility/flexibility perspective, to strength, to posture – a holistic improvement. Walking Dead Sexy, here I come! I know, of course, that it’s not going to be an immediate change –

After working ﬁrst in the promotions department and then as syndication manager at Condé Nast SA, Lauren Williams believes that growing and doing what you love is the number one life hack. She ﬁnally realised this after graduating with a diploma in events management – something she now knows is her true passion in life.

NKOSIYATI KHUMALO EDITOR

10 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ.CO.ZA

TAG Heuer Boutiques; Sandton City & V&A Waterfront. Also at selected ﬁne jewellers nationwide. For further information please call 011.669.0500. www.picotandmoss.co.za

TAG HEUER CARRERA SENNA SPECIAL EDITION Ayrton Senna is celebrated as the most inﬂuential driver in the history of Formula One. He was never intimidated by the expectations of others, because his were even higher. He forever embodies the TAG Heuer motto – Don’t Crack Under Pressure.

GQ HQ

Cape Town’s favourite open-air cinema, The Galileo, is back for a seventh season of alfresco fun. Expect a line-up of old favourites like Love Actually along with new hits like Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. The cinema has also added a range of beautiful new venues to their offering, including Glenellen Farm, Rustenburg Girls’ High Shool and Willowbridge Mall. So grab a blanket and make a night of it thegalileo co za

The hit list

What's on our radar this month The scent The iconic Boss Bottled fragrance from German luxury conglomerate Hugo Boss celebrates 20 years since it ﬁrst launched with a limitededition release. hugoboss.com

• Nothing says silly season quite like twinkle lights. Add an element of whimsy to any summer soiree with these Pineapple lights from woolworths.co.za.

BEAUTY t THE FAMED

Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles now boasts its logo – a faun graphic of Pan, icon of the wild, shepherds and flocks – on readyto-wear pieces from Italian fashion house Gucci’s Cruise 019 collection. As hateau Marmont’s ascot, Pan can be en on the original untain in the urtyard colonnade

BLEND

of the hotel, as well as on other amenities – likely the direct inspiration for this laundry bag turned tote. Blends make the world more interesting. Tullamore D.E.W. brings together three kinds of Irish whiskey for a blend that’s as wonderfully complex as you are. Learn more at tullamoredew.com*

W O R D S B Y R U B Y P A R K E R . * N O T F O R S A L E T O P E R S O N S U N D E R T H E A G E O F 1 8 . D R I N K R E S P O N S I B LY.

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THIS MONTH ON THE NEW

Recent update

@SiyaBeyile I open up about my battle with depression in the latest issue of @GQdotcoza

entertainment, business, food, ﬁtness and tech industries

31 493

CULTURE: The latest developments in the

WOMEN: Get to know the models and celebrities heating up your Instagram

@TheRealMoyin GQ SA!!!! Is there a publication that’s killing it like they are?!?!

@trevor_stuurman One For The Books: GQ Style Vol. 14 Spring/ Summer 2018/2019 on stands today. #StuurmanXGQ

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GROOMING: All of your grooming concerns narrowed down so you can face them head-on

STYLE: Up-to-the minute fashion and runway news, daily style upgrades and more exclusive behind-the-scenes action

14 /DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

P H OTO G R A P H S BY K A R L R O G E R S , E L S A YO U N G , L A S H S H OT S , PAU L S A M U E L S

@realblackcoffee Look out for the October issue of GQ SA

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sunglass stands out for its authentic and vintage spirit, strongly

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• Exploring Afrocentric luxury

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More information and tickets available at:

CNILuxury.com | +44 20 7152 3472 For details of commercial partnerships contact: clare.casey@condenastint.com

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P H O T O G R A P H B Y L U K E K U I S I S F O R S U P E R B A L I S T. S T Y L I N G B Y M A N DY N A S H

• GINA JEANZ FIRST POPPED ONTO MY RADAR ABOUT A YEAR AGO. It was around this time at Rocking the Daisies ’17 – it was my first time going and, funnily enough, it was Gina’s too. The difference was that she was performing, playing her first-ever DJ set. Jeanz has been in the music production game for about 10 years, so it’s hard to believe that it was her first gig as a DJ. She saw it as an opportunity, and that same day she bought her first mixer. Three months later, Gina Jeanz, the self-taught DJ graced the stage and killed it. But these kinds of opportunities aren’t so much about luck as hard work, at least in Jeanz’s case. ‘I’ve put in the time,’ she says. So to be invited back was a moment of affirmation for her – not to mention the chance to be on the same stage as so many artists and producers that she looks up to. ‘It was a real humbling experience.’ Rewind eight years: Jeanz had just moved to Cape Town, because ‘back home in Namibia, they didn’t offer any creative or graphic design courses.’ She found herself taking a big leap and making her way to the Mother City. ‘And I never left!’ she

chuckles, but stands by her decision. ‘It’s a good time and place to be, in terms of the creative industry. For now, it makes sense for me to be here. Let’s see, because I’m the type of person that doesn’t get too comfortable in one place too quickly.’ Jeanz is clearly the adaptable type, open to change – welcomes it in fact. ‘We are constantly evolving,’ she believes. Not too long ago, she had a regular 9-5 job, but decided that if she knew her path, she may as well follow it – no matter how scary it might be. Jeanz says she always reminds herself, ‘If you’re confident in what you do, you will never suffer.’ I’m starting to understand just how focused and driven she really is. ‘The fact that I’m doing something I love, without having to conform to any industry standards is just a huge plus,’ she says. Being her own boss means setting her own boundaries, and because she genuinely loves what she does, it’s easy for her to get caught up in it and to constantly be working. So switching off and reigniting inspiration is incredibly important for her.

She recently got back from a Eurotrip that did just that. ‘I’ll be honest, I was in a quite a creative rut before this trip, so it came at a good time.’ Jeanz tells me about connecting with her husband and reconnecting with herself. ‘As a creative and visual person, I’m constantly observing; from people watching to trend spotting, travelling is just so soul inspiring for me.’ This was her and her husband’s first trip together since they got married last year. We start talking a bit about Jeanz’s wedding and how what should have been the happiest day was incredibly bittersweet, as she lost her mother to cancer the same year. ‘It forced me to grow up very quickly and establish what’s really important. It also reminds me to be present and do the most with the time I have.’ This year has been a rebirth of sorts for Jeanz in terms of her wellness. She is an advocate for looking after yourself, whether it’s seeing a therapist, taking time off work, or even just putting on a facemask. She’s all about listening to herself and her needs. ‘Sometimes, I delete Instagram all together,’ she confides. As happy as she is to share her life online, in what she describes as her ‘own personal visual diary’, privacy is still sacred to her. The modelling industry initially stumbled across Jeanz in her first year of studies and, being the hustler that she is, she saw it as a way to become independent and alleviate her parents’ financial pressures. Being introduced to the world of modelling, fashion, beauty and photography only opened more doors. But, although modelling was an extension of the path she is on, it was never the end goal. ‘I’m using what I’ve learnt along the way to build my own brand,’ she says. Jeanz has managed to align her passion for music and fashion seamlessly. What she wears when she performs plays a huge role in how she feels on stage. Just like music has the power to transport us to different places, fashion has the power to transform us into different people. ‘I’m not just a producer anymore, I’m also a performer,’ she says. That plays a big part in her music, too. Producing tracks in her own studio or even just on her laptop, Jeanz is 100 per cent involved with every aspect, from songwriting, to mastering and even the visuals. ‘Taking time to produce quality is vital.’ She has a number of exciting projects in the pipeline and finds herself in an honest and happy space, having overcome the hardships she encountered last year. ‘It’s definitely reflected in my music.’ – MIRA LEIBOWITZ

For more on your favourite models and celebrities visit 20 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ.CO.ZA

. PHOTOGRAPH BY GHISLAINE MUTOMBO

If you’re confident in what you do, you will never suffer

# W A T C H B E Y O N D

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ESSENTIALS

Man of the Moment

Tastemaker • Before Tinashe Nyamudoka arrived in Cape Town from Zim in 2008, he knew nothing about wine. When the posh Roundhouse restaurant in Camps Bay was looking for staff, he applied but admitted to having no clue about the restaurant business. Nyamudoka’s subsequent success is based on ambition, a strong work ethic, and a passion for wine. ‘Wine is my life. Without wine I wouldn’t be where I am today.’ Nyamudoka continued his wine career at Nobu and Reuben’s at the One&Only hotel. And he learnt fast. In 2013, he won the distinction of best wine steward in the Cape Legends Inter Hotel Challenge. SA’s numberone chef, Luke DaleRoberts, later head-hunted him to become head sommelier at The Test Kitchen, one of the world’s 50 best restaurants. Nyamudoka is now one of 11 jurors who are doing blind tastings to determine what makes the ‘Wine of the Month Club’. In 2017, he created his own label: Kumusha(‘home’ in Shona). The white Chenin Blanc and Sémillon blend is ‘a wine that speaks my language, an African language,’ he says. The sommelier is also a founding member of the Black Cellars Club, an organisation that helps young black South Africans to get a foothold in the wine industry. ‘Start as a runner,’ Nyamudoka advises novices. ‘And learn the business from the ground up.’ - DIETER LOSSKARN

For more career inspiration visit 22 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ.CO.ZA

P H OTO G R A P H BY A N DY LU N D

We speak to Tinashe Nyamudoka about his rise from runner to one of SA’s most respected sommeliers

ESSENTIALS

How To

Short story

FIT GUYS Look for something close-ﬁtting that is mid-thigh length. This will make you look lean and have great range of motion for a run or round of volleyball at the beach.

SHORT GUYS The shorter the shorts, the longer your legs will seem. A boxier ﬁt and a bold print will also add to the illusion. Board shorts R799 Billabong

Swim shorts R899.95 Hurley

TALL GUYS Taller guys should look for something that hangs just above the knee - anything shorter will make you look ridiculously big. This type of short will make your body look more proportional. Swim shorts R599 Vans

STOCKY GUYS Just because you don’t have abs, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend your time on the beach. If you have great legs, opt for a boxier ﬁt with a mid-thigh length, or go longer if you’re looking for more cover. Try to avoid anything light and bright.

WEAR ANYWHERE Look for a pair of hybrid shorts that are just as good on land as in water - perfect for those long summer days where you’ll be going from the beach to the bar. Shorts R599.95 Billabong

Swim shorts R550 MadLove

24 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ.CO.ZA

STYLING AND WORDS BY RUSTY BEUKES. PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUKE KUISIS

Here’s your cheat sheet for the best swimwear to suit your needs this summer

SHOP THE NEW HOLIDAY COL STARTING AT R989

i FIRST, WASH AND TOWEL DRY YOUR HAIR You don’t want yesterday’s hair product interfering with today’s style, so you need to wash, then towel dry it so that it isn’t sopping wet when you begin drying. You need to get it to the place where you’d usually let it air dry on its own – that’s where you’ll begin the blowdrying process. This is also when you apply your desired hair product – one that works in damp hair, like a paste or cream.

USE A HEATPROTECTANT PRODUCT Since the main threat of blow drying your hair is heat damage, many salon brands have engineered products that shield the hair from heat damage (and UV damage, too!). Some double as stylers, while others can be mixed with your usual styler for this particular purpose.

MIND THE HEAT, PRIORITISE THE POWER

How to use a blow dryer without looking like Ace Ventura

Pick a dryer around 1 800 watts, to ensure it has lots of power. You don’t want to deal with anything weaker than 1 200, especially since higher power means you can lower the heat. And, if you invest in an ionic dryer, then you don’t need to use it as long: it works fast, and it parches your hair even faster. They’re effective if you turn the dryer off every 20 or 30 seconds to note whether or not the hair is actually dry.

KEEP IT MOVING, AND KEEP A DISTANCE Don’t just point the dryer at your hair a few centimeters away and blast heat on any one spot. That’s going to fry your hair, and not just dry it. And it’s going to permanently damage it. You should keep the dryer moving to evenly distribute the heat, at a distance of 15cm – the healthy distance, so long as you keep that barrel moving around.

Blow drying is a subtle art

DIRECT THE STYLE AS YOU DRY

HERE’S AN EXISTENTIAL QUESTION: should you use a blow dryer? If you want more control over your hair style, yes, you should. If you want more volume, particularly if it’s thinning then yes, you should use a blow dryer. THE FOLLOW UP QUESTION IS: how do you actually use a blow dryer? How do you maximise its potential, and maximise your hair’s potential in the process? We’ll get to that.

The general idea for styling is that you’re setting it in place while you dry. If you want a swooping pompadour, then you need to blow the hair up, and better yet, use a rounded brush to shape it into place. Then, periodically halt the blow drying to comb it and coach it into position. As you do dry, target the roots first: this is where

26 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

you gain the most control over your style.

DON’T TOSS THE ATTACHMENTS Those attachments that come with the blow dryer are purposeful. There are two in particular that you should be acquainted with: The diffuser: This is for people with curly hair. It’s a big, multipronged extension that looks like a back massager. It distributes the heat and wind of the dryer in various directions, and it minimises its intensity in the process, so that people with curly hair can dry their curls without compromising or straightening their natural style. The concentrator: This sounds like a Marvel superhero with mind control powers. It’s the attachment that pinches together to a long narrow gap. That’s so you can target specific spots of the hair as you comb or brush, instead of blasting air aggressively from the end of the gun. You hold it right up close to the hair, too, a few centimeters away while you guide the hair with your comb. It’s important to lower the heat when using this, since you’re concentrating the heat so directly and holding the dryer closer than you otherwise would. But also – keep that dryer moving!

USE THE ‘COLD AIR’ BUTTON TO LOCK YOUR STYLE You probably recognise a little button on the handle that says ‘cold’ or resembles a snowflake. If you push this, the hot air stops and you start getting a gust of cool. It’s not really cold air, though; it’s just a fan installed inside the blow dryer, taking the air in the room and blowing it on you without any added heat. So it feels cool. The main purpose of this button is to lock your style in place. Hot air keeps the product activated and helps direct your hair into place, but the cold air locks it into place and spares your hair a little added heat damage. – ADAM HURLY WE RECOMMEND: 1. Dyson Supersonic Hairdryer R6 500 2. Remington Power Volume Hair Dryer 2000W R369 3. Wahl Professional Hairdryer 2000W R340 *All available at Clicks clicks.co.za

GQ.CO.ZA

P H O T O G R A P H B Y I A N E N G E L B R E C H T. M O D E L N I C K J AT F U S I O N . G R O O M E R C A N D I C E M A C AT O N E L E A G U E C R E AT I V E M A N A G E M E N T

ESSENTIALS

Preview

Uncommon threads Embrace your luxurious side this summer with the most breathable natural fabric – silk

WORDS BY LUKE RUITERS. STYLING BY RUSTY BEUKES. PHOTOGRAPH BY LUKE KUISIS

Shirt R9 895 Versace

Ý SUMMER IS THE PERFECT TIME to update your button-up with a more bold, vibrant and graphic statement. Pair it with a cropped trouser or light-wash denim and loafers for a luxe, laidback effect.

GQ.CO.ZA

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 27

ESSENTIALS

Destination

BARCELONA is the city that has it all – from beaches and wine bars to Gaudí and Güell, the Spanish icon has something to offer everyone

King of Catalonia 28

/ DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ.CO.ZA

The luxury modernist

ALMANAC į For the contemporary hotel lover, newly opened Almanac is a haven in the city centre, located steps from Passeig de Gràcia’s bustling shops, museums and restaurants. Rooms are generously proportioned, with minimalist modern design via Jaime Beriestain Studio. And while the mini bars are complementary and stock the hotel’s house craft beer, if you’re too worn out after the day, the rooftop terrace is a better suited spot to have a drink and take in the city views. And though the staff have excellent recommendations for where to eat in the neighbourhood, in-house dining at Línia, the Mediterranean brasserie, can still be considered some of the city’s best food. Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 619 almanachotels.com/barcelona

The budget boutique

HOTEL BRUMMELL į With only 20 rooms on offer, owner Christian Schallert has truly mastered the boutique hotel concept, with Brummell’s charm immediately apparent from check-in. With a welcome that includes perks such as free access to city biking, on-site yoga classes and their custom city map, Brummell’s rotating guest art exhibitions, neon-glow bar and overgrown terrace are just pockets of the hipness you’ll go on to uncover. And while the rooms offer every comfort you could want, the pool is where you’ll be spending most of your time. Pinned in El Poble Sec, the surrounding neighbourhood is also host to many up-and-coming restaurants, as well as great attractions, such as Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and the botanical gardens. Nou de la Rambla, 174, hotelbrummell.com

The heritage hit

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COT TON HOUSE į Set in Eixample, a suburb that’s been around since the late 19th century, the now-refurbished Cotton House Hotel was once the choice of Catalan industrial bourgeoisie, and is now the GQ go-to for style and luxury. The 83-room playground breathes class and heritage, from its floor-to-ceiling wood parqueting to the marble work and iconic spiral staircase. Every space demands admiration, with the painstaking attention to detail only matched in service. If you’re not taking in the Sagrada Familia church from the rooftop pool, there’s a library from which to grab a vermouth or an exclusive L’Atelier, offering a tailor-made shirt as a memento from your stay. » Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 670 hotelcottonhouse.com

Destination

Beer

Wine

FÀBRICA MORITZ

CAN CISA BAR BRUTAL

Spain’s oldest commercial beermaker is also home to a thriving recently remodelled gastropub. Stop by for beer to go, try a tasting ﬂight, or just enjoy the humming atmosphere that spills out onto the street, while the army of waiters deliver wave upon wave of food.

Spain’s largest natural wine bar – and Europe’s second largest – Bar Brutal is a melting pot of locals, though stars like Scarlett Johansson and Shakira have been known to sit on a stool in the kitchen. Pick up a bottle from the vast wine bible and don’t stray from the food menu, especially not with options like the nectarine and beetroot with ricotta or pork neck terrine.

