ILISO magazine
October 2020 Issue 3
HOME
by zukiswa white (12 october 2019, jozi)
“The City. . .did you see how, uhm, there were some portraits (editor's note: Sam Hlengethwa’s Joburg Selected) where there was uhm. . . [Turns to Uber driver] “Straight neh?” “Pictures from the 50s? Fucking around with the idea of belonging. Also, for me, what it did. . .” [Turns to Uber driver] “Oh right.” “Something about home. Someone whose Mother is from the North West, father from the Eastern Cape. There was a sense. . .uhm, that this is my home. I’ve always had to question and interrogate belonging; like, I belong here, and we belong everywhere. [Turns to Uber driver] “Üp straight.” “In that belonging there was always ‘notbelonging’; the ways in which people from the 50s were placed. Oh my God there’s not enough time!” “Gentlemen, I might see you later neh?” [Turns to Uber driver] “Thank you” [Slams door].
Tatenda Chidora
SAMPHEKA NGOGOZWANE! UCUBUNGULO LWEALBUM “INGANEKWANE” KA ZOË MODIGA
Tatenda Chidora
kholeka shange
Tatenda Chidora
Uma ikhuluma ngomlando wayo
njengomhlabeleli
ongusaziwayo, iyasho
lentokazi
ukuthi
wayo
umculo ungenxa
wezimfundiso eyakhuliswa Kulesisikhathi
sesigemegeme
somqedazwe
ngazo.
I-biography
ekuthiwa phecelezi i-Corona noma i-Covid-19, u-
elotshwe
Zoë Modiga usipha ikhambi elilapha ingqondo,
ithi
inhliziyo, nomphefumulo. Lenyoni enhle (kwasho
kanye nomphakathi wase-
ihubo
eliyintandokazi
yaseMgungundlovu bethu
ekuthiwa
iqopha
ngokuhlabelela
Ukuhlabelela)
imilando
yokhokho
okuthokozisa
thina
ngalo
ugogo,
Mbali
leliciko umkhulu,
(okuyilokishi
laseMgungundlovu) wagqugquzela of
“the
esidabukileyo…thina esicindezekileyo…thina bantu
retention
African
esilwela inkululeko.
stories and culture”
(phecelezi
ukugcinwa
kwemilando
nezindlela
(ephume
ngezi
zokuphila nokwenza zase-Afrika). Lamazwi acishe
enyangeni
afane
bese
nalawa ashiwo umbhali waseshashalazini,
wakhe.
ekhuluma ngogogo wakhe omzalayo uNozincwadi.
amazwi
Encwadini
eqanjwe
ngokuthi
Zimnandi
uMhlophe,
uchaza
kabanzi
yakhe
Ngokuphindwa
kaNtulikazi)
ekhuluma
umlingisi, nomlandi wezindaba uGcina Mhlophe
26
ngogogo
Uma
ulandela kaMhlophe,
kusobala
ukuthi
ungumuntu
ugogo
obaluleke
ngendima eyadlalwa ugogo wakhe ekumfundiseni
kakhulu
ngokubaluleka
ngesisindo
samabali
nemilando.
Futhi,
kwezindaba,
izinsumansumane
kanye
izinganekwane,
nemilando
yabantu.
UMhlophe uthi:
“Ugogo
udokotela uBabalwa
wami
ukungixoxela
ekufundiseni
kwakungumuntu
izinganekwane.
Wavula
wokuqala
Magoqwana
umqondo
kabanzi
naye
ubhala
ngobukhulu
wami wangikhuthaza ukubona izinto ngamehlo
bukamakhulu
engqondo:
ngaze
ukuthi “gogo” ngesiXhosa)
zingwenya
ezihlekayo
ayekhuluma
ngazibona
ngazo.
ngempela
nezimfudu
lezo
ezindizayo
Ngangizithokozela
ngisho
(okusho
emphakathini. Esahlukweni
sakhe
izinganekwane zakhe ngamaZimuzimu esabekayo
esiqanjwe
–
Repositioning uMakhulu as
abantu
ababedla
abanye
abantu,
nezidalwa
eziningi ezenza imigilingwane. Ngenxa yendlela
an
ugogo ayengixoxela ngayo lezi zindaba, ngasheshe
Knowledge:
ngafunda
‘Biologism’
ngisemncane
ukujabulela
izilimi
body
nokuwaqonda amandla azo”. Akulona
iphutha
ukuthi
umhlabeleli
uModiga
aqambe i-album yakhe entsha “Inganekwane”
ngokuthi
Institution
of Beyond
towards
the
of
Indigenous
Knowledge,
u-Magoqwana
uthi
ugogo
“is
institution of knowledge
an
that transfers not only ‘history’ through iintsomi
ukubaluleka
(folktales), but [is] also […] a body of indigenous
lapho
umuntu
aphuma
knowledge that stores, transfers and disseminates
noma
lapho
akhulele
knowledge and values”.
khona. Ukukhula kukaningi kodwa
kokubungaza
iningi
elikhulele
Okushiwoyo uMagoqwana lapha ukuthi ngendlela
emakhaya nasemalokishini
aqukethe ulwazi ngayo ugogo, angaqhathaniswa
ase-Azania liyayazi indaba
nendlu yemfundo. Phela, uma ucabanga indlu,
yokuxoxwa
awukwazi
kwezinganekwane
ukungacabangi
nophahla
ngokuba
ngesisekelo,
ilona
insika,
elibangumkhuseli
Njengayo
ogogo.
i-album
lena
kaModiga, inganekwane
isalukazi
Kulesisikhathi
Tatenda Chidora
wabantu nezinto. Ngamanye amagama, ukuba
akuphathelene
nokuguga
komzimba
ngibona
kuphela, kodwa kumayelene nokwazi nobuhlakani.
kubalulekile ukusho ukuthi
Leliphuzu
noma
ave
uMagoqwana
libaluleke
uyasho
ukuthi
kakhulu siphila
ngoba
emhlabeni
abantu
abaningi
betolika
lesisisho
wamaKepitali athi umuntu ongasiyena umsebenzi
ngesiNgisi
oletha imali nomnotho akayilutho. Okusho ukuthi
“once upon a time”, mina
lokhu
ngiyakuxwaya
“ukungabi
elilimaza
lutho”
umphakathi
uMhlophe
kanye
kukagogo
wabantu.
noModiga
kuyilumbu
UMagoqwana,
upon
sisho
lokhu. a
u Lo
time”
uyisisho
esiphelele
ugogo osephathwa njengomuntu ongasenandima
esingadingi
mpendulo.
emphakathini.
Kanti
Bahlonipha
bayamphakamisa
“once
bethi
ubuntu
bakhe
ngokumenza umuntu omkhulu emhlabeni.
“ukwasukasukela”
uyadinga lo olalele ukuthi akhulume.
Le-album
ekuthiwa
Inganekwane
iqukethe
okuningi, kodwa okuwucu kuwowonke amaculo
ukuthi
Akujwayelekile lo
oxoxa
inganekwane avele angene
endabeni
engakamuzwa
lo
olalele
ethi
“cosi”.
Wadal’ uMdali
Emva kwaye lo “cosi”, lo oxoxa indaba ub’esethi
Wadala abantu
“kwakukhona”. Bese lona olalele ethi “sampheka
Ebadala
ngogozwane”.
yakhe
Ikulo
ke
Ugozwane
lelibhodwe
ke
lapho
ibhodwe indaba
elincane.
ngemicabango
iyophekwa
khona ize ivuthwe. Futhi ngeke ivuthwe umlaleli
Lengoma
engakavumelani nalo oxoxayo ukuthi ngempela
ukubaluleka
“cosi cosi yaphela”.
komphefumulo
otholakala
emzimbeni
womuntu.
Engikushoyo
ukuthi
laba
abasincelile
isiNgisi
igcizelela
KuModiga
umphefumulo
abayazi indaba yokushikizisana nalona oxoxayo.
ovela
Uma oxaxoyo esethe “Once upon a time” uqedile!
okungamele
Akunakudlala phakathi koxoxayo nolalele. Kuthule
sithathwe kancane. Lokhu
kuthe du kuyoze kuyophela indaba! Yikho ngikhala
kusemqoka
kakhulu
ngithi
ngesikhathi
sobhubhane,
ewu,
engatolikwa
sengathi ngayo
kungaba
neze
ingcindezi,
nokucwasa
Noma, mhlawumbe asikho isidingo sokuyitolika
esibhekene
nakho
lendaba
singabantu be-Azania.
noGcina
ka
indlela
uyisipho
“kwasukasukela”.
ngoba
indaba
nenye
kuMdali
Mhlophe
imbala
uthi
“Manje-ke, ngenxa yokuthi sengisebenzisa ulimi lwesiNgisi uma ngibhala, ngike ngixakeke ngingazi
Umculo
ukuthi ngiwubeke kanjani umbono wami ngoba
usasixwayiso
Okunye akulula ukukuchaza”. Okucacile ngamazwi
samlolozelo
ofika
kaMhlophe ukuthi uma abantu bebhala ngesiNgisi
ngesikhathi
esibucayi
bengasincelanga,
kwasa
kuba
nzima
ngempela
ukuyichazisisa indaba. UModiga wenza umsebenzi oncomekayo
ngokucula
ngolimi
akhule
kaModiga ubuye
mqambi
ube
maculo
uReuben Tholakele Caluza.
ngalo.