Ronda de Sant Antoni, 41 moritz.com

XEMEI Barcelona received a blessing when Venetian brothers Max and Stefano Colombo decided to open Xemei here 15 years ago, and though having gone on to launch other top restaurants in the city like Frankie Gallo Cha Cha Cha, Xemei (meaning ‘twins’ in Italian) is still worth your attention over a decade later. Don’t miss the scallops and squid polenta or carbonara tortilla with black trufﬂe. Passeig de l’Exposició, 85 xemei.es

Carrer de la Princesa, 14 cancisa.cat

Eat like a local

LA FLAUTA

BAR CANETE Though booking is recommended, if you don’t there’s always a vermouth to be had at the bar while you wait to line up for one of the city’s top tapas bars. With a menu that proclaims ‘Fuck Your Diet’ on top, doing such is the only way forward with what follows.

Unanimously recommended by locals, La Flauta’s queue spills out onto the street, but moves faster than the pace at which tapas leave the kitchen. Share five to six plates between two, and do not miss the Huevos Rotos.

The Rooftop EDITION

Carrer d’Aribau, 23

Carrer de la Unió, 17 barcanete.com

ESCAPE Less than two hours from the frenetic energy of the city lies Costa Brava, the stretch of Mediterranean coastline with far fewer crowds than Capri or Saint-Tropez, the same crystal waters and a laid-back Spanish way of life. Setting aside one to two nights to explore this relatively untouched area is well worth leaving Barcelona’s 24/7 energy for. Stay at Hostal Empúries, a boutique hotel and spa that sits on the water, within daytripping distance to beaches like Aigua Blava or the ancient town of Peratallada. hostalempuries.com

Opened in September, the latest EDITION hotel is located in El Born, above the Santa Caterina Market, with a terrace boasting one of the best views of Barcelona. Stop here for a sundowner before making your way into the night. Av. de Francesc Cambó, 14 editionhotels.com/ barcelona

FOR A FULL CITY GUIDE, HEAD TO VISITBARCELONA.COM

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GQ&A

End of the Rainbow In his first book, Breaking a Rainbow, Building a Nation, student activist and political scholar REKGOTSOFETSE CHIKANE unpacks the politics of the Fallist movements. GQ spoke to the young leader about the decolonisation project, the role of coconuts in the revolution and the future of the movement

GQ: The book was written to document the political and personal dynamics of the movements that became known as the Fallism protests, starting with #RhodesMustFall, seeding #PatriarchyMustFall and #FeesMustFall. What was the project of Fallism and how would you distill its ideology? Rekgotsofetse Chikane: Describing Fallism as a project is probably a better way of describing it than an ideology. A high school/ university group project with all the internal fighting often associated with group projects. It is the combination of three interconnected yet disparate forms of thought, namely: Black Consciousness, Pan-Africanism and Radical Black Feminism. All three combine to form the group members of the Fallism Project, whose purpose is to understand why South Africa’s obvious and unjust internal contradictions are seen as normal.

GQ: The concept of a ‘coconut’ is central to the book and the informal and formal South African politics it explores – how do you define a coconut as a political and cultural identity? And do you identify as one? RC: The term coconut is usually used to describe a person of colour as being ‘black’ on the outside, but white in the inside. I was often labelled a coconut as a grew up but I have never seen it as a term to put me down. Rather, I think coconuts are an extremely important political group in South Africa. I define them as ‘black’ people who have access to certain spaces usually reserved for white people and they carry political capital in these spaces.

GQ: Why do you think coconuts are so necessary to the revolution? Should they be trusted, or does their proximity to whiteness inherently limit their willingness to overturn the status quo? RC: Because a coconut has access to certain spaces they become an invaluable resource in changing those spaces. However, by being able to access those spaces, you begin to enjoy the fruit and privileges of the space as well. The question then becomes: if a coconut is given the choice to maintain the status quo and continue to sip on economic and social privilege or join the revolution and possibly deny themselves these privileges, what would they choose? I don’t think there is a right answer in such a situation, but I want to know whether you would be comfortable putting a coconut in the position as a leader of the movement?

GQ: You’ve stated that you started writing Breaking A Rainbow in response to people who should not have been writing about

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the movement – largely old conservative, white academics. As an admitted coconut, why are you the right person to tell the story of the Fallist movement? RC: I don’t think there is one ‘right’ person to tell the story of the protest. My view can only be my view on an issue such as #MustFall politics. There is so much writing about the protests from the academic point of view and simply not enough from a person’s day-to-day experience. If we don’t push each other to write more, then our history will be told by others. We would be perpetuating a centuries-old vicious circle.

GQ: How did the class politics of coconutism play out within the Fallist movement, both in the public and in backrooms? And how was this tension replicated at an institutional level, where there were such different needs and expected outcomes across campuses? RC: I don’t think ‘coconutism’ is a word, but I see how one could use it to describe the acts of the realpolitik within something such as #FeesMustFall. I should say this, though, you don’t have to be from a particular class to be a coconut, both in the traditional sense of the word and my use of it. As a result, tensions would not (and often could not) be obvious, because of how coconuts can move in and out of black and white spaces without ever being noticed. However, there are definitely instances when this view doesn’t hold. In those moments, coconuts are akin to a deer caught in the headlights.

GQ: Do you think the need for radical outcomes justifies acts of perceived violence in protest? Or do you think violence is never strategic, as it makes the movement less palatable for the society it is trying to appeal to for support and protection? RC: I write in my book how my dad [ANC stalwart Reverend Frank Chikane], a preacher, when put in an extraordinary situation was forced to consider turning to violence. Not necessarily with the intention to harm, rather with the intention to show, when all else fails he fought to the very end. Violence within the protests that grasped South Africa’s attention in 2015 and 2016 was as much as a result of people’s choices, as it was a result of extreme situations and circumstances. So whether it was strategic to use violence to achieve radical outcomes or not, the real question is what would push an ordinary university student to knowingly enter a confrontation with the state or the university that will most likely turn violent? »

GQ: The Fallist movement first rejected the inter ference of

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GQ&A

What would push an ordinary university student to knowingly enter a confrontation with the state or the university that will most likely turn violent? political parties as opportunistic and exclusionary. Yet, many of its leaders were later accused of ‘selling out’ and de-radicalising the movement to appease political leaders for their own gain. How do you think the shif t in formal party involvement in Fallism played out? RC: If you can show me a Fallist movement that issues membership cards to its followers with an AGM to annually review its constitution, then I would argue that formal political parties hindered the Fallist movements. I always like to make the difference between party politics and people politics. It wasn’t party politics that drove Fallist movements into divisive corners, though they did contribute. It was mostly the politics and animosity people have with each other, regardless of your political colours, that created the greatest division. Because an alliance driven by people politics, rather than party politics, often has a much smaller window for compromise.

GQ: What do you think the future of free education in South Africa looks like? RC: In the short term: uncertain. In the medium: sanguine. In the long-term: sustainable with the right political will.

GQ: One of the objectives Fallists’ defined and refined was the decolonisation project. How would you describe a decolonised curriculum, and how far away from it are we, both in our institutes of higher learning and in our schools? RC: I use a different way of thinking of decolonising a curriculum from most student leaders. My view is that decolonising is merely the act of ensuring that all forms of thought are given the opportunity to prove their legitimacy and no form of knowledge is arbitrarily privileged over others. We all believe in decolonising in one way or another, we just use different words to describe the same phenomenon. Decolonising simply believes that no knowledge is sacred, and if you form of thinking can be proven to be inadequate compared to other forms of knowledge, then sticking to your same thought is regressive.

GQ: You’ve stated that Black Radical Feminism is one of the central tenets of Fallism. Yet, there were numerous accounts of alleged

34 /DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

RC: Because older generations, throughout history, always look down on younger generations as incapable. I would be surprised if my generation 30 years from now weren’t doing the same to our own children. I explain the dynamics between my generation and the older generation as being similar to a 4x100m relay race. The transition between being a younger generation and an older generation within the context of a political environment is like handing over the baton to your partner. If the baton drops, no one usually takes individual blame for the mistake and a level of animosity is always in the air between the two. That seemed to be the nature of our relationship with the 1976 generation. However, I must admit, after the protest at parliament, they helped us pick up the baton and continue the race.

GQ: The Fallism movement is

Breaking a Rainbow, Building a Nation (PanMacmillan, R290) by Rekgotsofetse Chikane is available at bookstores nationwide.

sexual violence and exclusionary behaviour against women and queer bodies. How do you think this internal tension contributed to the disintegration of the movement? RC: Fallism for the longest time became home for what can be best understood as unholy alliances. Alliances that may work in certain circumstances, but not others. Black Radical Feminism emerged within the protest in response to desire of the strong women in the movement to not repeat history and allow men to impose themselves into the history books. But challenging men, especially those with weak-willed egos, caused animosity and further made spaces hostile. The men’s lack of conviction to not only change their behaviour individually, but force their peers as well, will go down in my mind as the straw the broke the movement’s back.

GQ: The book speaks to the inter-generational dynamics of youth politics in South Africa. Why do you think so many of the old guard of 1976 youth politicians were such vocal critics of the Fallist movement?

far from over – it has shif ted from the streets, into student gatherings, curriculum boards and parliamentary groups. But it certainly has a contested legacy, with many claiming it has failed. Do you agree? What do you think is its biggest legacy? RC: I don’t know. I don’t want to be a political witchdoctor in this situation, but what I will say is that the spirit of Fallism continues to exist within our society. I think its just a matter of who will take it on again.

GQ: Do you think the student activists currently still incarcerated for their actions during the protest should be released unequivocally? RC: Yes.

GQ: You define the Rainbowism project as the search for unity between people without the recognition of people. How do you think we can start critically dismantling this project, towards a deeper unity? RC: By first recognising that a problem exists. Nothing can happen until we truly understand that the ‘rainbow nation’, for all its good will, led us into a false sense of security that has had far-reaching, unintended consequences.

REKGOTSOFETSE CHIKANE is a graduate of the University of Oxford, having completed his Master in Public Policy degree in 2017, a Mandela-Rhodes Scholar (2015), one of the Mail & Guardian’s Top 200 Young South Africans (2016) and the former national president of InkuluFreeheld, a non-partisan, youth organisation focused on deepening democracy and enhancing social cohesion.

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P H O T O G R A P H B Y H E N K K R U G E R /A N A

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Taste gimlets,’ says Brock Schulte of The Monarch in Kansas City. ‘But I do like them dry. We drink a lot of J Rieger & Co Midwestern Dry.’ Pick whatever gin you like – or have on hand – and buy as many limes as you can carry.

MULE ‘Spirit, lime juice, ginger beer,’ says Andrew Woodley of The Street Food Hall in Waikiki. ‘My favourite variation uses Mezcal as the base, which offers an additional complexity with a pleasant dose of smoke.’

DAIQUIRI

We asked a few bartenders for tips on how to keep things simple during the hottest months • IT’S SUMMERTIME; when figuring out what to drink, it’s best to keep it simple. As cocktail writer Robert Simonson says in his latest book, ‘The three-ingredient cocktail is the most sturdy and lasting of cocktail constructions.’ And it also requires very little of you – no making pineapple gum syrup when you could be out on the beach drinking a spritz, or what have you. We asked bartenders to share their favourites – and judging by the number of classic cocktails here, Simonson is right.

‘I prefer this classic with rye whisky, Campari, and sweet vermouth,’ says Craig Welsh of Boulud Sud in Miami. ‘It’s the perfect combination of heat, sweet, and bitter. Do I need to say more?’

OLD FASHIONED ‘Simple but delicious,’ says Joel Mesa of Pisco y Nazca in Doral, Florida of this combination of whiskey, bitters, and sugar. Because in the summer, you don’t want to have to think too hard about what’s going in your drink.

NEGRONI ‘Negroni, hands down,’ says Jeff Hammett of Guild in Austin, because it’s ‘boozy and delicious.’ (We cannot argue with this.)

‘It’s warming in the winter and cooling in the summer,’ adds Matt Piacentini of the Up & Up in New York. And while the negroni is a classic, you can feel free to adapt it to your tastes: ‘Technically this could count as a fourth ingredient, but a splash of very bubbly seltzer is a great addition.’

MARTINI ‘Some will say a Martini is only two ingredients, vermouth and gin (or vodka),’ says Gabriele Guidoni of Bond 45 in New York. ‘But there is also the ice! The use of ice is fundamental if you want to make a strong, smooth drink.’ So get to shaking.

‘Summertime makes me scream Daiquiris,’ says Kristin Lozano of the Sawyer Hotel in Sacramento. ‘Rum, sugar, lime. Easy peezy. I’ll take mine with Smith & Cross, please.’

MARGARITA ‘A simple margarita,’ says Lewis Powell of Weft & Warp Art Bar + Kitchen in Scottsdale, Arizona. ‘Just freshly squeezed lime juice, reposado tequila, and agave.’ We’ll drink to that.

GIN GIMLET ‘I’m not extremely picky about the style of gin when drinking

3-Ingredient Cocktails (R255) by Robert Simonson

More of what we’re drinking at 36 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

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WO R D S BY PAU L A F O R B E S . P H OTO G R A P H BY N AO M I D R I E S S N AC K

Three-piece cocktails to get you through the summer

BOULEVARDIER

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Sipping point A little bit of handcrafted everything makes for the most peculiar (and most expensive) cocktail you’ll ever have

Status Symbol

• THERE ARE COCKTAILS, AND THEN THERE ARE DRINKS that become transcendental experiences. This is the latter. Created by master mixologist Marson Strydom, in collaboration with some of SA’s most respected artisans, Hendrick’s Gin’s ‘Something Marvellously Unusual’ is a cocktail experience like none other, with only three available for purchase in three select locations around SA this summer – Cape Town’s Belmond Mount Nelson Hotel, Durban’s Oyster Box, and Jo’burg’s Marble – at R40 000 per cocktail. Here, we break down exactly what that gets you. THE COCKTAIL

The last nine bottles of this season’s production of Svalbardi Polar Iceberg Water – the world’s most awarded, purest and most expensive bottled water at around R1 250/750ml – were imported and used to make the tonic water and the ice.

The star of the show is made up of Hendrick’s Gin, a special edition Barker and Quin tonic water, Svalbardi Polar Iceberg Water, and handcrafted vermouth made from Klein Constantia Vin de Constance and Hennessy XO, gold leaf, and saffron.

W O R D S B Y N K O S I YAT I K H U M A L O . PHOTOGRAPH BY TERI ROBBERTS

THE WATER

THE GOBLET

HENDRICK’S GIN TONIC SA-based Barker and Quin has produced only 12 bottles of a specially handcrafted tonic water created with a specially selected bouquet of botanicals, and featuring a custom handmade label. See where to get the summer’s best cocktails at GQ.CO.ZA

Continuing in the Hendrick’s tradition of small-batch, handcrafted and premium, this cocktail also gets a specialedition Kaspian cucumber, grown by farmer Nico Laubscher, which offers a stronger flavour and fleshier consistency.

Made by SA’s Ardmore Ceramic Art, this once-off goblet (one of three) is a manifestation of Hendrick’s Gin’s motif of roses, cucumbers and unusual animals. Purchase a cocktail and the goblet is yours to keep.

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 37

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The Talk

I made my smartphone dumber My cell phone was running my life. So I tried my best to hack it into submission • ON MOST DAYS, I come home from work and sit on the couch and play on my phone for an hour, first catching up with the tweets of the day, then scrolling through my Instagram feed, then reading over a couple of last emails. My goal, I think, is to wipe my brain clean, to indulge in some lazily social form of chatter. But once all the notifications have been cleared and all of the tweets have been read, I find some demented part of my brain is still empty. So I return to the cycle, opening apps to diminishing returns, until I’m knee-deep in photos of big synthetic butts and

38 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

footage of teenagers fondling slime and updates from people I’ve never met − an endless feed refreshing itself, over and over again. I am supposed to want to give this up. I go around telling friends, ‘If I got rid of my phone, I could finally learn Spanish!’ I read countless articles online promising no-fail hacks for unplugging. I don’t have much faith in these hacks, as nobody I know has ever succeeded in cutting down on their screen time. But what if unplugging was really as easy as discovering one weird trick? Then the only suckers would be those who didn’t try. So I decided to try, starting with the most dramatic hack and working backward. I sent away for a R2 225 Light Phone, a handsome, credit-card-size burner. It routes calls through your regular number, letting you keep in touch, but only barely: the current model can’t send or receive texts. As a result of its overwhelming dumbness, it sat on my desk, contacting nobody. I rarely use my phone as an actual phone,

and I can’t say I’m looking for a reason to start. Light Phone 2, out next year, will add basic tools like texting and alarms. Maybe by then I’ll be ready to get truly dumb. Next came filter apps, which temporarily block your most abused websites. I tried SelfControl one afternoon, only to learn that blocking Twitter on my computer all day made me double down on it with my phone at night. The app felt punitive, and restricting my phone made it feel that much more tempting. I needed a less extreme solution. Where black-and-white thinking failed, I turned to gray − that is, switching my iPhone to grayscale mode under the assumption that Technicolour screens are too pleasurable. My first days were a constant stream of gags, jokes about The Wizard of Oz and daguerreotypes. After the initial novelty wore off, I found the results to be pretty impressive. A grayscale phone is functionality without fun. Gray Twitter was as thrilling as a Casio watch. Porn was still horny, yet somehow more artistic. I still wasted time, but I wasted much less. Over the course of a week, I didn’t learn Spanish, but I did burn through a classic novel and got out of the house for a couple of runs. The hack had restored a more humane order, giving my off-line hobbies a fighting chance. The disappointing thing was that I found I did not want this. I’m a real slut for petty forms of numbness: vibrating chairs in mall concourses, disaster movies starring The Rock, slot machines, thoroughbred horse races, the heft of the X-ray cape at the dentist. When I come home from work, I crave easy oblivion: flashing alerts and endless feeds and shallow, undemanding forms of social validation. Unplugging hacks can work, but the question is: do you really want them to? Harder than actually getting off my phone was admitting to myself that I might not want to. – JAMIE LAUREN KEILES

I go around telling friends, ‘If I got rid of my phone, I could finally learn Spanish!’ GQ.CO.ZA

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The Edit

We catch up with musician and producer Muzi, part of the new wave of artists putting South Africa on the map

Afrovision

IT’S 5:30PM ON DAY TWO OF ROCKING THE DAISIES. It’s what feels like 47 degrees outside, and we’re in the thick of it. Silence… and then with the energy of a 10-year-old, Muzi runs onto the stage and introduces himself, as if the crowd doesn’t know who he is. Despite his massive audience, his genuine sense of humility is tangible, along with his infectious positive vibe. Wearing a pink hat and the front part of his ibheshu (traditional Zulu attire), the artist joyfully runs back and forth between mixing classic local tracks from Brenda Fassie to Hugh Masekela – his main inspirations – on the decks, then performing to his own beats.