Izingoma zakhe zenza kube lula ukuthi aqondwe
UCaluza wabona kufanele
abantu
ukuthi
abafana
nogogo
nomkhulu
wakhe…
okuyinto ebaluleke kakhulu.
ashaye
ngesikhathi
ingoma
esibi
sesifo
ekwakuthiwa i-Spanish Flu Njengoba
besengishilo
phambilini,
le-album
emhlabeni
imumethe okuningi impela. Uma ulalela lengoma
Ngonyaka
ethi
waqamba
UMdali,
uyabona
futhi
uyezwa
ukuthi
wonke. ka iculo
1918, owalibiza
uModiga uthi umuntu wenyama negazi uyisidalwa.
i-Influenza. Yasho ingoma
Uyacula uthi:
yakhe yathi:
UMdali
Ngonyaka ka 1918, saqedwa
ukufa,
Umsebenzi
kubizwa ngokuthi kuyi i-influenza.
uthanda ukugxila kakhulu
Yaziqeda izihlobo esizithandayo,
ekutheni intsha ibambelela
Abo mama, nabo baba, nosisi, nobhuti.
ethembeni
Kweminye
imizi
kwaqothulwa
kwangasala
noyedwa.
kaModiga
ngenkani.
Esizulwini, inkani ibonwa njengento
esasici
kodwa
umhlabeleli Lobubuhlungu
obabubanga
ngalesiya’s’khathi nsumansumane ebantwini
umunyu
esizwakala yasemandulo
bakithi
abaphila
njenge
bufikile manje.
nalapha
Mhlawumbe
lona
ulinganisa
inkani
nokuphikelela nokuphokophela. zesiZulu
Izisho
ezimayelene
uModiga uthunywe nguye uMdali ukukhumbuza
nenkani zinakho ukukhuza
abantu
abantu
abadaliweyo
yezenzo
ukuthi
nemicibango
yakhe
bayimiphumela uNkulunkulu.
UModiga ubuye athi:
ngalokhu
ukuziphatha. Kujwayelekile kuthiwe
ukuthi
“Amaphikankani
Uma singaz’izifiso ezabaphambili
afela
Amaphupho akudala sizowafeza kanjani na?
“Kwaphekwa
yena,
kwaphekwa
itshe,
enkanini”
Lokhu akuhubayo uModiga kuchaza khona ukuthi
kwavuthwa
“Indlela
(bheka
ibuzwa
kwabaphambili”
(njengembhalo
yezaga encwadini ka Sibusiso Nyembezi no O. E. H.
Nxumalo
okuthiwa
yi
Nqolobane
Yesizwe).
uthatha
yona
ukuthi
ayenze
abofuna
izeluleko
kwabanye” (bheka Inqolobane Yesizwe futhi).
kuqala”
Yesizwe). Kepha uModiga exwaywayo
kufanele
itshe
Inqolobane
Lesisaga esitholakala ezilimini zamaNguni sisho “Umuntu
noma
lenkani ayiguqule
umkhuba
intsha
owenza
(njengokusho
kwamaculo akhe ekuthiwa Umculo kaModiga uthatha umuntu umxhumanise
Intsha
noMdali kanye nomphakathi wabantu abadaliweyo.
“[Inge]sabi
Konke lokhu kusho ukuthi umuntu akayedwa vo
“..ifez’ amaphupho”.
kodwa
uMdali
umphile
umndeni
Sinenkani)
ne
lutho”
futhi
omkhulu
owenziwe ngomfanekiso wakhe. UModiga uphinde
Inganekwane
asho futhi ukuthi uMdali akaphisani ngalomndeni
lwamaculo
kuphela, kodwa uphana nangethemba eliphilisayo.
khona
Indaba yethemba ke ave idingeka kulesisikhathi
unesifiso soku “…shintsh’
njengoba isaga samaNguni sisho ukuthi “Ithemba
um’
alibulali”.
kwakhe engomeni
iliqoqo akhombisa
ukuthi hlaba”
uModiga
(njekokusho
Isegazini). Umhlaba ke nawo ukaningi. Umbhali
Nomfundo
wezichazamazwi
author's
uMpume
Mbatha
uyachaza
encwadini Isichamazwi SesiZulu ukuthi umhlaba “Izwe
esiphila
siqinti”.
Uma
kulo”,
“ingabadi”,
uthatha
kanye
ubheka
ne
Shange,
the
mother,
proofread the article.
“…
lezizincazelo
UKholeka
Shange
zikaMbatha, uyabona impela ukuthi uma uModiga
ungumfundi
ekhuluma
othanda izinto ezikhulula
aphinde
ngomhlaba, athinte
uthinta
udaba
neyomhlabathi.
lezwe
Njengentsha
nombhali
umphefumulo—
ekhulele ezweni elinokucwaswa nokucindezelwa kwabantu abantshontshelwa umhlaba (kakhulukazi ngokumenyezelwa kwe Native Land Act ngonyaka
1. Ukubungazwa
ka 1913), uModiga udikidana nemeko esuka kude
kukaModiga
futhi ephuthumayo nebuhlungu kakhulu.
Ngo
kukaningi. 2018,
waklomeliswa
i-
Lesisithombe sakhe (esitholakala ku-album yakhe
Mbokodo
entsha) ephakathi ntshi esibayeni esinezinkomo
wabuye wakhethwa ku-
eziyizinhlobonhlobo,
Best
sifana
nesikhumbuzo
Award
Jazz
Album
ne
sobudlelwane phakathi kwabantu nomhlaba wabo.
Best African Artist ku
Uma uphonsa iso le kude, uyabona ukuthi indaba
24th
South
African
ayikho
Music
Awards
ngenxa
esibayeni
kuphela,
kodwa
ihamba
ize
iyofika le ezintabeni…le emazulwini lapho uMdali
ye-album
adala khona abantu…
yokuqala
ekuthiwa
Yellow,
the
Novel.
Futhi,
ngo
nyaka
ka2015,
wafumana
…abantu abamnyama. Kusobala
impela
olukhulu
lwabantu
iyasikhuza
ukuthi
lentokazi
abamnyama.
eculweni
layo
inothando
Iyakhala elithi
futhi
Abantu.
Iyasikhumbuza ithi: ASIKHOLWA BANT’ ABAMNYAMASIKHETHIWE BANT’ ABAMNYAMAMASAKHANENI SIZOBONA K’ZOJIKIZINTO Makubenjalo Modiga, makubenjalo.
yakhe
SAMRO Scholarship.
i-
i-
Overseas
Hlomani Izikhali III" A1 / 59,4cm x 84.1cm
SETHEMBISO ZULU AND THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF TRANSCENDENCY
"Ikhaya Likamoya" A1 / 59,4cm x 84.1cm
vusumzi nkomo
photographic ensemble of 15 monochrome images of Black people congregated in "Okweshumi" A1 / 59,4cm x 84.1cm (paper size) Edition of 6 plus 2AP, Fine Art Reg, POR
The effect of moving is in fact internal to Black
a
makeshift
called
church, Ukuphila
KwamaKrestu,
located
in
Soweto.
life. Blacks-in-(fugitive)-motion has always been a form of transgression, perceived as essential(ly)
The
destructive
sharing a name with the
force.
So
it
remained
elusive,
entry
transcendental, open, open to be claimed, while it
title
can claim every body.1
introduces space
of of
photograph, the us
show, to
this
worship,
Ikhaya Likamoya, Sethembiso Zulu’s debut solo
structure
show at North West University Gallery, is a
“corrugated iron walls”
made
a of
adorned by flags and a wooden cross, erected in a
moving or spinning in an
dusty open-field.
otherwise
From the second photograph
stationary
we learn that we’re already too late, the service is
world”,
in procession, peopled by spinning figures in
simultaneously
prayer (“Ababekhwe Izandla III”), pain (“Yehla
sensation
Moya Oyingcwele II”), motion (“Hlomani Izikhali I,
environment
II & III”) and healing (“Ababekhwe Izandla II”). But
perpetually unhinged” and
there’s more to this rich visual essay.
“a
life
while in
that
a
“one’s is
constituted
by
disorientation rather than The show is a brief vignette of syncretic Black
a
life
interrupted
spiritual practices whose ethnographic
disorientation.”3
by
"Iladi" A1 / 59,4cm x 84.1cm (paper size)
methodology
is
participation.
This aesthitic intervention
Sethembiso draws us into what has drawn him, as
is suggestive of what T. J.
we
Demos
witness
him
photographic with.
There
that
of
seized
participants is
no
active by
what
he’s
in
(obvious)
seizes
the
community moment
of
calls
“ghostly
presences that refuse to rest.
.
.and
cannot
disassociation, as he “attempts to weaponize his
situated
firmly
lens in order to cease being a voyeur of the
representation.”4
be
within
happenings around him”, as Molatelo puts it.2 There’s nothing still about “Vertigo must have seized them…”
these
images.