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GQ.CO.ZA

P H O T O G R A P H S B Y K E L LY M A K R O P O U L I S

In a memorable and beautiful moment, he drops ‘Weekend Special’ into his set and, although there are no words, the crowd keeps singing. It makes me think about how powerful music is, how unifying. As a self-proclaimed ‘internet artist’, Muzi gets that authenticity is now an artist’s currency. Having a genuine relationship with his supporters is incredibly important to him. I experience this first-hand when, fast forward 20 hours, I get the opportunity to sit down and talk to the musician about, well, everything. It’s the Sunday afternoon post-Daisies and I can only imagine that Muzi is exhausted but, as I walk into his hotel courtyard, I am greeted with a big smile and hug. As a musician starting to climb the ladder of success, Muzi lets me know that he’s the same person that he’s always been and will continue to just be himself. His supporters are kids of the internet – ‘They see right through the bullshit.’ After spending two years in Berlin for work, and having gained a ton of knowledge about the technicalities of the music production biz, he found himself hungry for home. He left Europe and headed straight to Kenya to spend time with friends. ‘After two years of what became a homogeneous existence in Amsterdam, I had this newfound confidence being back in Africa.’ Being home and immersed in the culture that he is inspired by, and creating for, is vital for him. ‘I’m still my mother’s child, and she goes out of her way to let me know that she’s proud, but I’m not

As long as you know who you are, that’s what matters above sweeping the floor and I love that.’ This really illustrates Muzi’s values so perfectly: he’s humble, hard-working and just wants his mom to know that he’s going to be okay in this crazy creative industry. ‘Artists can get into a space where they forget they are human; they get caught up in this illusion of grandeur, and many of them don’t survive this level of praise.’ But with his head screwed on straight and his friends and family standing as his constant ‘pillars of stability’, normality is bound to prevail for him. Connection and authenticity keeps coming up throughout our hour-long chat. His connection to the culture here at home is of great importance, as well as is his relationship with his tribe of supporters, whether it’s replying to people directly on Instagram or braving the saturated world of vloggers on YouTube, he tends to keep it real. Take Muzi Mondays for an example – it gives his audience a glimpse into his simple and playful world, letting them know who he is and what he does with the mixes he produces weekly. ‘I want to be a cartoon and wear the same clothes every time,’ he proclaims in episode two. This

pretty much sums up his attitude and approach towards style and fashion. His enduring love of skating has played a massive role in how he dresses – comfort comes first – but he’s an artist and understands that his aesthetic is part of the package. And like everything he puts out there, it’s authentic. Double-XL tees, Vans and beanies – he wears what works for him. ‘As long as you know who you are, that’s what matters.’ This applies to everything he does, from his style to his music. It’s clear that things seem to progress naturally for him. On collaborating with other artists, he says, ‘It’s an organic process. It’s about who is around, who is right for the track. It’s about the energy and having that natural fit. It’s about who you gravitate towards.’ Although he’s a kid of the internet, some things need to be done IRL – especially when it comes to creating art. ‘Human connection is key.’ The music video for ‘Zulu Skywalker’ is a beautiful reflection of Muzi’s collaboration with a Durban-based animator. Together, they tell a colourful story of venturing into outer-space from the eyes of a young Xhosa girl. ‘My young niece [who inspired the character] sees this and thinks “Oh snap, that looks like me!” If the media isn’t going to represent us, then we have to go out and do it for ourselves.’ Talking about doing it yourself, that’s exactly how Muzi got started. When he first broke into music, he was producing for the like of Cassper Nyovest and Riky Rick. ‘I had ideas for tracks that I felt nobody else could execute, or they were too left-field for other artists.’ So he stepped up to the mic, so to speak. This is so clearly a passion that has turned into a career – it’s not about money or fame, but people are ready for him. Deezer brought him on as part of the Deezer Next campaign, which supports artists by pushing and playlisting on their platform. His latest album Afrovision is currently sitting with about 2 million streams across platforms. He’s currently working on a music video for ‘Questions’ ft Tiro and plans on releasing more videos. ‘I’m not going to sleep on this album,’ the musician says. And he shouldn’t, because it’s so good. Muzi is a part of a new wave of South African artists putting us on the map, from Black Coffee and Petite Noir, to Spoek Mathambo and Faka. He made his own path like the others and sees the yes’s through all the no’s. I noticed this optimism yet again when scrolling through his Instagram, and see a few of his photos have the caption ‘happyblackboys.com’. When I ask him what it is about, he innocently responds with a shrug and tells me that it’s simply because he’s a happy black boy. I should have guessed as much. But keep your eye on this space, because this happy black boy is just getting started. What else can we expect from him? ‘I’m constantly creating, forever evolving. I’m just going to keep pushing. Music – that’s my thing.’ – MIRA LEIBOWITZ

ESSENTIALS

Design

Shape shifters We checked in to two Cape Town landmarks to see if historic office blocks could be transformed into inviting lifestyle spaces

but a lifestyle, along with a suite of services and amenities usually only offered in a luxury hotel. We spoke to the team behind its creation to find out just how they went about turning a bank into a bankable living and hotel space. GQ: What was your design approach to a building transformation like this? Francois Du Plessis, of Francois Du Plessis Interiors (interior designer): I loved the ‘urbanness’ and incredibly modern feel of this building. The interior is an extension of this architecture, the bold strong lines and black glass. So, my philosophy was to utilise this architectural framework; to bring in contrast and art to blend it all together. GQ: What particular challenges came with re-imagining Nedbank’s former HQ into a luxe residential offering? Robert Silke, director Robert Silke & Partners (architect): The world’s first glass-and-steel

skyscrapers were designed by Bauhaus’ Mies van der Rohe with his iconic 1958 Seagram Building in Manhattan, and culminating in his 1970 IBM Building in Chicago. Van der Rohe’s austere black glass box signature became ‘The International Style’ – which is a design meme that made its way to Cape Town, where Nedbank’s elegant 1968 Foreshore head office has now become The Onyx. Our design mission was to craft home spaces out of what was

an austere corporate facade – as black glass and steel don’t exactly exude the Norwegian ideal of hygge (‘homeyness’) doing the rounds on Pinterest right now. The trick was to surgically intervene in the facade to create opportunities for futuristic and sculptural white aluminium balcony features. In crafting these playful and organic interventions, we looked to Chicago’s other master architect Bertrand Goldberg, whose organic Marina City twin For more of our favourite hotels visit GQ.CO.ZA

W O R D S B Y N K O S I YAT I K H U M A L O

į WHEN YOU’RE DEALING WITH A PENINSULA THAT’S ALSO DOMINATED BY A MOUNTAIN and national parks, there’s only so much space to build new residential or hospitality property. And the last few years have seen almost every available square metre of Cape Town’s CBD being dedicated to a new development. Yet the demand for housing and lifestyle spaces in the Mother City continues to rise, even faster than those new properties. So with all of those spots taken up, smarter developers are re-imagining existing spaces – and in turn shaking up the property management game. The expert team at Newmark is involved with two such properties, with the newest kid on the block being a black beauty located in the Foreshore. The Onyx – formerly the iconic Nedbank Building being redeveloped by Signatura – is leading the residential revival of Cape Town’s historic Heerengracht district. Close to all CBD attractions, the development promises to offer not just an address

towers (1962), stand in contrast to Van der Rohe’s IBM Building that is immediately adjacent. IBM is corporate and Marina City is residential and their juxtaposition has served to inform the design conversion at Onyx. Internally the original architectural features, such as high-volume coffered ceilings, are exposed and celebrated where appropriate – where most commercial developers would cover these up with flat ceiling boards. The original Miesian black-framed wraparound strip windows are cleaned up to make the most of the dramatic harbour and cityscape views. Public foyers and main lift lobbies are finished in patterned grey marbles with polished brass inlays, and corridors are carpeted for acoustic comfort. Finishes are five-star hospitality grade in black and grey marble, grey mirror glass and crisp white. GQ: How does the ‘onyx’ colour/theme carry through to the inside of the property? Francois Du Plessis: The colour theme is about pure simplicity, black and white and monochromatic shades and tones. You’ll see black and white marble throughout; black and white bathrooms and contrasting artwork in the passages. For artwork in The Onyx, I made wallpaper of buildings and places within walking distance of The Onyx (like the Castle and the concrete dolos at the Waterfront) and blew them up onto large walls. In the bedrooms, I used photographs taken at a local Artscape production of the ballet Mozart and Salieri. It is all quite dramatic.

GQ: Apart from the 102 hotelstyle rooms available, what else will Onyx offer in terms of food, drink, and shopping? Neil Markovitz, MD of Newmark: Guests are offered the best of both worlds at The Onyx when it comes to dining. Since all hotel units include a fully-equipped kitchenette or kitchen, you’re able to prepare meals in the comfort of your studio or apartment-style room. You also have the convenient option of dining at one of the topclass restaurants located on The Onyx’s ground floor like MRKT. Pronounced ‘market’, the restaurant is all about authenticity, variety and convenience, paired with the utmost level of quality. It serves a selection of wholesome breakfast and lunch items, harvest-inspired buffet offerings and on-the-go meals. MRKT is also home to a barista station where brewed coffees are skilfully prepared. In addition, handcrafted breads and pastries are created in an openplan bakery, and the space includes a deli where you can purchase ingredients to cook in your own kitchen. The setup also allows for working, collaborating or hosting informal business meetings. Plans are also in place to open an Asianstyle restaurant and sake bar in March 2019. The Onyx also includes a topclass gym and an entertainment deck on the fourth floor with an indoor-outdoor pool, a lounge and bar. Further, a contemporary day spa, Sanctuary Spa at The Onyx, offers a selection of revitalising treatments which incorporate the most up-to-date techniques and local flair.

‘The interior is an extension of the architecture’

THE QUEEN VICTORIA HOTEL → Once an ofﬁce block, the ‘QV’ is one of the V&A Waterfront’s hidden gems. Interior designer Francois Du Plessis shares how he created an icon of modern design

GQ: Hotels can easily be cold places – how do you go about making people feel comfortable in a strange space? Francois Du Plessis: Colour is very important in this regard. I use warm and inviting tones, bringing to mind a sense of home and a lot of texture and contrast. GQ: The Queen Victoria doesn’t look like a ‘Queen Victoria’ with the ideas of stufﬁness or an antiquey feeling that a name like that might evoke – instead it’s got a super clean, super modern aesthetic. What was your vision behind its look and feel? FDP: That is true, there is nothing ‘stuffy’ about the Queen Victoria. I used many classical materials for the ﬁnishes, like marble, crystal and velvet. This was my concession to the grand ‘royal’ style using predictable materials for that era but in a very modern way. I used

the traditional finishes in an updated manner. GQ: What is your approach to artwork and incorporating the local surroundings? FDP: Art always plays a strong part in my designs and I like to bring in local talent and creativity. I used a portrait of Queen Victoria, which we enlarged dramatically in a modern way, accommodating my ‘nod’ to past and present. The beautiful, paper-cut fynbos artwork displayed in the QV’s rooms were created by Tarryn Cohen of Peerutin Architects, the firm responsible for the architectural design of the hotel. Further, a variety of contemporary South African artworks supplied by the Everard Read Gallery, located in the same precinct as the QV, are featured on an ongoing basis on the ground floor of the hotel. These pieces showcase the world-class standard of work produced by local artists. newmarkhotels.com

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 43

AW WARDEED NO O.11 TASTTIN NG VS, BEST VS CO OGNAC & DOUB BLEE GOLD D MED DAL ATT SA AN FR RANSISSCO WORLD SPIIRITS COM MPETTITIION N

Not for Sale to Persons Under th

he Age of 18. Drink Responsibly.

Sex & Relationships DEFCON 1:

DEFCON 3:

The dishes

The bedroom

If you have a dishwasher, throw all your dirty dishes in there, even if later you’ll have to take them back out to more thoroughly pre-wash them. Just putting them in the sink is fine, too. Fill the sink with water. Put in soap. Let it soak while you do other chores. If you have time to actually wash the dishes, great. If not, at least nothing smells like the five-day-old baked ziti that your mom dropped off at your house because you still suck at cooking.

Ahhh the bedroom. Where the magic might happen one day! You must clean your bedroom when a romantic interest is coming over, especially if you have roommates. (You two might end up sequestered there, pretending to watch season two of Dexter on your laptop for 12 whole minutes before giving up the pretense and dry-humping.) First, remove all trash from the bedroom. If I fall into your bed for sexy times and the wrapper from a garage pie pokes out from under your pillow, I’m leaving and so is any other reasonable woman. Also, take all of the 14 water cups you’ve accumulated over the past fiscal quarter and put them in the dishes heap that you made when we started. Dishes and trash are disgusting and no woman is having kind thoughts about your penis while she’s lying next to a week-old takeout box. It’s 2018 and no one uses top sheets anymore, so making beds is a breeze. Just pull the covers up and put the pillows where pillows go. We’re not looking for military corners, here, just don’t let someone see your duvet balled up at the foot of your bed. For some reason, that makes your bed seem unclean, and the entire point of an emergency clean is to make your house seem better than it is. Then, simply put all your clothes in the laundry basket − the laundry basket I’m sure you have, because you’re an adult trying to fuck. If you don’t have one, at the very least make a singular pile in the corner.

DEFCON 2:

The bathroom

How to clean your entire home in under an hour A sexy guest will arrive in T-minus 30 minutes. Don’t panic, just clean

For most men, the bathroom is the apogee of nastiness in the home, so concentrate your efforts here. Begin with your toilet: flush it. We’d all like to believe that people who forget to flush their toilets aren’t getting laid, and therefore have no use for this step on the Emergency Clean Checklist, but it does happen. Put toilet paper on the tube and put out an extra roll because, remember: you’re about to have a lady guest over. Empty the bathroom trash can. If you don’t have a bathroom trash can, call up your pending sex appointment and let her know that you can’t hang out tonight. You are absolutely not ready to have a woman over to your house unless you have a wastebasket next to your toilet (preferably with a lid, but if you’re under 25 years old, we’ll allow it). Next, put out a hand towel (we will allow a clean bath towel, but either towel must be clean) and make sure you have soap. Women actually wash their hands after they use the bathroom, and we don’t want to dry them on the ratty towel that you use to dry off your balls. As long as you don’t see hair clippings or piss everywhere in your bathroom, close the shower curtain and you’re good to go in this room. On to the next!

DEFCON 4:

Trash Do a sweep of your home. There’s no need to vacuum or dust or anything, but if you see any trash, throw it away. Yes, that means all of your half-empty bottles of coconut water. Throw them out. Back to the kitchen! Take out the trash and put. A. New. Bag. Back. In. Open the fridge and see if it smells. If it does, then please, for the love of God, throw out that two-week-old bag of spring mix that you bought with the best of intentions. (You are never going to make salads at home; stop buying spring mix.) If there’s still a smell, and you really can’t figure out the source, light a candle or spray some Febreze. It’s too late for anything else at this point − she’s almost here. Just do as many dishes as you can before she gets over. Trust me, it’s better than the five pre-coital pushups you were planning on doing. - SOPHIA BENOIT

If I fall into your bed for sexy times and the wrapper from a garage pie pokes out from under your pillow, I’m leaving 46 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

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ILLUSTRATION BY CSA-ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

ESSENTIALS

GEAR

Move over, Knight Rider » The newest Baby Benz is the most intelligent drive ever from the inventor of the automobile. It’s been 40 years since Mercedes went digital by introducing anti-lock braking (ABS), their first driver assist system. Now you can talk to your A-Class: ‘Hey Mercedes’ 48 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ.CO.ZA

ÄŻ DIGITAL CAN BE TRACED BACK ALL THE WAY TO 1978: the anti-lock braking system was the first driver-

assist programme by Mercedes-Benz. Automatically engaging all-wheel drive (4MATIC) was introduced in 1985, together with an automatically locking differential (ASD) and anti-spin control (ASR). Gradually the cars took over the thinking process for their drivers in challenging traffic situations. Âť

GEAR

Electronic stability program (ESP) premiered in 1995 in the S-Class and three years later it was available in the A-Class, which then passed the infamous elk test with flying colours. The name for this obstacle avoiding test was coined by a German newspaper after a Swedish motor magazine flipped an A-Class, while trying to avoid ‘hitting a moose’ in the road. In 1997 the ‘moose’ were a couple of cones on a wet surface. And right now I am sitting in a 1998 A-Class, accelerating up to 80km/h and abruptly avoiding the cones in front of me. It still works in the firstgeneration A-Class, and it’s fun. I am at the brand new, 520-hectare

MERCEDES A 200/A 250 ENGINE

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From R499 000/ R593 300

slippery skidpan. Avoiding the large wall of foam cubes with the one fitted with the first ABS, and smashing through them in the one without. Mercedes-Benz was the first car manufacturer to introduce ESP as a standard feature in their complete model range.

Distronic helped keep your distance from as early as 1998. Over the years, the MB assistance systems became more and more intelligent. And now it is the first time that the compact-car segment offers as many digital assistance systems as in the new A-Class. This includes semiautonomous drive

mercedes-benz.co.za

Daimler Testing and Technology Centre in Immendingen, where Mercedes-Benz has invested more than €200 million so far. And the MercedesBenz Museum has brought out several of their chrome jewels to demonstrate 40 years of driver assist systems. Not only am I allowed to re-enact the elk test in the first-generation A-Class, I am also taking some precious 1978 S-Class saloons (W116) across the

A couple of years ago, active AI was just science fiction

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in certain situations, convincingly demonstrated on the German autobahn. But the most impressive new feature of the fourthgeneration A-Class must be MBUX – the Mercedes-Benz User Experience: an all-new multimedia system that creates an emotional bond between driver, car and passengers. And it learns, hence the tagline ‘Just like you’. A couple of years ago, active artificial intelligence was just

science fiction – now it’s a reality. You initiate the voice control by saying ‘Hey Mercedes’ and the A-Class replies to you. Over time, it will remember your personal preferences, even suggest certain restaurants, when you indicate that you are hungry. All your voice commands land in the cloud – it’s basically a drivable smartphone. What else is new in the 2018 A-Class? It’s bigger, more practical and more comfortable than its predecessor. The length grew by 12cm, the height by 1.6cm and the wheelbase by 3cm. It therefore feels more planted in bends. Next to the impressive digital changes, there are a lot of analogue ones inside as well. New surfaces, switches and levers and the steering wheel from the S-Class. And what is next for the inventor of the automobile? Later in 2019, MercedesBenz and Bosch – who developed ABS together decades ago – will establish a pilot project with automated shuttles in California. Another step towards fully autonomous driving.