The
photographer’s There
is
something
photographs,
an
spectral
imbalance,
a
about collision
these
explanatory
of
replete
a
gestures with
are
active
subjective vertigo and objective vertigo, as Frank
enunciations, as seen in a
Wilderson III says, “a dizzying sense that one is
conversation
with Zaza Hlalethwa5 (who curiously uses the
exhibitions that seem to
phrase “still depictions”.
rob the photographer as much as it robs us.
However, I’m accusing the presentation of being conceptually
unimaginative
and
didactic,
1.
Moten,
F.
2015.
Lives
Do
instructive. The attempt to narrativise the series
Black
Matter?:
and conclusively indicate a thematic denouement
Robin D.G. Kelley and
is stale and operates at the level of “stunts that
Fred
have come to typify curatorial practice [and]
Conversation.
slowly leading towards sterility,”6 as Athi Joja
Resistence.
once wrote of Umlindelo Wamakholwa by
here:
Moten
in Critical
Available
https://vimeo.com/116 111740 2. Molatelo, 2020. Text in IKHAYA
LIKAMOYA.
[Exhibition Portfolio]. 3. Wilderson, F. 2011. The Vengeance of Vertigo: Aphasia and Abjection in "Ababekhwe Izandla II" A1 / 59,4cm x 84.1cm (paper size
the
PoliticalTrials
ofBlack
Insurgents.
InTensions photographer
Sabelo
Mlangeni.
The
first
photograph is the moment of calm, before the spiritual
drama
and
upheaval
that
subsumes
everyone and slowly dissipates until it is no more on the second last image, “iladi”. The last image, “Okweshumi”,
closes
the
service;
open
hands
holding an open bible with carefully placed coins, the offerings. This adherence to conventional narrative
strategies
is
the
lowest
and
underwhelming point of the series. However, this is an impressive body of work by Sethembiso that could’ve made for an exciting viewing experience were it not for lockdown restrictions which limited us to virtual
York
Journal. University
(Toronto, Canada). 4. Demos,
T.
Return
J.
2013.
to
the
Postcolony: Specters of Colonialisms
in
Contemporary
Art.
Sternberg Press. 5. Hlalethwa, ‘Ikhaya
Z.
2020.
Likamoya’:
Sethembiso Zulu ushers us
into
Available here:
church.
https://www.news24.com/arts/arts/ikhayalikamoya-sethembiso-zulu-ushers-us-intochurch-20200710 6.
Joja,
A.
2018.
Sabelo
Wamakholwa.
Mlangeni’s
Umlindelo
Available
https://africanah.org/sabelo-mlangenisumlindelo-wamakholwa/
here:
Author: Prof Xavier Livermon
KWAITO ON THE MOVE: DIS + CONTINUITIES IN THE AFRODIASPORA
Book cover. Photo by Neo Ntsoma
vusumzi nkomo
complexity,
what
it
has
meant and given to the
Boom Shaka (From left: Thembi Seete, Junior Sokhela, Lebo Mathosa, Theo Nhlengethwa)
world,
even
when
world
insists
on
the not
wanting what it gives (or holds and has to give in its
In Euro-modern philosophical anthropology and
“outstretched
aesthetic judgement, Blacks, as Kant wrote, never
but can’t live without. The
“rise above the trifling,” but so too are their
world doesn’t want it and
cultural productions dismissed1
what it gives because it “constitutes
hands”2),
a
profound
Movement in the African diaspora is an enmeshed,
threat. . .to the already
interweaving, Relational dynamic, a motion of
existing normative order”
mobile Black bodies, in the Glissant sense. It is in
and thus the Movement’s
this sense that we get to truly appreciate its
wings must be “clipped. . .
regulate it, exclude it, incercarate it”; it also can’t
challenge(s/d)
live without it and what it gives so it must
constructions
“incorporate it, capitalize upon it, exploit it,
and
accumulate it.”3
prominent Kwaito artists
of
sexuality,
gender
and
reconfigured This dual ethical consideration cuts across Xavier Livermon’s
recent
Kwaito
Bodies:
Remastering
how these
normative strictures in an impressively performative
Space and Subjectivity in Post-Apartheid South
fashion.
Africa, as it should cut across all meditations on
productively
Black (social) life and bodies racially designated
within the cartography &
as Black, the things they produce, and the fucked
genealogy of Black
up ways in which those things are misunderstood
cultural
at best, and misunderstood at worst. More fucked
the
up is the ways in which these bodies (Black), their
whose
physical location (Diaspora), “would not be names
political and performative
at all were it not for the trade in human cargo”4
traditions
and
foundations
the
“structural
violence”
which
has
Kwaito
is
positioned
production
African
and
diaspora
sonic,
sartorial,
influence
its
and
give
its
most
paradigmatically positioned these bodies since
impetus
the colonial Encounter.
groundbreaking moments. We
are
to
drawn
into
a
Kwaito Bodies is an ethnographic study of Kwaito,
critique of Kwaito as it
the
emerges
music
genre
and
culture
birthed
in
and
develops
Johannesburg, and based on fieldwork conducted
alongside
very
in Jozi by the author. The book deploys Black
political
queer and feminist theory as the primary analytic
developments
lenses through which to think about how Kwaito
apartheid uncertainty, the
and
specific historical
from
late-
triumph of global capitalism neoliberal paradigm
Despite the seeping anti-
over the Soviet Union, and the Rainbow Nation,
Identity
only to be dragged back to the destruction of
sentiments
Sophiatown.
conceptual
generative
Key
to
this
concepts,
lifelong like
study
are
“melancholic
Politics against
the
characterization of Black
conviviality” (the centrality of the past in the
people
collective imagination and cultural production),
(sentiments
“cultural
and
accompanied by a desire
disintegration at the level of collective meaning),
and demand to speak in
“Remastery” (of space and sound and freedoms
affirming
“within the residual context of racial
ways about Black people),
trauma”
colonialism”),
(loss
“Kwaito
of
identity
bodies”
(creators,
as
‘bodies’ often
and
positive
I find Xavier’s deployment
performers and consumers of Kwaito as they are
of
engaged
a
generative & multilayered,
space Xavier defines as a “ forum for feminine
and deserving of defense.
agency” in the post-apartheid Apartheid milieu),
The
and “Afrodiasporic Space”. Xavier mentions that
central site and enabler of
in
subversive
practices,
occupying
‘bodies’
body
to
be
quite
becomes
a
critique, because, among Afrodiasporic exchange culturally, musically,
many other reasons, the
politically, and performatively between Black
“body
South Africans and Blacks from elsewhere
critical
is
everywhere
theorizing
in
about
reveals that the complex interplay andcross-
performance”, if we are to
fertilizations of styles within kwaito cannot be
bite Mlondolozi Zondi5. It
dismissed as something new
is necessary, as the author told me in an unpublished conversation, “to read the
body as you would a text,” but to do so in a way
dispossessed.”6
that ensures that the thinker engaged in the critical enquiry doesn’t “disappear from the text”.
Further,
As far as methodological practice is concerned, he
embodied or “performance
mentions that “there are limitations to what my
ethnography”,
body can understand and interpret”, even though
kind
this
genre loosely defined by
must
not
be
instrumentalized
to
mean
“ward[ing] off legitimate criticism of the text”.
of
this
careful enables
a
“auto-theory”,
a
Vinson Cunningham as an “attempt
to
arrive
at
a
Additionally, with the risk of sounding morbidly
philosophy by way of the
fascinated with Black people, Xavier lands
self”7, or to “theorize from
(accidentally)
at
a
level
of
abstraction
that
a place of lived embodied
permits a theorizing about Blackness from the
experience,
a
point of Flesh and corporeal, Black bodies as they
exposure.”8
The
appear. I call it accidental because the author
intercepted,
or
optimistically
by
articulates,
advances,
arguments
possibility
of
freedoms
which
is
foregrounded which
he
site
of
book
is
rather
to
say
punctuated,
by
the
autobiographical sketches
suspiciously
(weaved
with
brief critical
codes as “new”, but are so artificial they warrant
gender and race theory) of
a dismissal of the very concept of freedom. But
the
author’s
the body, or flesh, as a locus of theorizing opens
Jozi
where
space for what Aliyyah I. Abdur-Rahman, in the
immerse
Black Grotesquerie, calls a “diminished life” of the
the
“death bound [who] find themselves marked for
nightclubs,
disposal, deportation, and death, that is, the most
tarvens, festivals , June 16
socially, politically, and materially
festivities etc) and
sojourn he
got
in to
himself
within
community
(the
township
observed the queering of space and queering of
5.
future-dreams.
(2020).
What
would
otherwise
be
inaccessible fancy theory is made relatable to the intimate
moments
I
would
active
call
self-
Mlondolozi
Zondi, Haunting
Gathering: and
Black
Dance
Afro-pessimism.
archiving (of both the author’s life as well as his
Taken from Dossier: Afro-
newly
pessimist
found
compatriots)
that
takes
place
throughout the book.
Aesthetics,
edited by Sampada Aranke and Huey Copeland.
The book’s attempt to zoom into those moments
6.
that
Rahman,
fall
outside
commendable;
of
for
the
grand
example,
spectacles
the
major
is
role
Aliyyah
I.