THE RALLY

THE MUSEUM

THE HOTEL

HamburgBerlin-Klassik hamburgberlinklassik.de

MercedesBenz Museum mercedesbenz.com/ classic

V8 Hotel v8hotel.de/en

Head online to read about the hottest new drives GQ.CO.ZA

Back in time The 280 SL Pagoda was always the favourite Merc of GQ Motoring Ed Dieter Losskarn. And after driving the newest automobiles on a regular base, it was time for a driver-assistfree trip into the analogue past

• THE 280 SL PAGODA IS RELATIONSHIP MATERIAL . Even as a little boy it was my favourite Mercedes – not the Gullwing, or the orange C111 from the car card games we used to play. Introduced in 1963, the concave standard hardtop resembled an Asian pagoda roof and the nickname was born. Internally the Pagoda was plain and simply known as the W113. Though the hardtop should stay in the garage as often as possible, gliding along in the SL works best topless on a sunny day. The two-seater luxury car turned out to be a hit, especially in the States (‘It never rains in California!’), where almost half of the 48 912 units produced (including 230 SL and 250 SL) found happy

buyers. I am sitting in a silver SL 280 Automatic from 1968 right now, restored by the Mercedes-Benz Museum. And it is the first time for me in my dream ride. What a magnificent place, behind the large steering wheel, in the comfortable leather seat. I turn the ignition key and the 2.8-l. six-cylinder awakes unagitated, babbling quietly. The delicate automatic gear shift lever gently clicks into D and the Pagoda floats away. With its 170hp it is neither a wild nor a particularly fast sportscar, but an attractive cruiser with gorgeous lines and a lightness in the design that its predecessors and successors are lacking. Ideal for road trips through pictureperfect landscapes.

And that is exactly what I am doing. With ‘my’ graceful SL 280, I take part in the HamburgBerlin-Klassik, a rally for classic cars and young-timers, as one of 170 participants. All those vintage rides reinforce my nondigital experience even more. I have classics in front of me and the rear mirror is also full of them. The oldest car is a Bentley 4½ Litre Le Mans from 1929, the newest a TVR Griffith 500 from 1996. The most powerful ride is a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray with 407hp, the smallest engine the one in

the 1958 BMW 600 with 19hp. But in a regularity event like this one, David can beat Goliath. At the special stages, called WP (Wertungspunkte) in German, it is not about power and speed – exact timings lead to a possible win. The classics are driven over a tube or through a photo sensor, your co-driver stops the time and you have to hit the various time targets between checkpoints as accurately as possible. Even a hundredth of a second means penalty points and decides standings and overall victory.

Three days of exciting time travel across 700 kilometres of some of the most beautiful roads in the North, between Bremen and Hamburg, with cheering and applauding spectators in the villages along the way, culminating in entering the harbour of Hamburg with the famous fish auction hall. I have to admit, I did fall in love with the car. A fatal attraction (financially). The Pagoda has risen in price dramatically over the last couple of years, and back in Cape Town, I am testdriving one or two…

PAGODA MARKETPLACE While in 2010 you were still able to ﬁnd good Pagodas for around €50 000, they are now ﬁrmly in the six-digits region. Perfectly restored concourse vehicles even went for beyond €300 000. Check the German market here: mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/classic/all-timestars; brabus.com/classic; arthur-bechtel.com; mechatronik.de

PHOTOGRAPHS BY PHILIPP RUPPRECHT

HISTORY The story of the Pagoda began in June 1963 with the introduction of the 230 SL (2.3-l. and 150hp). Its production ended after 18 831 units on 5 January 1967. It was followed by the 250 SL (2.5-l. and 150hp), produced 5 196 times between 1966 and 1968. The most sought-after Pagoda was introduced in 1967. The 280 SL featured a 2.8-l. six-cylinder with 170hp. In February 1971, after 23 885 produced units, the car was ousted by its signiﬁcantly heavier successor, the R107 350 SL.

GEAR G R E AT đ IN THE MIDEIGHTIES THE ICONIC 911 WAS DOOMED. Porsche was producing 924s, 944s and 928s, all of them with engines in the front. The days of the 911 were counted, but customers were still buying them. The Porsche CEO at the time, Peter Schutz, didn’t like the idea that the 911 was set to be succeeded by the V8-powered 928. Legend goes that he went to the office of Porsche engineer Professor Helmuth Bott, where he noticed a chart on the wall that depicted the ongoing development trends of the top three lines: 928, 944 and 911. With the first two options, the graph showed a continuous rise in production, but the line for the 911 stopped in 1981. He grabbed a marker off Bott’s desk and continued the 911 line across the page, onto the wall, and out the door. When he came back in, Bott stood there grinning. ‘Do we understand each other?’ he asked. And they did. Bott was convinced that the 911 was the brand’s

DRIVE

DNA and he and his team started creating a car that turned out to be 20 years ahead of its time. The first-ever hypercar, the 959 featured components never used in sportscars before. Shaped by the wind, but with creature comforts like aircon and radio. Tech leaders like Bill Gates couldn’t resist this modern marvel (his one was stored for 13 years by US customs until

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SARAH DULAY

History on wheels The Porsche 959 was living and expensive proof that the 911 had a future beyond the ’80s. Dieter Losskarn ticked his personal bucket list after spending an exhilarating day in one of the most important cars ever made GQ.CO.ZA

Only 292 cars were built – the most expensive promotional gift in company history it was finally legal to be imported into the States). Obviously Miami Vice’s Don Johnson had to have one and Boris Becker wrecked his shortly after purchase on an Italian highway. Austrian rock star Falco of ‘Amadeus’ fame had one too, and kept it on those twisty Alpine roads. Worth around $200 000 at the time, the car was extremely expensive, but didn’t even cover half of what Porsche invested in it. That’s why you find a note in the Porsche Museum next to the exhibited silver 959 saying: ‘Only 292 cars built – the most expensive promotional gift in company history.’ Only loyal Porsche customers got one of the much soughtafter sales contracts.

And some couldn’t resist selling them off straight away with a 100 per cent premium (they were blacklisted for life from ever getting a limited-edition Porsche again). But most buyers couldn’t wait for the delivery of their dream car. Now, 32 years later, I am standing in the basement of the Porsche Museum in front of this particular car. I am allowed to sit in the driver’s seat, but unfortunately the car doesn’t run, as it was standing too long. I see that it only clocked 24 143km in the last three decades. But luckily my disappointment is short-lived. The Porsche Museum owns two perfectly restored 959s and their stunning stonegrey one is ready for

PORSCHE 959 ENGINE 2.8-l. ﬂat-six twin-turbo with a 6-speed manual

POWER 331kW and 500Nm

PERFORMANCE 0-100km/h in 3.7 seconds; top speed 319km/h porsche.com/ museum/en

me. After a short introductory drive with Porsche Museum workshop boss Kuno Werner, who is visibly concerned about the well-being of his baby, I am allowed to hit the road. And I am glad now, that I waited a couple of decades to move

from the passenger to the driver’s seat of this wild ride. In my younger days this could have turned out badly. The 959 kicks you down the road – the acceleration is simply staggering. I remember the words of racer Walter Röhrl, who thinks the 959 was one of the best cars he has ever driven. ‘Don’t go off the gas, when you go around a bend, otherwise the car goes backwards’. I try to constantly feed the power and am holding on when the second turbo kicks in at 5000rpm. What an experience! I am shaken and stirred. So what’s next after this epic drive? Well, the 959 was followed by two more Porsche hypercars, the Carrera GT and the 918 Spyder. And while there is no 959 in South Africa, both the other two uberPorsches are here. And they live very close to Kyalami...

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 53

GQ PROMOTION

M AKE A M ARK THINK BACK to any of the most pivotal moments in your life and you’ll likely be able to associate them with a particular scent – your favourite meal, the salty spray of the ocean, freshly cut grass. Certain scents can even remind us of the people in our lives. These days, being influential involves consistently delivering something special in order to leave a lasting impression. A discerning man of influence makes sure that even when he leaves the room, the impression he leaves behind is strong enough to make a mark, yet seductive enough to leave anyone wanting more. That’s the essence that guides the Versace fragrance portfolio, translated in a number of unique expressions – Versace Man Eau Fraiche, Versace Pour Homme, Versace Eros, and Versace Dylan Blue Pour Homme. No matter which scent profile you gravitate towards, you’re sure to find a new signature scent with Versace.

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›› Versace Pour Homme

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THE MOST INFLUENTIAL MEN OF 2018

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Go online to check out more influential men GQ.CO.ZA

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W E A LT H CREATE A MORE BANKABLE YOU

Mastering money Manage Your Money Like A F*cking Grownup is the wakeup call you’ve been avoiding Words by Modupe Oloruntoba GQ.CO.ZA

I often think I’ve been spoiled and irresponsible in the four years since I joined the working world and started earning money for myself, and I carry around a lot of guilt about it. But self-awareness is annoying, so I stick with denial, comparing my habits to flashier peers and the often-inaccurate stereotypes of the wealthy and I think, ‘Hey, I’m not that bad.’ But I am, because I don’t have the hypothetical money of a rich kid or an eccentric tycoon. I only have my own. » DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 61

W E A LT H ADVICE

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world... You can’t write a book about personal finance in South Africa and ignore these facts The alternative to guilt and denial? Change and, if you’re ready for it, you should read Manage Your Money Like a F*cking Grownup by Sam Beckbessinger. She is a former product strategist for Old Mutual’s money management app 22seven and a self-proclaimed money nerd, who went from crying and walking away whenever she was asked about her money to writing a guide about figuring out personal finance. Instead of the distant and often condescending voice of the expert, Beckbessinger’s is the refreshingly frank voice of a peer who has found her way out of the confusion so many stay stuck in. The format

Here are Sam’s top 3 tips for improving your financial situation:

works because she makes the material as much about your real, sometimes messy everyday life, as about how money really works, giving this easy-to-understand guide something so many personal finance books lack: personality. I asked Beckbessinger about some of the themes covered in the book, from why our brains aren’t always up to the job, to financing your most audacious dreams.

ON WHAT SHE LEARNT AT 22SEVEN: ‘The most important thing I learnt while guiding product strategy at 22seven is that humans are not computers, we’re primates! We’re not always rational or logical about money, and we fail ourselves when we try to manage our money like a computer would. Most of getting money management right is actually about the feels: learning to manage our emotions, and be brave enough to confront the reality of our behaviour.’

ON MONEY AND RACE IN SOUTH AFRICA: ‘If you feel like the system is rigged against you, that’s because it is. Doubly so if you’re a woman. Quadruply so if you’re black. You can’t write a book about personal finance in South Africa and ignore these facts. ‘It’s not helpful or honest when personal finance writers talk only about individual responsibility for money decisions, and ignore the context of our radically unequal world. The poor are not poor

because they’re not working hard enough, or because they’re stupid, or because they’re not managing their money well. They’re poor because the system is broken, and rigged against everyone except for a tiny group of people at the top. And it’s much more rigged against some people than against others. ‘That said, we all have a lot of choices in our own lives, especially if we are lucky enough to be employed and have an income. We can resist the forces of blind consumerism that leave so many of us drowning in debt and stuck working jobs we hate our whole lives. We can make better choices as individuals to live the lives that we truly want to live.’

ON THE CURE FOR ‘KEEPING UP’ AKA ‘ABANTU BAZOTHINI’ [WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY ] SYNDROME:

their Facebook feeds, the stuff they buy. But we don’t really know how they’re financing all of this, what trade offs they’ve made. Over 10-million South Africans have impaired credit records. We can’t just do what everyone else is doing if we want to be financially healthy, because very few of the people we meet are financially healthy themselves. ‘Having at least one really clear, ambitious goal can help to motivate you. For me, it’s the dream of taking a year off to write bad horror novels. I worked out that my year of writing would cost me about R250 000. So, when I think about trading in my car and saving R25 000, I think, Oh, that’s 10% of my Year of Writing. Having a goal like this can be a really helpful motivator when you think about financial trade offs.’

‘Every culture has a version of the “Keeping up with the Jones’s” effect. It’s normal! Humans are social primates and most of our sense of meaning comes from other people. The problem is how this has been weaponised by the advertising industry to make you think you want a bunch of stuff that you don’t actually want at all. Every cent you spend buying crap to impress other people is a cent you’re not committing to your biggest, most ambitious dreams. You’re going to die one day, and this is the only life you’re going to get to live. ‘We all imitate our friends. We’re jealous of their holidays,

Manage your Money like a F*cking Grownup by Sam Beckbessinger (Jonathan Ball, R190)

TODAY

THIS MONTH

THIS YEAR

Set up an automatic savings amount to go off just after payday every month. If you don’t know how much to save, start with 10%. You can work out what to do with it later, for now, just start saving.

Set up an app to help you start tracking your money so you can see where it really goes. Obviously, I’m biased towards 22seven, but you can find more recommendations on my website: likeafuckinggrownup.com.

Make this the year you liberate yourself and learn about how money really works.

Head online for more wealth and career advice 62 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ.CO.ZA

If a person understands where they’re heading and believes in the future state of their work, then any new process or technology aligned to that vision will seem more palatable today. An organisation could (for instance) define a simple four-year vision of how work will be conducted in the future, taking into account the impact on the company and on the individual’s personal and professional growth.

Turn and face the strange They say a change will do you good – especially in business. So why do many employees find it hard to adapt? Well, believe it or not, dealing with new ways of working can resemble bereavement. The good news? No one’s died. Better news? These six tips will help lead them through the transition • PEOPLE T YPICALLY ADAPT TO CHANGES in line with the Kubler-Ross change curve (you know it: first denial, which leads to anger then bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance). Although often used as a method for describing the grieving process, it is equally useful for explaining how people adapt to new working methods. As they move from denial to resistance to eventual acceptance, the deepest resistance ‘trough’ falls in the middle of their transition, the depth of which can be reduced if their organisation helps them to trust that the value they’ve been promised will be realised with time. Armed with this trust, colleagues will be willing to shift from denial to acceptance and will invest their energies in changing their old behaviour and working practices. But flattening that change curve will take an overarching programme of management, one that needs to abide by some human-centric principles...

REINFORCE THE VALUE OF CHANGE

Trust requires more than just telling someone about a future vision. People need to see the value of the coming transformation via success stories along the journey. Experiential demonstrations or ‘gamification’ of the new technology can help users to connect with it at the same time as they see the value of the change. Instead of training people simply to install the technology, get them to interact with colleagues and compete in teams, completing activities towards an overall solution. Games such as these can show the user an experience that’s hard to forget – and that will help with the adoption challenges post-deployment.

LEAD FROM THE FRONT

The leadership of an organisation can’t expect to reduce the resistance phase of the change curve if they tell others to act while failing to do so themselves. Role models at the top can set an example and help those making similar efforts below. And if leaders not only endorse but adopt the new ways of working, they can also gain the self-awareness required to acknowledge the pros and cons that are inevitable during a transition period. People relate best when their experience is transparent and their leaders are self-aware.

SHOW THE STRATEGY IN ACTION

As the user moves through the process of digital transformation, they need to know that they’re going forward: trust can only be developed when people are able to see for themselves that progress is being made. Regular town halls

and internal communications campaigns can showcase the status of the transformation project. For future talent and customers to see the value that’s being created, it takes both internal and external marketing of the process of change.

FOCUS ON THE ‘UX’

TELL ENGAGING STORIES

With the installation of a new solution comes the opportunity to change and simplify an old process and reconsider the end user experience (UX). The success of Twitter exemplifies this perfectly. They could have included more functionality, but the users didn’t require it so they only allowed a short sentence to be tweeted with just two simple clicks. If the basic user needs are being addressed, less is always more. Large-scale projects should follow a similar approach: keep things simple and aligned with the users’ needs.

It would be inhuman to seek or value perpetual change: nobody can love the idea of being in a constant state of transition. People therefore need the ability to accept that change is made up of iterative and progressive steps towards a final state. This approach helps deployment teams and end users to accept a mindset of continual improvement, rather than expecting perfection from day one. Training in agile methodology or iterative experimentation can help, but even better is the use of storytelling from senior stakeholders: they can speak from personal experience about how change turned out okay and they were able to navigate around any roadblocks that appeared in their way. Change will always be uncomfortable for the majority of people. But by considering these human-centric principles, resistance to it can be significantly reduced and its adoption equally improved. The lower the resistance to change, the higher the adoption of new working practices and the larger the return on the organisation’s investment. Christopher Harvey is a change management specialist at PwC.

64 /DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 GQ.CO.ZA

WORDS BY CHRISTOPHER HARVEY

W E A LT H BUSINESS CL ASS

PAINT A CLEAR PICTURE

W E A LT H PROFILE

Built to last Entrepreneur David Seinker, founder of office provider The Business Exchange, shares his vision for the future of workspaces

GQ: How is The Business Exchange (TBE) future proof? How do you design a workspace that’s inclusive and suitable for both today and tomorrow’s entrepreneur? David Seinker: When designing and building, we cater for all levels and stages of entrepreneurs. This means that the workspaces accommodate startups in the millennial age all the way up to large corporate companies needing private offices. We keep innovating our offering by introducing new features and facilities, such as gyms, sleep rooms and upmarket shower facilities. We include new tech channels which allow our members to order food online and advertise their services to our community. GQ: What are the most common needs identified in a modern workspace – and how have these changed from the more traditional setups? DS: Flexibility has become a key requirement in the commercial office sector. Companies and entrepreneurs can no longer commit to long leases as the world has become such an unpredictable place, so they turn to us for a more flexible type lease. This allows them to scale up when needed but also utilise their space far more efficiently than they would have in a traditional office. Businesses also don’t want to lay out hundreds of thousands of rands to set up their office space, so they turn to our industry for a serviced solution which is plug-in and go.