Abdur-
2017.
Grotesquerie.
Black Oxford
minibus taxis played not only in the Movement of
University Press.
the new sound, but that space as a vehicle for
7.
critically engaging with Kwaito as it emerged.
2020.
Xavier also makes an interesting claim: these
“Afropessimism”. The New
quotidian moments position the consumers of
Yorker
Kwaito
were
https://www.newyorker.c
engaged in “putting Kwaito to work”, by way of
om/magazine/2020/07/2
critiquing it, co-creating and disseminating it.
0/the-argument-of-
as
essential
practitioners
who
Vinson The
Cunningham, Argument
[Available
of
here:
afropessimism] 8. 1. Athi
Mongezeleli
Joja,
(2020).
Bolekaja
George
Yancy,
2008.
Black bodies, white gazes:
Aesthetics. Taken from Dossier: Afro-pessimist
The
Continuing
Aesthetics,
Significance
of
edited
by
Sampada
Aranke
and
Huey Copeland. 2. Saidiya
Rowman and Littlefield.
Hartman
(2016)
appropriates
Fred
Moten’s phrase in The Belly of the World: A Note on Black Women’s Labors: “All that we have
(and
are)
is
what
we
hold
in
our
outstretched hands.” 3. Fred Moten (2015), in conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley, Do Black Lives Matter?: Robin D.G. Kelley
and
Race.
Fred
Moten
in
Conversation
[Available here: https://vimeo.com/116111740] 4. Frank Wilderson, 2009. Grammar & Ghosts: The Performative Limits of African Freedom
SHORT STORIES AND SHORT SKIRTS. Pulane Mafatshe
I was very surprised when I fell for his brother after he gave me my first kiss. It was
after
that
incident
that it dawned to me. No man, I loved the songs not Thando. Little did I know that, that would be the I guess this nonsense of dating the whole crew
trajectory
of
started at a young age for me. It all started with
forever.
Ntando and Thando. Worst part, they are actually
almost to my detriment. I
brothers. Thando was my first crush. He played
am still unable to tell the
the guitar at church and was the pastor’s son. I
difference
loved that boy, he made beautiful songs.
two.
I
love
my
life
music,
between
the
His brother was my best friend. He was four years
I could not keep it in for
older than me and told me all I needed to know
long. She was and still is
about boys and kissing and all of that shit. I was
my best friend. I told her
fourteen, he was eighteen. As if the situation was
two
not messy enough, he was dating my best friend.
relationship.
It seemed he was not too bothered by that fact. I
longer
think we were fetching her from the mall on the
friendship
day that he kissed me. I was so confused. A truth
apart, but our sisterhood
that most would much rather ignore is that, men
was
who are brothers and men who are friends are
each other, she had my
months lie
into I
could
to
her.
was
stronger.
the no Our
falling
We
hated
actually very similar. So, if you have a crush on
one, it is possible that you might have a crush on
man, and I was taking hers
all of them. I had never kissed a guy before and
from her. What a joke. We
here was this guy, that I loved and trusted,
did
confessing his undying love for me. Thando was
years. Gracefully sharing
playing hard to get, another curse that I have
him, without killing each
evidently carried throughout my life, and his
other. It was peaceful. I
brother wanted me. I believed him, I told myself
highly
he loved me. Even though I was his little secret
why I could possibly be
for almost two years.
polyamorous. Except now
this
for
about
attribute
this
two
to
I at least have dignity and I was a bad girl. I betrayed my friend. Another
would love to do this thing
burden I have carried, betraying amazing women
respectfully. She left him,
for stupid men. A metaphysical condition I am yet
I stayed with the scum of
to conquer as Ntozakhe Shange would say about
the earth. A hobby I am
being young, being black and being a woman.
still trying to rid myself
Fortunately
of.
When I turned sixteen he was twenty. We were
He told me he loves me
together for two years, in secret, now was our
and I should prove my love
time to shine. He picked me up from school, took
for him. It was then that I
me out on dates and was the reason I bunked
began to slowly drown. I
school. Unnecessary vibes, that really excited me.
had
On this day, I think it was in August. The sky was
respond. I think that, for
gloomy and I think it was going to rain. I should
him meant go ahead. I was
have known something was up, it always rains
still in my school uniform.
when my life is about to change. He picked me up
On this day I wore a skirt,
from school, everything seemed normal. He had
I
been begging me for sex. I had been saying no. As
skirt, but on this damn day
the pastors son he had access to the church
I wore a fucking skirt. He
office, where his father worked during the day.