W O R D S B Y N K O S I YAT I K H U M A L O

GQ: What sets you apart from other co-working spaces? DS: Networking, collaborating and growing revenue are key requirements for startups and enterprises of all sizes. We hold various types of events every month which provide a platform for our members to engage and get real business deals done. We also promote our tenants in the press and we regularly interview our clients on Business Day TV. GQ: What long-term impact do you think the co-working space revolution will have on larger businesses? Do you foresee more companies allowing employees to

GQ.CO.ZA

Find a mentor who has been down the same road and draw on that person’s wisdom work remotely, or perhaps reshaping how they occupy physical spaces? Is the corporate HQ dead? DS: It’s already happening! More and more large corporate companies are using flexible offices in various ways. They have realised that when they built their offices five years ago, they wasted so much space and are now either restructuring it or leaving for serviced office providers like TBE. To add to this, these businesses are not property professionals and what happens is they end up overcapitalising initially and then overspending on the running costs of their buildings. We recently did a financial exercise for a major multinational and we proved to them that we could save them 50% of their total lease costs by coming to TBE. GQ: How does the design of TBE enable collaboration? DS: At every location we have an events space and bar for us and our tenants to use. We build auditoriums for brainstorming and workshops, and all our breakaway areas are carefully thought out for ultimate member interaction. Office space planning is key and we ensure that our spaces are modular in design. GQ: As an entrepreneur yourself, what are some of the most common mistakes you see being made? What advice would you give them? DS: Entrepreneurs don’t listen enough so a good idea is to find a mentor who has been down the same road and draw on that person’s wisdom. Focus, persevere and accept it’s a long journey filled with ups and downs. But keep at it and you will succeed! thebusinessexchange.co.za

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 65

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echnology has changed the world. The way we communicate and connect today would feel like science fiction just a few years ago. An outstanding example of this is the humble flipchart, a mainstay in every office, which has now undergone an incredible transformation, courtesy of Samsung. The Samsung Fl!p will take your next meeting or presentation to a whole new level. What’s the secret? A lot of sophisticated engineering and design went into Fl!p. It’s a brilliant, pixel-rich ultra-high definition LCD display, with a super responsive stylus for writing and drawing, making it feel like you’re using a marker on a board.

Who needs Fl!p? Simply put, every forward-thinking business. Large corporations have embraced Fl!p because of its portability and ease-of-use. Smaller companies see an innovation that lets them stay digital, ideating, collaborating and sharing across their company without making a big capital investment. Why you’ll want it It’s portable: Just like paper ﬂipcharts, it has a stand and wheels, making it easy to move around. It’s intuitive: Walk up to Fl!p and it just turns on, identifying your presence with a smart sensor. It’s a team player: Fl!p is webconnected, making fully synchronised

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DECEMBER 2018/ JANUARY 2019 / 71

EDLY

U B O D T

TR EV OR NOAH HA S – OV ER A ME RE TH RE E YE AR S – SO LID IFI ED HI S SP OT in popular cultu re

since succeeding comedic po werhouse Jon Stewar t as host of The Da ily Show, one of America’s m ost revered late-night talk and ne ws satire television programm es. Noah, now 34, was propelled into the global spotlight – and naturally, thrown to the wolves – when tasked to lea d an American cultural institution. But amidst the scepticism th at Noah would triumph, with sc rutiny from Stewar t stalwar ts and TV critics alike, Noah fo und his voice, won over the viewership and successfully made it through one of the mo st historic election cycles in th e US. Among numerous awar d nominations, The Daily Show under Noah now boasts a GL AAD Media Award, MTV Movie & TV Award and a Primetime Emmy Award, th e lat ter adding to the show’s existing 24. Noah’s tenure ha s been confirmed through 20 22. And his influence extends fa r beyond just the show. He’s ‘in’ with the notoriously cliqu ey fashion crowd, becoming a regular at the ‘Oscars of th e East Coast’, the Met Gala, and he sits front row at fash ion week. Noah continues to perform live stand-up and ha s landed comedy specials wi th the likes of Comedy Central and Netflix. Time magazine na med him one of the 100 most influ ential people in the world in 2018. Not since Charlize Theron ha s a South African managed to permeate the global enterta inment industry to this degr ee. Trevor Noah has made it in Am erica.

GQ: You’ve never shied away from being political and have said before that your comedy is often based on observing the landscape. Has that approach changed at all in the last few years? TREVOR NOAH: No, not at all. I think, you know, coming from South Africa, we were all people growing up in a political world. I continue to learn new things about myself, I continue to get more and more involved in what’s happening in the world around me, and so it’s only natural that my comedy follows that path as well.

72 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

GQ: Does anything in the news genuinely shock you anymore? How do you ﬁght newscycle fatigue and manage to preserve your own headspace? TN: Well, I think when you love engaging in the news and if you really enjoy what’s happening, you get shocked but you still process it as it’s coming to you. You know, in South Africa – whether it was Julius [Malema] or [Jacob] Zuma – it was always a character that I enjoy following, it was storylines that intrigued me, so the same happens with America. It’s like when I watch Game of Thrones, I don’t get Game of Thrones

fatigue, even though there’s random people being killed every week. I get shocked but I don’t get tired of a show that I enjoy. When you really engage in politics, you don’t ever really get tired, I think, because you enjoy following the story. GQ: On that note, which president has given you more material: Donald Trump or Jacob Zuma? TN: [laughs] That’s an interesting one. I think Trump has given me way more material just because he, unlike Zuma, communicates directly with people every single day via his Twitter account. He loves the media, he loves the spotlight, whereas Zuma generally kept to himself – you didn’t hear from him all the time, you didn’t see him all the time. I think that’s really the big difference between them. GQ: If you were to interview Trump, what would you ask him? TN: It depends on what day I interview him. Every single week the question changes because every single week he’s doing something new. So, it would literally depend on the week, the story and what’s happening in the news. He’s going from one scandal and one controversy to another. It’s always changing with him, which is part of the reason that he’s been so good at keeping afloat from one scandal to the next – he has so many that people don’t have the time to ask him all the questions that they want to about what he’s done. GQ: Do you think this distraction is something he does on purpose, as some have speculated? TN: No, I think that’s who he is. I think part of it is him doing it on purpose, but I think a lot of it is just who he is as a human being. He was like this when he was on The Apprentice, he was like this before he was involved in politics. He’s always been this type of guy. In many ways he just loves the spotlight and he loves being talked about, so he does a lot of that on purpose but I don’t think the scandals are something he does on purpose. I think he stumbled into those. GQ: Do you think the political and cultural environment you’re in – where lots of longstanding behaviours and attitudes are being questioned and challenged – is forcing people to become more honest with themselves? TN: That’s a tough one. I don’t know that that’s necessarily happening and I don’t know that it’s not happening. I think every issue that comes up in society moves us in one direction or another, but as for individuals, I think a lot of people are willing to change, or they are open to changing their perceptions of life when it’s not something that they feel fundamentally changes who they are as human beings. So that’s a tough one to answer, because I don’t know that it’s intrinsically changing. GQ: In terms of personal identity, how has yours evolved over the last three years?

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‘I TH GIV INK TR EN M UM MAT E WA P HA ZUM ERI Y M S HE C A , JUSTAL THA ORE DIR OMM BEC N E CT AU S U N L I EVE Y WI CAT E VIA RY SINGTH PEO ES PLE HIS L E TWI DAY TTE R’

How has moving to the US changed your perspective of the world? TN: Hmm. It’s always tough to know how your personal identity has changed, because you’re living it constantly, especially because I have friends that I’ve been close with for over a decade, I still associate with the same crowd – I haven’t changed my social circles very much. I don’t know that there’s been a dramatic and drastic change in that. What I have done is that I’ve grown a lot, I’ve learnt a lot, I’ve worked a lot, I’ve explored ideas and politics in a way that I didn’t maybe before, so that’s probably the biggest change that I’ve experienced in my life. GQ: In Son of Patricia, your latest Netﬂix special, you mention how you’ve had to change the way you pronounce certain words for Americans to understand. TN: Oh yeah, I’m aware of it every day. I mean, that’s fun – hoping people will understand you and trying to understand them. I enjoy it. GQ: So people go to a country like the US where English is spoken, but as you tease in the special, they actually speak American. TN: It’s funny because it’s very similar to South Africa and maybe that’s great about living in SA – that you travel a lot and you speak so many different languages and there are so many different people in just SA alone, that when you move from one place to the next, you are exposed to different worlds consistently. GQ: And with South Africa so culturally diverse, in many ways, that’s not too different to America’s own cultural diversity and history of immigration? TN: Yeah, definitely. It’s very diverse and very homogenous at the same time, because the one difference is many people identify as just being American and in South Africa we have all of »

our cultures, we have all of our languages in school. It’s great because it gives us a perspective on different people and who we are as human beings. So I’m a big fan of being in a place where… How can I put it? I like being in a place where everyone is something different and everyone is trying to be their own thing while working together as a community – and that’s what SA is in many ways. We have our challenges of course, but I think there’s something fantastic in how you can still move towards the greater things in life.

GQ: In your special you make a couple of comparisons between SA and the US, so it’s evident that you are still very much inspired by your South African roots. Do you think that will continue to be the case in your future specials? TN: I would be lying if I said I had the answer to that. For me, every special has just been followed by who I am and what I’m doing. So, like, I wish I knew what my next special will be but I really don’t. I create as I grow and I create as I live.

GQ: You’ve now been at the helm of The Daily Show for three years. What’s been one of your funniest or most memorable moments? And some of the more challenging? TN: There are so many moments that they blur into each other. I remember how much fun I had when Jennifer Lopez came to the show. I had a ton of fun when I got to interview Barack Obama. A lot of the time my favourite moments are happening off camera or behind the scenes, which I really enjoy. When it comes to that, they blur together. When it comes to challenges, what’s really hard is not only are you moving to another country, but you’re also trying to create a show that’s political and funny and connects with people in an environment

GQ: But with so much going on, practically, how do you ﬁnd time to actually sit down and work on a new project? TN: I create organically. I’m on the road every weekend. I’m travelling and I’m doing shows in every city in America, in every country I can go to in the world, so I’m always creating organically. I’m always in a space where there’s constant comedy being written, there’s constant material. So what I’m always trying to do is just consistently create in that space. GQ: How would you say your stand-up differs from The Daily Show? TN: Well, my stand-up can go in any direction. The Daily Show is fundamentally a political show,

‘A LOT OF THE TIME MY FAVOUR where many people are being disconnected by social media and news and politics at the same time. So that’s been the biggest challenges: how do you share your voice in an authentic way, while still maintaining your audience? GQ: It must have been quite nerve-racking moving from a mostly South African audience to not only the global stage, but catering to an American viewership with an entirely different political landscape? TN: Yeah, I think it was very nerve-racking. The biggest thing was the pressure that came with it and understanding how important the show was to Americans and in America, understanding the undertaking that I was embarking on. Those were very difficult things to be able to be working towards on a show. And just making a TV show is hard enough, nevermind that the show was connected to the culture. GQ: Apart from your mother, what was the inspiration behind Son of Patricia? TN: I’m always motivated by the world. I think I choose my titles based on the essence of what my show will be about, but it’s not necessarily based on the contents of the show, so really the special is based on my time and where I’ve been travelling to and what I’ve been experiencing in my life. And I think what’s been really fun about that is just how all the pieces come together.

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that there’s no guarantees, so I’m not performing and I love being in the space where I’m not 100 per cent sure how it’s going to go. GQ: You’ve maintained your comedy and business connections to SA, especially through supporting emerging talents through both live shows and streaming series. Why is it important for you to continue to support South African artists? TN: Because I’ll always be a South African artist. There were great comedians who supported me when I started out. Everybody from John Vlismas to David Kau to Joe Parker. All these people who gave me an opportunity to perform, people who helped me get out into the world. Guys like Riaad Moosa, who were great mentors to me. So when I look at that and go, ‘If I have an opportunity to give anyone a chance, then why wouldn’t I do that?’ I love the comedians and I’m friends with many of them, so it’s an easy decision for me to make as a person because it’s not like I’m doing anyone a favour – I think it’s just great for comedy in the world. Like now, people like Loyiso Gola, who’s doing amazingly in the UK, and Loyiso Madinga who’s doing fantastic in America and in Canada. I really, really enjoy that. I like to stay connected and I like for people to experience

ITE MOMENTS ARE HAPPENIN

whereas my stand-up isn’t a political show – it’s a show about just everything that I’m experiencing, my observations on life, talking about everything from movies I enjoy to what I did on a vacation. And I can also talk about the news or what’s happening in politics, but it’s not defined by what’s happening in the news, so that’s the big difference. GQ: And why is it so important to you to continue doing your live comedy? TN: Because that’s fundamentally how I started. That’s where I have my original fans. That’s where people have connected with me from the beginning and where I connected with them. And it’s where I get to be 100 per cent myself with no restrictions whatsoever. There’s no adverts, there’s no camera, there’s nothing. It’s just myself and the audience engaging with one another. And so I really enjoy that because it just means I get to create for the audience in that space. Each show can be unique and authentic and it has no necessary beginning and no necessary end, so that’s really enjoyable and exciting. GQ: Despite the success of The Daily Show and returning to your live comedy, do you still get nervous before your own shows? TN: Yeah, of course, all the time. Especially when you’re working with new jokes, you have no clue how it’s going to go. You have an idea of what you think is funny, but what’s great about comedy is

A R E M G O F F CA

the world and I like for the world to experience South Africa. GQ: What do you want your legacy to be? TN: I’ll be honest with you, I’m not too concerned about a legacy. I’ve never been stressed about those things as a human being. I only hope to do good things while I’m alive, I only hope to have a good impact on other human beings while I exist. If people forget me as soon as I’m gone, I don’t really mind. I think too many people focus on legacies and stress too much about what’s going to happen when they’re gone. I’m more focused on what’s going to happen while I’m here. So, I do my best, you know, I’m in a lucky place right now where as a person I get to make money and live a really wonderful life, and so I’ve decided that I’ll use that money, that privilege, to try and make other people’s lives better in conjunction with mine. So that’s all I’m trying to do. GQ: On a not-so-heavy note, what are you currently binge-watching on Netﬂix? TN: I just finished Stranger Things and I’m watching a few comedy specials. There are a few series that are really great that aren’t shows that people really know, like this one called Dirty Money – it’s just like a bunch of little documentaries into shady business in different ways and in different places.

GQ.CO.ZA

’ S E N E OR B E H I N D T H E S C

STREAM ON As the world’s leading internet entertainment service, Netflix now counts among its ranks 130 million paid memberships in over 190 countries, with SA joining the party in 2016. With no limits on where you can watch – all you need is an internet-connected screen – Netflix allows you to be fully in charge of your viewing experience, and offers personalised TV and film recommendations. Plus, it’s the official home of amazing comedy specials featuring the most iconic comedians in the world such as Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock and Kevin Hart. Trevor Noah’s first Netflix performance, Afraid of the Dark, is still one of the mostwatched shows on the service in South Africa. Catch his latest exclusive special, Son of Patricia, on Netflix now.

WITH INSECURE, ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL SERIES ON TV, ISSA RAE IS BLAZING A PATH FOR A NEW GENERATION OF AUTEURS WHO WANT TO MAKE SHOWS THAT DONâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;T CAVE TO NETWORK EXPECTATIONS

ISSA RAE

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SCHOELLE

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DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 77

‘WHAT MOST SURPRISED ME WAS THAT THE AUDIENCE WASN’T 90 PER CENT BLACK’

hen it’s time for Issa Rae to become Issa Dee, the transformation starts around the eyes. They get more incredulous – as if in alarm at the sheer number of awkward moments a person can encounter. On the set of HBO’s Insecure, which Rae co-created and stars in, she is conﬁdent: in charge. But then it’s time for a new take, and the change into Rae’s on-screen alter ego begins. The coat, sweatpants, and slippers she uses to stay warm on air-conditioned sets come off, the sense of competence that otherwise envelops her fades, and the eyes begin to search, for the solid ground of purpose that Issa Rae has, and Issa Dee most deﬁnitely does not. Today, on a blue-white hazy afternoon, Insecure has taken over a nightclub in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles, a block south of the 10 freeway. Rae, who is 33 and grew up about 6.4km from here, in View Park-Windsor Hills, is scrupulous about representing the LA she knows. Over time, she’s developed an unofficial rule about where Insecure does and does not shoot, and she avoids going north of the freeway if at all possible. ‘Growing up here, nobody lives in Hollywood. This is a blanket statement, but most of my friends from LA are black and they live south of the 10 or, like, along it, or Mid-City. That’s the LA that I know, and that’s the LA that I want to represent and portray.’ Rae had been on set for two weeks, shooting the show’s third season, and the stress of managing a cast and crew of a hit show had begun to mount. In the fall, she was nominated for a Golden Globe, for the second time, for her work as an actress on the show. Last year, HBO gave Insecure its ultimate honour: a Sunday-night time slot right after Game of Thrones. Rae is often described as the first black woman to create and star in a premium-cable series – a compliment so specific that it tends to make her feel entirely misunderstood, if not insulted. (‘I mean, who cares? I’m gonna be next to, what, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King?’) It might be more accurate to say Rae is part of a vanguard of young creators making television in ways that television hasn’t quite been made before – raunchier, realer, less beholden to the demands of a mass audience. Insecure, which is about the lives of a handful of young black women and men in various stages of their careers (including: not really having careers), takes delight in the comedy of everyday existence: passive-aggressive co-workers (‘Issa, what’s “on fleek”’?), the advice of wellintentioned but slightly confused confidantes (‘You got to fuck a lot of frogs to get a good frog’), the adrenaline rush of doing the wrong thing. The show, built around the Issa character’s friendships (most notably with a lawyer named Molly, played by Yvonne Orji) and romantic stumbles (often with her ex, Lawrence, played by Jay Ellis), depends less on any kind of linear plot and more on the types of confusing yet vivid encounters that pile up in one’s 20s and 30s.

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Early on, the show worked a bit like a sitcom: jokes in search of a meaningful structure. But since those first few episodes, Rae and her collaborators have steadily raised the emotional stakes, to the point where HBO asked Rae whether they were still making a comedy. ‘I remember HBO seeing the first episode of the second season and being like, “Oh, my God, is our show dramatic?”’ Rae recalls. This blurring of the line between antic heartbreak and heartbroken antics is the root of Insecure’s appeal: it feels like life. Rae regards the actual acting she does on the show as, mostly, a means to an end – ‘I can take it or leave it, to be honest,’ she says. When she first had the idea for the predecessor to Insecure, the web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, ‘I had another friend of mine in mind, and then she couldn’t do it. So I was like, “I’m running out of time. I’m just gonna do it myself.”’ But Rae turned out to be a gifted comic actress – under pressure, as her characters often are, she talks faster and faster, as if to get her words up to cover-fire velocity – and now she’s so strongly identified with her creation that fans regularly scold Rae on social media for choices her character has made. ‘In naming the character Issa and in going out and about and minding my business in the world, people still, no matter what you do, are gonna associate,’ Rae says ruefully. ‘It’s you. You know?’

A F T E R T H E C R E W B R E A K S for a late lunch, Rae begins the work of transforming back into herself. An assistant arrives with her sweatpants and slippers. Standing on the sidewalk outside the club, the haze of the character still dissipating, she puts on the slippers and then attempts to put on the sweatpants before realising her mistake. Rae looks down at her feet and sighs. ‘I did this wrong,’ she says. Rae sometimes refers to herself as shy, and in person she tends to bridge the gap by being both inquisitive and bracingly direct. At one point, talking about the history of television and Insecure’s place in it, she mentions Sex and the City, a show that, to my now regret, I have not seen. ‘You never. Watched. Sex and the City?’ No. ‘Why? How old were you when it came out?’

I’m 35 now. ‘So you were around my age when it came out. I didn’t watch it until college, and it came out I think when I was in high school. ‘Cause it was around the same time as The Sopranos, right? Were you watching The Sopranos when you were in high school?’ I went back and saw that. ‘Okay, so...’ Rae looks at me patiently. Maybe there’s some chauvinism in the fact that I went back and watched one and not the other. ‘Totally. I’m glad you recognised that.’ Rae’s willingness to speak her mind, paired with her on-screen exhibitionism, is what makes Insecure work. But this quality can also come at a cost: the source of her creativity, in many ways, is her genuine discomfort with being the centre of attention. ‘I do feel like people expect me to be entertaining,’ Rae says. ‘And I’m not. I’m not an entertaining person. I don’t put on for anybody. I think about someone like Tiffany Haddish, who’s just naturally entertaining, who always has a story. And that’s just not my lane. I’m always gonna be the shy one.’ In television’s so-called golden age – The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men – the difficult men who created the difficult men on-screen were able to stay behind the curtain; viewers tended to care about Tony Soprano, not David Chase. But television – especially vaguely comedic television – in the era of personal branding is a very different animal. It’s not a coincidence that many of the most successful creators of the past several years – Rae, Girls’ Lena Dunham, Atlanta’s Donald Glover, Broad City’s Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson – have had to not just write or direct but also star in their own shows, often telling stories that could plausibly belong to them in real life. This is a recipe for success. But it’s also the strategy that drove some of their predecessors, like Dave Chappelle, to near madness: if you mine your life too closely, and too publicly, for laughs, you risk having nothing left when the gambit pays off. ‘I only want to make my presence felt when I feel like it’s necessary,’ Rae says in her trailer. ‘And so much of that is such a hard balance, especially when the narrative is about getting noticed and getting attention for a specific product. And in that way, yeah, I want the eyes to be on what the product is’ – meaning Insecure. ‘But after a while, you become the product.’

R A E O F T E N SAY S T H AT A N I N S P I R AT I O N for creating Insecure was watching the sitcoms she grew up on, shows with predominantly black casts like Living Single and A Different World, disappear from television – a void that no one seemed inclined to fill. Growing up in Los Angeles, where her father, a doctor from Senegal, had a practice in Inglewood, Rae would frequently recognise her own neighbourhood in movies like Love and Basketball and on shows like Girlfriends. Then that stuff just vanished. ‘The takeaway was “Agh, black people are so dope. Where are they at on TV right now? Now I want my own version.”’ »

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 79

But television shows in the 1990s were made for massive audiences that often numbered in the tens of millions. ‘If you’re selling advertising, your sole metric of success is “Were the ratings high or low?”’ says Casey Bloys, HBO’s head of programming. Modern comedies like Insecure work on a different model, one that necessarily comes with the proliferation of cable channels and online outlets: fewer people, more passion. Rae says because of this she doesn’t worry much about her ratings. Neither does HBO, though Bloys says the network is very happy with them: ‘The show got amazing reviews, both in the first season and the second season. And you can’t quantify it, necessarily, but there is buzz around her and the other actors on the show. So it is doing its job as far as I’m concerned.’ Rae is more interested in the makeup of her audience. ‘I think what most surprised me was that the audience wasn’t 90 per cent black,’ she says. ‘I think only 30 to 40 per cent of the audience are black people. But I’m like, okay, HBO isn’t accessible to everyone. Like, I didn’t have HBO. I used my friend’s password until the show got picked up.’ Insecure, more than most shows on TV, literalises and plays with the experience of being placed in someone else’s head – in an oft-repeated formal conceit, Rae’s character will turn to the camera, usually in the form of a bathroom mirror, or a daydream, and just say to the audience what she can’t say in life. This has always been Rae’s gift as a writer: a deep sensitivity to what people share and what they don’t. ‘I feel like I’m emotionally intuitive,’ she says. ‘I sense things and observe certain things about people. I try to pay attention to clues as much as possible.’ Part of the intention behind

Catch Issa Rae in Insecure on Showmax

Insecure, for Rae, was to tell ‘a story about people of colour in a different way... aligning it with the psyche and aligning with what this person is going through, so you just immediately get in and don’t have to explain.’ When I next see Rae, it’s in a bagel shop just down the street from the office she keeps in Manhattan Beach, in a complex of office parks and coffee shops just south of the airport. She arrives wearing a Spider-Man hoodie pulled tight around her face, gold wire-rimmed glasses, and an air of weary resolve, like an athlete going into overtime at the end of a long game. ‘It feels like I’m being tested in a really crazy way,’ she says. ‘It’s nothing I can really get into. It’s like third-season problems along with, like, just life shit. As a creative, I never imagined that I’d be a boss, too.’ Being the face of Insecure has led to opportunities she probably never would have

80 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

had if she were merely a writer or director: a recent cameo in the video for Drake’s ‘Nice for What’, parts in a couple of upcoming films, meetings with whomever she cared to have meetings with. But it also left her with nowhere to hide. ‘The failure is yours,’ she says. ‘It is yoursss-uh.’ Is the prospect of failure still scary to you, now that you’ve had some success? ‘How?’ You’re on the third season of a popular show – I’d describe that as success. ‘That could go to shit,’ Rae says. ‘This could be the worst season we’ve ever had. And then what? Then people are all of a sudden like, “Oh, okay.” Then the calls stop. It’s like stand-up comedy: in order to eventually succeed, you have to bomb. That’s what every comedian says – that’s when the fear goes away. And I feel like I’m still fearful because I haven’t publicly bombed yet, in terms

of my career. Yeah, Insecure is successful now, but where’s my bomb coming? Where are my Will Smith bombs coming? Where, where is that happening?’ Will Smith is fine! ‘He went through a period when he was depressed, when three or four of his movies in a row weren’t number one at the box office. So for him that was terrible. And now he’s talking about, “You gotta fail, you gotta fail.”’ She pauses. ‘And I don’t want to make Instagram speeches about failing. I don’t.’ Outside the window, the late-afternoon light signals that it’s time for her to again go back to the office. As she stands up to leave, a woman at the next table over looks closely at what little part of Rae’s face is visible under her hoodie. ‘You did Insecure, right? I love your show.’ ‘Thank you,’ Rae says. And then she leaves, to go make more of it.

GQ.CO.ZA

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SHOWMAX

‘IN ORDER TO EVENTUALLY SUCCEED, YOU HAVE TO BOMB… AND I FEEL LIKE I’M STILL FEARFUL BECAUSE I HAVEN’T PUBLICLY BOMBED YET, IN TERMS OF MY CAREER’

F Y R L I L E A N U ANYMO DS T RE? C A IS

E N O Y AN

IT’S A

WEIRD MOMENT – WE’RE SUPER CONNECTED YET SOMEHOW LONELIER THAN EVER.

MARK SELIGER

BUT IF YOU NEED PROOF OF THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, JUST LOOK AT

STEVE MARTIN

MARTIN SHORT. WE ASKED THESE TWO LONGTIME AMIGOS TO HELP US COMPILE

A MAN’S GUIDE TO FRIENDSHIP IN THE 21ST CENTURY

ing ’s h t y r Eve er IRL bett

HOW I FOUND

How to turn an online friend into a real-life buddy

A WHOLE

NEW SQUAD

Twitter is a testing ground for new friends. It’s a pool of people who talk all day about the things they’ve read and the stuff they find annoying. I gravitated toward contemporaryliterature Twitter, and after a few weeks, I felt like I’d found my people. – KEVIN NGUYEN

CHARM ’EM WITH YOUR ONLINE BRILLIANCE

By Chris Gayomali

IN MY 20S, I HAD IT ALL FIGURED OUT. I was part of a crew, living

together in a magical, quasi-legal apartment in Brooklyn that we paid pennies for, as long as we promised never to call the fire department. It was spooky how well we got along, and we spent all our free time together – at dive bars, nursing hangovers on the couch, the infrequent strip club. Then my roommates all uprooted to Eat, Pray, Love their way through Southeast Asia before relocating to Australia. I felt bamboozled. For me, leaving to travel was out of the question; I had started dating my future fiancée, and I was a few weeks into a promising job. We were a crew by proximity, and then – poof! – just like that, they were gone. I was on the cusp of 30 and alone-ish in New York, a cruel city where friendship can be notoriously fickle. I knew I would never luck into another living situation like that again (and by then I was too old to live somewhere that violated fire codes). So I panicked and did something out of character: I signed up for a co-ed summer basketball team. I was hesitant at first. A few years prior, I had signed up for a kickball league and bailed after one game – too many finance guys. But I figured that if the team had a weird vibe this time around, I could just get a puppy. My proactiveness paid off. Basketball meant we had at least one thing to talk about. And a few guys on the team ended up being lapsed Californians like me, most around 30 and in committed relationships. The Venn circles were eerily concentric, and the casualness of the league stoked something special. We had a mutual goal of putting a ball through a hoop, but outside of that there was no external pressure to become friends, which seemed to grease the pathway to becoming… friends. After our first game (we lost), someone suggested we hit the bar across the street for beers.

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A team text thread soon formed. We started roasting each other on it. Then we started attending one another’s birthdays. Making new friends as an adult is a strange experience because it requires stepping outside your comfort zone – which in my case happened to be my apartment. With the team, and there isn’t a non-corny way to put this, we were all looking for the same thing – cool friends to do something inconsequential with, to take up the empty airspace increasingly crowded out by careers and families. I still missed my old crew, but after a while I was glad to have loved ones in cool places whom I could visit. I got lucky. As a basketball outfit, we weren’t very good, but as friends, we were champions. Turns out the old saying is true: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, sign up for a co-ed summer basketball team. »

Bro-tocol!

Mute your boring friends and everyone will be happy Most people on Twitter are garbage. But many of these people are your friends, your colleagues, and your dentist – a lonely guy who has that ‘Who Unfollowed Me?’ app, just waiting to discover your betrayal. That’s why Jack Dorsey created the mute button: to preserve friendships that might not last online. Feeling guilty about muting your mom? Don’t. You’re sparing her your digital resentment.

Just because someone follows you back doesn’t mean you’ve yet become real friends. As with any relationship, it takes some time to build trust and familiarity.

SLIDE INTO THE DMS When you feel ready to make the jump, send a DM. Just be cool about it. A good litmus test for that ﬁrst message is: how would it hold up if Kanye took a screenshot and tweeted it out?

MAKE IT CRYSTAL CLEAR THAT IT’S NOT A DATE (Unless you want it to be a date! Then be crystal clear about that.) To send friend signals, suggest coffee instead of a beer, afternoon instead of evening.

MEET IN GROUPS A small meet-up takes the pressure off a oneon-one meeting.

REMEMBER: CELEBRITIES ARE NOT GOING TO BE YOUR FRIEND Just relax. Katy Perry isn’t reading her mentions.

– BRENNAN CARLEY

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 83

HOW

E FRIENDS AT W K A M O T O

LEARN FROM TWO AMIGOS WHO’VE STAYED TOGETHER FOR 32 YEARS By Brett Martin STEVE MARTIN LO OKS AT HIS WATCH. He arrived early, to

get settled in and do a little work on his laptop before our interview begins. Martin Short, his longtime friend and recent stage companion, is nowhere to be seen. ‘He’ll walk in at 12:0…3,’ Martin says with a mildly parental sense of exasperation. He’s off by about half a minute. Short bounces onto the banquette next to Martin at 12:02 and 30 seconds, but the point is made: these guys know each other well. That’s the bond at the heart of Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life, the stage show they’ve been performing and that they taped for a Netflix special. It’s a loose, friendly, banterfilled hour that brings to mind a vaudeville show. ‘Catherine O’Hara said it was “a children’s show for adults,”’ Short reports with evident approval. If the two echo any previous partnership onstage, it’s Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, with Martin playing his namesake’s role of adult-in-the-room against Short’s more antic, crowd-pleasing man-child. I don’t need to tell you which one plays an earnest melody of his banjo compositions and which sings a torch song in a nude suit with hand-drawn genitalia. But they don’t fall into such neat categories. The dynamic is more like watching friends cracking each other up over dinner. The friendship goes back some 32 years, to when the two co-starred, alongside Chevy Chase, in Three Amigos. ‘Some people you work on a film with and then they disappear,’ Short says. ‘I think we both made a conscious decision, “We’re not letting this one go.”’

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Martin Short: Steve, I’d like you

to order for me. Steve Martin: Like usual. Short: And then I would like you to chew the food before spitting it into my mouth. GQ: Is this what life on the road is like these days? Short: Steve and I have a tradition where we get on the plane after a show and we start playing cribbage. All the musicians and crew go ‘Rock and roll!’ because we’re playing cribbage and having a glass of wine and maybe a potato chip. GQ: Do you ever get a chance to explore the cities you’re in? Short: Sometimes we’ll finish a show and go right to the airport to fly to the next city. So that gives us a chance to explore. Martin: I like that you explained that we’d go to the airport to get to the next city, because that was a missing element. If you didn’t say it, he’d be wondering: ‘How’d they get from the show to the plane? Where’s the plane?’ Short: Listen, I don’t know how sophisticated this man is. Maybe later he’s writing the article and thinking, Schmuck! You didn’t ask them where the plane was! GQ: You guys became friends on Three Amigos, but surely you must have circled each other before that? Short: I was a huge fan of Steve Martin, as everyone I knew in comedy was. Martin: I always assumed that everybody at SCTV hated me. Short: Why would that be? Martin: Because you guys were very sophisticated in what you did. And

my thing was ostensibly lowbrow. It was my own paranoia, I think. Short: It’s not surprising to me that SCTV came out of Toronto’s Second City, as opposed to Chicago’s. When I would go to the States to see Chicago’s Second City, I would always admire the writing and the political nature of the work. But when I’d go back to the Canadian Second City, it would make me laugh harder. Martin: Why don’t you just move back to Canada, if you think it’s so much funnier there? GQ: One cliché is the idea that all comedy comes from a dark place, that comedians are all insecure, self-loathing... Martin: Marty belies that premise. He’s the opposite. Short: I think the idea is overrated. There’s a lot of insecure, sad people in any profession. GQ: Are there things that are outside the bounds of your friendship? Like, can you talk to each other about money? Short: Well, that’s not even an issue. Steve is worth 20 000 times what I am. I’m hanging on by a thread. He’s loaded. Martin: That’s not true. Short: No, we both have money. He just has more money. Martin: I’m not sure that I do. Short: Okay, then you know what we’re going to do today? We’re going to phone up our business people and just flip accounts. We’re so similar – you might end up with more money! GQ: Are there qualities that you envy in each other? Martin: Marty is extremely comfortable in almost any situation, and I’m extremely uncomfortable in almost any situation. He gives people the time of day. Short: See, I was going to say, ‘Maybe that’s the secret: try giving people the time of day.’ Martin: Sure! Short: Start off by learning their names. Martin: Oh. Never mind. Short: I envy Steve’s unbelievable and endless curiosity. Like, not just being curious about a painter but wanting to collect that painter... He could be a teacher of modern art. I am just a clown. Martin: By the way, ask me the time of day. Short: What time is it? Martin: Go ask someone else.

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The Four

Bro-tocol!

NATURAL LAWS of FRIENDSHIP

When you see a friend on Tinder The safe response here – especially if this is someone you work with – is to swipe left. That said, stumbling across Becky, she of the platonic karaoke hangs, on Tinder is, perhaps counter-intuitively, actually the safest way to conﬁrm mutual interest. That is, if you both swipe right. If you never end up matching with Becky, the case is closed and you should take a second to be thankful that you’ve been spared the pitfalls of friend dating. – BHB

Speaking of chums, remember our old friend science? Back before the Fake News Era, he was kind of a big deal. Here are some cold, hard truths about palling around.

1 2 3 4

– CLAY SKIPPER

IT TAKES TWO – BUT ALSO TIME A recent study showed that it takes 90 hours before you consider someone a friend and 200 hours before you’re close. And no, the guy working next to you all day doesn’t count.

YOU CAN ONLY HAVE SO MANY Robin Dunbar has famously hypothesized that humans can maintain only 150 stable relationships – and only ﬁve best friends.

Much like a tandem bike, life is far better with at least one pal – so much better, in fact, that a lack of social connection has been linked to a higher rate of premature death.

WE TEND TO STICK TO OUR OWN (WHICH SUCKS) Studies show that people are less likely to make friends across races and classes. But there’s evidence that bridging those gaps signiﬁcantly reduces prejudice.

might have to break up with an old friend. Let’s say – hypothetically – that you had a rowdy, tight-knit group of bros back in college. After graduation, they kept the party going without breaking stride. You tuckered out. The ringleader did his best to keep you in the fold. You did your best to leave it as tactfully as possible. It’s really not that hard. Guys, already deficient in

If you haven’t done it yet, you will soon. Ofﬁciating at your friend’s wedding is about as common as godparenting these days, except there’s no risk of getting stuck with guardianship. Oh, and did we mention the lifeafﬁrming tingle you’ll feel while facilitating the union of two previously lonely earth creatures? Here’s how to set about the task

You will be

LONELINESS IS DEADLY

MAYBE IT ’LL ONLY HAPPEN ONCE IN YOUR LIFE. Maybe never. But at some point, you

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king Brea nal perso s new

a wedding next year 1. ASK THEM: WHY ME? You’re not ﬁshing for compliments; you’re gathering crucial intel. If they say ‘Because you knew Steve back when he was shattering collegiate ﬂip-cup records,’ your assignment is a lot different than

‘Because your track changes on Steve’s lit-mag submissions were so insightful.’

what I’m talking about.’ The glory in ofﬁciating comes from letting the gravitas and beauty of the occasion do the talking.

2. IT’S NOT AN EXTENDED TOAST You’re not going for laughs. Don’t rehash wild times. At no point should you utter the words ‘this guy knows

If you love your friend,

SET HIM FREE

3. AT LEAST PRETEND TO BE A HOLY MAN

opportunities to invest in a leatherbound folio. This is one of them. Relish it. And make sure you look the part – suit and tie, etc. Full papal regalia, however, is not encouraged. Unless you’re at AfrikaBurn.

Life offers but few

– MARTIN MULKEEN

communication skills, tend to drift away without strong reasons to hang out. Of course, the closer you were back then, the more painful this slow-ghosting process will be. You’ll find out for certain when the friendship is over as you approach big life moments further down the road. Sure, you’ll remain cordial when you see each other at a bar. But if you don’t catch a wedding invite, you can breathe a sigh of relief. The fraternal nostalgia, already stretched thin, can now rest in peace.

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by Wo r d s

A S T R A N G E T H I N G H A S H A P P E N E D TO M E N O V E R T H E PA S T F E W D E CA D E S : W E ’ V E W E M AY L O S E T H E A B I L I T Y TO R E P R O D U C E E N T I R E LY. W H AT ’ S C AU S I N G T H I S M YS T E R I O U S

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B E C O M E I N C R E A S I N G LY I N F E R T I L E , S O M U C H S O T H AT W I T H I N A G E N E R AT I O N D R O P I N S P E R M C O U N T S – A N D I S T H E R E A N Y WAY T O R E V E R S E I T B E F O R E I T ’ S T O O L AT E ?

MEN ARE DOOMED. Everybody knows this. We’re obviously all doomed, the women too, everybody in general, just a waiting game until one or another of the stupid things our stupid species is up to finally gets us. But as it turns out, no surprise: men first. Second instance of no surprise: we’re going to take the women down with us. There has always been evidence that men are at higher risk of early death: from the beginning, a higher male incidence of Death by Mammoth Stomping, a higher incidence of Spiked Club to the Brainpan, a statistically significant disparity between how many men and how many women die of Accidentally Shooting Themselves in the Face or Getting Fat and Having a Heart Attack. The male of the species dies younger than the female; about five years on average. Divide a population into groups by birth year, and by the time each cohort reaches 85, there are two women left for every man alive. In fact, the male wins every age class: baby boys die more often than baby girls; little boys die more often than little girls; teenage boys; young men; middle-aged men. Death champions across the board. Now it seems that early death isn’t enough for us – we’re on track instead to void the species entirely. Last summer a group of researchers from Hebrew University and Mount Sinai medical school published a study showing that sperm counts in the US, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand

I called Shanna H Swan, a reproductive epidemiologist at Mount Sinai and one of the lead authors of the study, to ask if there was any good news hiding behind those brutal numbers. Were we really at risk of extinction? She failed to comfort me. ‘The What Does It Mean question means extrapolating beyond your data,’ Swan said, ‘which is always a tricky thing. But you can ask, “What does it take? When is a species in danger? When is a species threatened?” And we are definitely on that path.’ That path, in its darkest reaches, leads to no more naturally conceived babies and potentially to no babies at all – and the final generation of Homo sapiens will roam the earth knowing they will be the last of their kind.

IF WE ARE HALF AS fertile as the generation before us, why haven’t we noticed? One answer is that there is a lot of redundancy built into reproduction: you don’t need 200 million sperm to fertilise an egg, but that’s how many the average man might devote to the job. Most men can still conceive a child naturally with a depressed sperm count, and those who can’t have a booming fertility-treatment industry ready to help them. And though lower sperm counts probably have led to a small decrease in the number of children being conceived, that decline has been masked by sociological changes driving birth rates down even faster: people in the developed world are choosing to have fewer children, and they are having

working with the data. The results, when they came in, were clear. Not only were sperm counts per millilitre of semen down by more than 50 per cent since 1973, but total sperm counts were down by almost 60 per cent: we are producing less semen, and that semen has fewer sperm cells in it. Th is time around, even scientists who had been sceptical of past analyses had to admit that the study was all but unassailable. Jørgensen, in Copenhagen, told me that when he saw the results, he’d said aloud, ‘No, it cannot be true.’ He had expected to see a past decline and then a levelling off. But he couldn’t argue when the team ran the numbers again and again. The downward slope was unwavering. Almost all the scientists I talked to stressed that not only were low sperm counts alarming for what they said about the reproductive future of the species – they were also a warning of a much larger set of health problems facing men. In this view, sperm production is a canary in the coal mine of male bodies: we know, for instance, that men with poor semen quality have a higher mortality rate and are more likely to have diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease than fertile men. I assumed that the next thing Swan was going to tell me was that these changes were all a mystery to scientists. If only we could figure out what was causing the drop in sperm counts, I imagined, we could solve all the attendant health problems at once. But it turns out that it’s not a mystery: we know what the culprit is. And it’s hiding in plain sight.

WE SHOULD HOPE FOR THE BEST AND PREPARE FOR THE WORST,’’ SAID HAGAI LEVINE, A LEAD AUTHOR OF THE STUDY. ‘‘AND THAT IS THE POSSIBILITY THAT WE WILL BECOME EXTINCT have fallen by more than 50 per cent over the past four decades. (They judged data from the rest of the world to be insufficient to draw conclusions from, but there are studies suggesting that the trend could be worldwide.) That is to say: we are producing half the sperm our grandfathers did. We are half as fertile. The Hebrew University/Mount Sinai paper was a meta-analysis by a team of epidemiologists, clinicians, and researchers that culled data from 185 studies, which examined semen from almost 43 000 men. It showed that the human race is apparently on a trend line toward becoming unable to reproduce itself. Sperm counts went from 99 million sperm per millilitre of semen in 1973 to 47 million per millilitre in 2011, and the decline has been accelerating. Would 40 more years – or fewer – bring us all the way to zero?

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them later. The problem has been debated among fertility scientists for decades now – studies suggesting that sperm counts are declining have been appearing since the ’70s – but until Swan and her colleagues’ meta-analysis, the results have always been judged incomplete or preliminary. Swan herself had conducted smaller studies on declining sperm counts, but in 2015 she decided it was time for a definitive answer. She teamed up with Hagai Levine, an Israeli epidemiologist, and Niels Jørgensen, a Danish endocrinologist, and along with five others, they set about performing a systematic review and meta-regression analysis – that is, a kind of statistical synthesis of the data. ‘Hagai is a very good scientist, and he also used to be the head of epidemiology for the Israeli armed forces,’ Swan told me. ‘So he’s very good at organising.’ They spent a year

THE SIX TH FLOOR of the Rigshospitalet, a hospital and research institution in Copenhagen, houses the Department of Growth and Reproduction. The babies are all a few f loors downstairs – on six, the unit is populated not with new parents but with doctors and researchers hunched over mass spectrometers and gel imagers and the like. I was there to meet Niels E Skakkebæk, an 82-year-old pediatric endocrinologist, who founded the department in 1990. After walking me through the lab, he showed me to his office, a cramped, closet-like space – modest for someone who is a giant in his field. Male fertility and male reproductive health, Skakkebæk told me, are in fullblown crisis. ‘Here in Denmark, there is an epidemic of infertility,’ he said. ‘More

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1980

than 20 per cent of Danish men do not father children.’ Skakkebæk first suspected something was going wrong in the late ’70s, when he treated an infertile patient with an abnormality in the cells of the testes that he had never seen before. When he treated a second man with the same abnormality a few years later, he began to investigate a connection. What he found was a new form of precursor cells for testicular cancer, a once rare disease whose incidence had doubled. Moreover, these precursor cells had begun developing before the patient was even born. ‘He had the insight that testicular cancer, which is a cancer of young men, is something that is actually originated in utero,’ Swan told me. And if these testes had somehow been misdeveloping in utero, Skakkebæk asked himself, what else was happening to these babies before they were born?

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Eventually, Skakkebæk linked several other previously rare symptoms for a condition he called testicular dysgenesis syndrome (TDS), a collection of male reproductive problems that include hypospadias (an abnormal location for the end of the urethra), cryptorchidism (an undescended testicle), poor semen quality, and testicular cancer. What Skakkebæk proposed with TDS is that these disorders can have a common fetal origin, a disruption in the development of the male fetus in the womb. So what was causing this disruption? To say there is only a single answer might be an overstatement – stress, smoking, and obesity, for example, all depress sperm counts – but there are fewer and fewer critics of the following theory: the industrial revolution happened. And the oil industry happened. And 20th-century chemistry

GLOBAL PLASTICS PRODUCTION (MILLIONS OF METRIC TONS)

MEAN TOTAL SPERM COUNT (MILLIONS)

MEAN SPERM COUNT AND GLOBAL PLASTICS PRODUCTION SINCE 1970

2010

happened. In short, humans started ingesting a whole host of compounds that affected our hormones – including, most crucially, estrogen and testosterone. The scientists I talked to were less cautious about embracing this explanation than I expected. Down the hall from Skakkebæk’s office, I met Anna-Maria Andersson, a biologist whose research has focused on declining testosterone levels. ‘There has been a chemical revolution going on starting from the beginning of the 19th century, maybe even a bit before,’ she told me, ‘and upwards and exploding after the Second World War, when hundreds of new chemicals came onto the market within a very short time frame.’ Suddenly a vast array of chemicals were entering our bloodstream, ones that no human body had ever had to deal with. The chemical revolution gave us some wonderful things: new medicines, >>

WE CAN GLIMPSE WHAT OUR LOW-SPERM-COUNT FUTURE MIGHT LOOK LIKE. WE KNOW THAT IT WILL BE ARDUOUS TO CONCEIVE, AND EXPENSIVE – SO EXPENSIVE THAT HAVING CHILDREN MAY NO LONGER BE AN OPTION AVAILABLE TO ALL COUPLES

new food sources, faster and cheaper mass production of all sorts of necessary products. It also gave us, Andersson pointed out, a living experiment on the human body with absolutely no forethought to the result. When a chemical affects your hormones, it’s called an endocrine disruptor. And it turns out that many of the compounds used to make plastic soft and f lexible (like phthalates) or to make them harder and stronger (like Bisphenol A, or BPA) are consummate endocrine disruptors. Phthalates and BPA, for example, mimic estrogen in the bloodstream. If you’re a man with a lot of phthalates in his system, you’ll produce less testosterone and fewer sperm. If exposed to phthalates in utero, a male fetus’s reproductive system itself will be altered: he will develop to be less male. The problem is that these chemicals are everywhere. BPA can be found in water bottles and food containers and sales receipts. Phthalates are even more common: they are in the coatings of pills and nutritional supplements; they’re used in gelling agents, lubricants, binders, emulsifying agents, and suspending agents. Not to mention medical devices, detergents and packaging, paint and modelling clay, pharmaceuticals and textiles and sex toys and nail polish and liquid soap and hair spray. They are used in tubing that processes food, so you’ll find them in milk, yogurt, sauces, soups, and even, in small amounts, in eggs, fruits, vegetables, pasta, noodles, rice, and water. The CDC determined that just about everyone in the United States has measurable levels of phthalates in his or her body – they’re unavoidable. What’s more, there is evidence that the effect of these endocrine disruptors increases over generations, due to something called epigenetic inheritance. Normally, acquired traits – like, say, a sperm count lowered by obesity – aren’t passed down from father to son. But some chemicals, including phthalates and BPA, can change the way genes are expressed without altering the

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underlying genetic code, and that change is inheritable. Your father passes along his low sperm count to you, and your sperm count goes even lower after you’re exposed to endocrine disruptors. That’s part of the reason there’s been no levelling off even after 40 years of declining sperm counts – the baseline keeps dropping.

CAN ANY THING BE DONE? Over the past 20 years, there have been occasional attempts to limit the number of endocrine disruptors in circulation, but inevitably the fixes are insubstantial: one chemical removed in favour of another, which eventually turns out to have its own dangers. That was the case with BPA, which was partly replaced by Bisphenol S, which might be even worse for you. The chemical industry, unsurprisingly, has been resistant to the notion that the billions of dollars of revenue these products represent might also represent terrible damage to the human body, and have often followed the model of Big Tobacco and Big Oil – fighting regulation with lobbyists and funding their own studies that suggest their products are harmless. The website for the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade association, has a page dedicated to phthalates that mostly consists of calling Shanna Swan’s research ‘controversial’ and asserting that her ‘use of methodologies that have not been validated and unconventional data analysis have been criticised by the scientific community.’ (Cited critics of Swan include Elizabeth Whelan, now deceased, an epidemiologist famous for fighting the regulation of chemicals from her position as president of the American Council on Science and Health, which has received funding from Chevron, DuPont, and other companies in the plastic business.) Assuming that we’re unable to wean ourselves off plastics and other marvels of modern science, we may be stuck innovating our way out of this mess. How long we’re

able to outrun the drop in sperm count may depend, finally, on how good we get at IVF and other fertility treatments. When I spoke with Marc Goldstein, a urologist and surgeon at Weill Cornell medical centre in New York City, he said that while there was ‘no question I’ve seen a big increase in men with male-factor infertility,’ he wasn’t worried for the future of the species. Assisted reproduction would keep the babies coming, no matter how sickly men’s sperm become. It’s true that fertility treatments have already given men with extremely low sperm counts the chance to be fathers. Indeed, by looking at their cases, we can glimpse what our low-sperm-count future might look like. We know that it will be arduous to conceive, and expensive – so expensive that having children may no longer be an option available to all couples. A fertility-treatmentdependent future is also unlikely to produce a birth rate anywhere near current levels. Not long ago, I spoke with Chris Wohl, a research materials/surface engineer at the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia, who spent six years trying to conceive a child. Both he and his wife had fertility problems: Wohl’s sperm count was under 2 million per millilitre – the average count we’d expect to reach, at the current rate, by 2034. ‘We started in the normal way of trying to have kids,’ he said, ‘and after a few years, we said, “Okay, let’s talk to some folks.”’ They went through several rounds of intrauterine insemination. ‘And then after that sixth time, we said, “This isn’t working. We need to kind of up our technology game.” So we went to a reproductive endocrinologist and went through several rounds of IVF. And then when that failed, we were going to look into adoption. That’s when somebody came forward and said that they would be a surrogate for us.’ Finally, with the surrogate, the process worked. He and his wife now have a healthy, strong-willed 4-year-old girl. So perhaps that’s the solution: as long as we hover somewhere above Sperm Count Zero, and with an assist from modern medicine, we have a shot. Men will continue to be essential to the survival of the species. The problem with innovation, though, is that it never stops. A new technology known as IVG – in vitro gametogenesis – is showing early promise at turning embryonic stem cells into sperm. In 2016, Japanese scientists created baby mice by fertilising normal mouse eggs with sperm created via IVG. The stem cells in question were taken from female mice. There was no need for any males.

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FASHION MEETS ART ON SALE NOW

Cohabitate LET US NOW

IMPORTANT PIECES OF ADVICE FOR MOVING IN TOGETHER

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Peter Yang

CONGRATS ON CARING ENOUGH ABOUT SOMEONE TO SHARE A BATHROOM. NOW HEREâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S THE HARD-WON WISDOM YOU NEED TO MAKE IT WORK (INCLUDING THAT SHARED-BATHROOM PART)

Ch ge LET US FIRST BE HONEST...

LET US NOW

YOUR LIFE IS ABOUT TO

LEARN HOW TO FIGHT

(DRAMATICALLY)

James Joyce once sneered at Jesus of Nazareth for having never lived with a woman because it was, in Joyce’s words, ‘one of the most difficult things a man has to do.’ Now, that’s a prickish thing to say, but it’s also true, and women could say it about men, too: when you first move in together, it will be an inevitably bumpy transition out of full bachelorhood. (Trust me, it’s for the best.) Here are some things you should expect. – DREW MAGARY

Not living in a DISGUSTING bachelor pad will be amazing

Surprise: you’re essentially MARRIED NOW

YOUR ONLY PRIVACY will now be in the bathroom

You shouldn’t be afraid to need ALONE TIME or to ask for it

I have no idea how I survived in such squalor. When I lived alone, there were clothes and boogers EVERYWHERE, and I thought that was good living! While sitcoms and beer ads like to take shots at scented candles and throw pillows, it’s genuinely nice to live in a place that has fresh stocks of toilet paper and doesn’t smell like nightclub barf.

A lot of couples live together as a kind of pre-marital test, to see if they can handle living together before making everything ofﬁcial. Well, I’m here to tell you it’s already too late. Even if you two end up HATING living together, what are you gonna do, move out? You’d still be on the hook for your lease. Better to spend the next 60 years wallowing in misery.

Especially in the early days, having a sex roommate can be exciting. But there will be new spatial and privacy considerations. For example: once upon a time, masturbating in bed was very fun and relaxing. That doesn’t happen anymore. No, now when I have to do the deed, I secretly excuse myself to the toilet and get it over with as fast as I can.

If you have to be asked to do a chore, YOU’VE ALREADY FAILED There are dirty dishes in the sink, and you are supposed to inherently know they must be washed rather than having your lady friend harass you to do it. I can tell you that this kind of household ESP takes roughly, oh, I dunno, ten years to acquire. But as with any superpower, it’s worth it.

SIX MONTHS BEFORE MY BOYFRIEND WAS SET TO MOVE IN WITH ME, I took a short-term job in another city.

LET US NOW

Combine our stuff

We decided he should live in the apartment while I was gone and start moving his stuff in. When I came back three months later, I walked through our apartment like a Jane Austen character whose main talent is remembering. I admired the tiny kitchen. I nuzzled my sofa. Then I walked into our office and found myself face-to-face with a hideous new addition: a teal three-eyed Garfield clock that did not work. ‘Hmm,’ I said casually. ‘What is… this?’ ‘A clock,’ my boyfriend replied. ‘I love it.’ Turns out he had a ton of ‘art’ I’d never noticed, most notably a three-foot-long original painting of the bathtub-

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You are entitled, and encouraged, to carve out space for yourself to go walk, or grab a quick bite to eat. Then you can come back to your place refreshed and ready to engage. When couples fail to do this, they foster resentments that can last a lifetime. So don’t do that. Go eat a taco alone instead. Your one true love will thank you for it.

When you live together, it’s very easy to stumble into arguments. You say something innocuous – that you’re kind of over Chrissy Teigen – only to find out it’s extremely divisive, and now you’re both locked in a fight to the death, defending opinions you didn’t even know you held until they were challenged five seconds ago. Which is why every couple needs an argument kill switch, a phrase that you can whip out when you feel a clash brewing. It says, ‘We disagree, but this fight is not worth it.’ In my relationship, our argument kill switch is ‘Okay, sure.’ The phrase is a quick exit ramp. Say my boyfriend and I are watching Killing Eve, idly chatting about dog ownership. Suddenly, before either of us knows what’s happening, we’re arguing about whether to let our dog sleep in the bed. (We don’t even own a dog.) No matter how furious I am at my boyfriend on behalf of Salami (hypothetical dog), if he comes in with ‘Okay, sure,’ we can both go back to drooling over Sandra Oh. Nothing on earth provides more immediate relief than a timely egress from a squabble that you weren’t that invested in, anyway. When you uncork an ‘Okay, sure,’ it swiftly martyrs your pride in favour of peace. Make your couch a safe space. – SOPHIA BENOIT

fight scene from Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and a massive My Neighbor Totoro poster. The art I enjoyed was already hanging – a large Edward Hopper print, a copy of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes, and a Tintin poster – and the clash of styles was startling. So we talked it out and both realised that in order for it to truly be our place, we had to make concessions for it to feel like a home. He isn’t totally in love with my framed print of a woman gruesomely beheading her rapist, and I don’t feel particularly moved by his painting of Pee-wee Herman, but both are prominently displayed because compromise is literally what love is. And if you need to know the time when you’re over, look for the teal three-eyed Garfield clock; I put some batteries in and it works now. » – NICOLE SILVERBERG

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“You are entitled, and encouraged, to carve out space for yourself. Your one true love will thank you for it

”

LET US NOW

DO CHORES SPONTANEOUSLY (WITHOUT OUR NEW HOUSE-SPOUSE HAVING TO ASK US)

LET US NOW

REST IN PEACE (TOGETHER!)

SLEEP TOGETHER COMPATIBLY I’m a warm person, but I like to be cold when I sleep – my dream man is amphibious, even corpselike, to the touch. It’s difficult enough to find a mate whose personality meshes with your own, let alone one whose body and preferred sleeping temperature are compatible with yours. If you, like me, require frigid temperatures to sleep, the prospect of sealing yourself into a feathery coffin with another hot body – who at any given moment may also be farting or flailing around in their sleep – is unsavoury enough to discourage dating altogether. Enter the two-duvet system, popular in Scandinavia (where even hotel rooms feature a pair of spotless white duvets laid out on each bed). For a long time, I operated under the assumption that a couple must enjoy physical intimacy even in slumber, but now I know better. Real intimacy is feeling secure enough with a partner that you can give them a good-night kiss and forget all about them for the next six hours, temperate under your own covers. Embracing the twoduvet system doesn’t mean you’re careening toward a teetotaling, sexless, separate-twin-beds lifetime together. It just means you know what you need to make your relationship sustainable. – LAUREN LARSON

Consult experts

THE

For more advice, we turned to the pros: Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph. Having repeatedly teamed up on Saturday Night Live, they have taken their partnership to the next level with the new series Forever, in which they play a married couple who decide to shake things up by taking a ski trip. – Scott Meslow

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DESPITE HER YOUNG AGE, I believe Jazmine is my wisest friend. When I told her that I was nervous about moving in with my partner, she reassured me: ‘It’ll be an adjustment, but it will be fine and eventually fun.’ She added, ‘But definitely buy a poop candle.’ Idiot that I am, my first thought was that she was suggesting something lavender-scented molded out of artisanal fecal matter. But no, what Jazmine meant was a candle – any candle will do – that can be lit in the event of an evacuation of the secondary kind. Cohabitating well is finding ways to be as considerate as possible, and what’s more accommodating than neutralising the worst smell your body can be responsible for? Plus, a candle is far more effective than any aerosol spray. It’s not just an aroma cleanser but a signal from afar, one that prevents you from having to say, ‘Wow, I just went all Jason Statham on the toilet. You might want to wait a sec.’ And really, what’s more considerate than that? Your partner sees an ignited candle and knows exactly what crime you’ve committed. In its own quiet way, the candle says, ‘I love you, farts and all.’ – KEVIN NGUYEN

AN ODE TO: THE POOP CANDLE

LET US NOW

vi s SHARE YOUR GROSS

In the early days of a relationship, you attempt to craft the likeness of a keeper, even if you can exist on a diet of Dumpster Iron Chef dishes when you’re alone. Cohabitating takes a sledgehammer to all that. Before my wife and I lived together, it was easy to present my best self. If we didn’t eat out, we’d cook for the common good. But sooner or later, you get exposed. Once, when she was out, I whipped up an old bachelor favourite: the corned-beef-hash burrito. I turned on Lost and went primal. She came home early and caught me like a wolfman standing over my kill, flecks of corned-beef hash falling from my mouth as yolk drizzled from my fingers like blood. I did not seem like someone any person would want to start a life with. She just laughed and said ew without malice, but after that Big Bang Theory–worthy mishap, I cleaved a way forward. – ALEX SIQUIG

Let your true COLOURS shine

It ain’t that SERIOUS

Divulge your SECRE TS

You are gross. Giggle about the fact that you should never be allowed into any restaurant featured on Chef’s Table, and that’s something you can live with. Having a sense of humour disarms and deﬂates needlessly defensive urges.

You are two people who have decided to anger two sets of parents and live in sin; chances are your partner has secret indulgences, too. The moment I learnt my (future) wife was obsessed with Wimpy was the moment I knew everything would be okay.

We all have unsavoury tastes. We like weird stuff. It makes us happy. There’s nothing wrong with that. Own your nastiness. The way to emancipate yourself is tell the person you love that you also like eating digestible rubbish.

What’s the ﬁrst big thing a couple should buy together? Rudolph: A new couch. No one has moved in together and been like, ‘I have this great couch. Let’s drag it it from my old roommate’s apartment. You’re going to love it.’ How do you avoid snapping when your partner hogs the bathroom for an hour? Armisen: Multiple bathrooms. That is, like, the make or break of all relationships. What unexpected life changes should you be ready for? Rudolph: Be prepared to go vegan. At some point, one of you is going to try out a new diet.

Should silverware face up or down when you put it in the dishwasher? Armisen: Up. Because when they’re down, they just sort of get hidden, you know? How do you stop an argument from escalating? Amrisen: I used to be passive-aggressive and stay quiet, thinking I was being a real hero. But I’ve become better at expressing myself. If there’s something I disagree with, I’ll say my piece. And then I’ll drop it. Rudolph: If you can, resolve something before bed without letting it hang over you into the morning like a dusty far cloud, do it.

DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 97

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P H O T O G R A P H B Y N I Q U I TA B E N T O . C A P R 6 9 9 C A LV I N K L E I N

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DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 / 99

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The party suit New Year’s Eve is the best excuse to dress up and embrace the holiday season. Wearing a suit is an easy and stylish way to impress. We suggest you go for woolblend that is light and breathable. Let your suit do the heavy lifting and keep your shirt and shoes relatively simple – after all, it is the holidays.

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Price of prints Pick a print that speaks to mood rather than reason, something that makes you feel good. Wear it all together for a knockout summer edge or simply pair these pieces with simpler, easy-to-wear basics. Consider for a braai, pool party, resort or simply for hopping around town.

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Take it easy Take an effortless approach to holiday style with a luxurious athleisure aesthetic. Sports-inspired loungewear is what we’re talking about. Easy, relaxed and stylish – whether it’s on the couch, on an offshore adventure or next to the water.

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Hat trick Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to protect you from the harmful sun, or simply because of a bad hair day, hats are a crucial part of your holiday wardrobe. Bucket hats, baseball (dad) caps and panama hats are your best travel companions this season.

Vest R1 000 Bag R500 Sol-Sol at OSCS Shorts R899.95 Hurley Hat R199 Crystal Birch at Superbalist Sunglasses POR Prada at Luxottica

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Shirt R599 Zara Shorts R2 195 Paul Smith Sunglasses R2 190 Oakley

Shirt R699 Jacket R999 Short R599 Zara Hat R199 Crystal Birch at Superbalist Sandals R349 Havainas Fashion Assistants Mira Liebowitz & Luke Ruiters Groomer Roxanne Sayers Model Mikhail at Boss Models Shot on location at Banksia Boutique Hotel banksiaboutique.co.za

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Board thoughts Don’t be subtle: go for something bright and breezy to spend the day in at the pool or the beach – whatever ﬂoats your boat.

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Forget the stoner stereotypes. One by one, other countries have legalised cannabis and the industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s already gone pro Edited by Paul Henderson Words by Alex Godfrey 110 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

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PHOTOGRAPH BY GETTY IMAGES

‘I LOVE BRINGING POLITICIANS into our labs,’ says Chris Driessen, president of Organa Brands, North America’s leading legal distributor of cannabis. ‘It blows their minds when they see what’s behind the door. It’s not a ragtag bunch of stoners trying to figure out a business in a smoky room. These are people with advanced degrees, highly skilled professionals who have already been really successful in business. Our office looks more like Google than a drug den.’ Since American states began legalising cannabis – especially for recreational use, starting in 2012 – the industry has been threatening to rival traditional big businesses. Leading the charge are shrewd, savvy operators touting joints, vapes, drinks, gummies and sprays. In the US, the industry counted $9 billion in sales last year, with 2018 predicted to see $12b; by 2030, this is projected to reach $75bn, higher than last years wine revenue. Companies are racing to become national brands, from humble startups to megamonied playboys such as Dan Bilzerian, who announced that he wants his upcoming brand ‘to be the Coca-Cola of the weed industry’. In the UK, meanwhile, home secretary Sajid Javid recently announced that medicinal cannabis products will be legalised (albeit only for patients with ‘exceptional clinical need’). It’s been a long time coming. More than 40 countries now boast either unenforced laws or some degree of decriminalisation and Canada just became the first G7 country to go fully legal, medically and recreationally. Until this year, cannabis was a Schedule 1 drug in Britain, meaning it had ‘no therapeutic value’, but this was always a thick-headed assertion: marijuana has around 400 compounds, many of which have medical effects. CBO (oil without the psychoactive THC compound) can ease pain and nausea and reduce symptoms of rare diseases, while cannabis has had positive effects on cancer patients. Cannabis is now Schedule 2, after the UK government decided it had medical uses after all. The recent cases of Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell, two children needing medicinal cannabis to ease their epilepsy, paved the way for change. Yet Javid has stressed that legal recreational use is ‘in no way’ on the horizon. This despite a recent report stating that legalisation could save £300 million in policing, criminal justice and drug treatment services, and a June study showing that it could generate annual tax revenues of £3.5bn. The latter is surely an enticing figure. The UK could do with the cash; besides, it’s already the world’s biggest producer of legal cannabis for medical and scientific research (95 tonnes in 2016, 44.9 per cent of the official global total), as well as the biggest marijuana exporter. They are giants. And yet, in terms of recreational business – well, there is no business. In America it’s booming. Organa operates in ten states, doing ‘north of $100m retail sales every year,’ says Driessen. ‘And the number grows significantly every year.’ The company was born in Colorado, which, in 2012, pioneered legal recreational cannabis; two

‘This Isn’t a hippie product: it’s made by, people who know what they ’re doing’ years later, Sarah Silverman was flaunting her Organa vape on the Emmys red carpet. Every company has its own story. Organa cofounder Chris McElvany started in 2007 by playing around with e-cigarettes, wondering how to insert cannabis oil. Nancy Whiteman, founder of Wana (short for marijuana) Brands, also based in Colorado, was a marketing and sales consultant when a family friend got in to the marijuanainfused soda business. Soon after, Whiteman and her then husband began to experiment in the kitchen. Wana is now Colorado’s biggest edibles producer (mainly gummies), available in four states and moving into more. Wana’s tagline is ‘Enhance Your life’. ‘It’s a mainstream positioning that we think a lot of people relate to.’ Whiteman explains. Their clean packaging was designed to avoid the stereotypical stoner image. ‘I wanted our products to look professionally made, like something you could go into Whole Foods and pick up. It communicates that this isn’t a hippie product: this is made by people who know what they’re doing.’ She cites consistency as key, in terms of both taste and potency – from state to state, customers need to know exactly what their taste buds and brains are going to experience. But the federal issue has made that a challenge. ‘The packaging is different in every state. Some say it has to be a certain font, some say you can’t have pictures of fruit on the label. It’s maddening from a marketing viewpoint. There’s no way to achieve brand consistency.’ But these companies still have a head start on the corporate giants, who can’t get involved in cannabis because of the federal illegality. The newbies have expanded ferociously and achieved effective dominance. ‘It’s given us this

shroud of protection,’ says Driessen, ‘where the large tobacco and alcohol companies simply can’t come into the market yet.’ If (or when) the big corporates do get involved, he hopes that rather than putting his like out of business, they’ll want to acquire them. He describes the cannabis world as ‘a rocket ship – the next great American industry.’ Britain is watching. GW Pharmaceuticals, one of the world’s biggest cannabis companies, licensed to grow it for medical use abroad and listed on the Nasdaq, is based in Norfolk. British firm Sativa Investments, which funds medical cannabis ventures, floated in London this March. Tobacco giant Imperial Brands has bought research firm Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies. In June, the former Conservative leader William Hague wrote in The Daily Telegraph that the war on cannabis had been ‘comprehensively and irreversibly lost,’ and called on Theresa May to legalise it. The idea was quickly dismissed by Downing Street: the evidence is very dear that cannabis can cause serious harm when it is misused: not like, say, alcohol. And remind us of the therapeutic value of cigarettes? But in the wake of medical legalisation, change may be coming. Whiteman has some dear-headed advice for those who hope to leap in when it does. ‘Don’t reinvent the wheel,’ she says. ‘Look at models that have been implemented successfully: a 60-year-old mother of two, Whiteman’s life has changed dramatically in the last eight years. ‘If you came up with a stereotype of someone starting a cannabis business,’ she says, laughing, ‘it probably wouldn’t be me. This is a growing, mainstream company with real professionals.’ Cheech and Chong it ain’t.

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DESPITE WHAT SOME POLITICIANS MAY HAVE YOU BELIEVE, the

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Your skin is the body’s first line of defence and, as we head into unprecedented changes in our environment, your current grooming routine might need an overhaul

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majority of climate change scientists – according to the latest research, that’s 97% of the experts to be exact – agree that global warming is real. And with predictions that we’re heading towards irreversible and catastrophic environmental destruction sooner than initially expected, your body – and in particular, your skin – isn’t exempt from the harsh, unforgiving damage that can be caused by the outside world.

Back to the smart people we should be listening to, studies conducted by NASA reveal that the sun’s rays are indeed getting stronger. Translation: you should be wearing sunscreen every single day, and yes, even in winter or when it’s overcast. Elizabeth Arden Prevage City Smart Broad Spectrum SPF 50 Hydrating Shield 50ml R800 La Roche-Posay Anthelios XL SPF50+ Sensitive Areas Stick 9g R220 Skinceuticals Physical Eye UV Defense 10ml R485

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Timeless design The Longines Skin Diver Watch In homage to a watchmaking tradition of 185 years, Longines is breathing new life into its ﬁrst diver watch, initially introduced in 1959 when water sports were becoming extremely popular. This new creation features high-performing, modern technical characteristics, while preserving the spirit and clean lines of the original. ●

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L as t Word

VEGETARIANISM The number of vegetarians in the US has grown by some 1 300 per cent since 1971. TOFU Or tempeh, if you prefer. Hippies loved their soy products.

BROWN RICE Good source of fiber, good for your soul. What more could you want from a grain? TURMERIC This hippie spice is having a moment. Add it to anything, from chicken to yogurt.

ORGIES You don’t need to move to San Francisco for this! There’s likely a vast, trendy world of sex parties in a city near you. Respect is mandatory; participation, optional. POLYAMORY Free love is woke.

MEDITATION Hippies called it meditation; we call it mindfulness. Think you don’t have the time? There’s an app for that. YOGA Office yoga is a thing now. Namaste, kids.

The Summer of Love may be half a century behind us, but hippie culture is still a force in our lives

PSYCH ROCK Tame Impala psychedelic wunderkind Kevin Parker collabs with stars like Lady Gaga and gets covered by Rihanna. FESTIVALS Thirty-two million Americans go to music festivals each year.

120 / DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019

THE DEAD Still grateful, not dead yet; now with John Mayer.

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