pulled
We drove to church, which was not far from
panties,
home. On this day his father was not there. He
into me. His gigantic pipe
told me he needed to get something from the
sunk into me and my eyes
church office and I should accompany him. I
began to flood as I kept
thought nothing of it. I have blamed myself for
whispering, no. He didn’t
years for that, thinking nothing of it, never again.
stop, deeper and deeper
no
words.
almost
I
never
didn’t
wore
a
down
my
yellow
and
he
shoved
he went into me and it was We
entered
passionately.
the The
office pastors
and son
was
we
kissed,
a
brilliant
in my own tears that I drowned.
kisser, but also he was my first so at the time I could not really confirm this. He kissed me, I
When
kissed him back, we were lovers and he had
kissed me and told me he
taught me that this is what lovers do. He made me
loves me. Something had
touch his pipe. It was huge, disturbingly huge for
already died in me. He was
a sixteen year old girl who was waiting for
not bothered by my tears.
marriage. I was a purity ring away from being that
I was bothered by that. He
girl. What a joke. When that was over, he shoved
drove me home, and for
that massive pipe in my face and signaled me to
the first time ever since I
suck it. Shit, I wish I could forget that, in a sad
learnt how to write I did
way but mostly in a second hand embarrassment
not write in my diary. It
kind ofÂ
never happened to me. I
way. Men, please stop doing that, its
he
was
somebody
done
else,
he
awkward. I was already disgusted for him. That
was
and
was the worst thing I had ever done and I thought
that had never happened
it was over.
to me.
ETHYL FLOWER
Oliver Herring Covered Coat 21995
Mustapha Jinadu
Mustapha Jinadu
I
became bright, because
you
bombed
our
town,
bright orange - [voice authoritative] = TESTING GROUND: there was a man
Oliver Herring A Flower for Ethyl Eichelberger1991
with no head, transformed
Part III the Payload of the bomb (is compassion)
by memory of the child's
the bond between the victims, the bomber and the
mantra: make sense of any
girl who lost her mother due to the payload, the
one's
bomb. the bomber is with a conscience, and
make
remorse but no self judgement - and the girl
suffering,a
suffered
head sleeping in a bed.of
,his
payload,
but
thereby
she
is
suffering, sense
and
of man air
i
can,
my
own
with
enlightened. (lit up, bomb bright. there was a
cloud
reason (cathedral) you bombed this cathedral,
about a child whose
no
combat.
mother he himself had bombed. he sent the child
or dont come with me.the
on a tire through smoke, sirening, floating to the
choice is yours.
monastery,
have
and to carry her to the river he had
the
Notes: i
experience
faced the flames coming from his cargo, the
needed to walk with you, i
payload which cracked the trees and set them
suffered
abuse,
fire: he woke up and repeated the PRAYER the
inflicted,
and
child had recited: THEE, COMPASSION,if i can
have nightmares when im
make sense of every other person suffering, then
awake, a shocked nervous
i can make sense of me suffering. hold no grudges
system from almost being
everything but attitude is random.
killed. its a gift they say.
self literally
Mustapha Jinadu
(also ambigous, [voice] of soldier and nun, return
To explore herself and her
to Miyazuki's idea, the boy and girl principle
world and speak truly or
walking together, it's the boy asking the girl and
express
the girl asking the boy, internal voice: walk with
her spirit leads her too
me wherever (to find flower hear horn, broken
city of mother, SKELETAL
head, breaks like brancches or fish shell, dry
TREE
bushes, brittle, Flood, water to transport the
ive lived in psyche wards,
child, the orphan, in a crib of birds nest, or grass,
before,
i've
met
or a tire : *walk with you wherever I am. come
visionaries.
ghosts.
just
then brother and sister in law. there is the tree.
unstable.even
cherries
old
and
violet
wine.
remove
the
orange
freely
I
apocalypse
whatever
stay
the
coming
stripes from her chest no more hunting. flowers
here again cant desecrate
and say, I am a horn resounding. thee bushes are
nor
dry
Pueblo
the
flood
went
too
brazil.
accusations here.come with me.
theres
no
eviscerate
an
old
cavewoman.like
Amprayer Mustapha
I
a personal voice; said; dont deride her spirit (no
a shocked nervous system
only the paublo woman, spirit of the trees, but
from almost being killed.
that of the soldier's original nature, before he and
its
she became soldiers, and that of the orphans,
explore
both he and she, children in the forest, or at the
world and speak truly or
beach, hearing the horn from the sea and from
express
the forest convergence. |voice| prophetic internal
her spirit leads her too
speech,
comes
out
to
exhort
the
world
a
gift
they
say.
herself freely
To
and
her
whatever
he
understands, don't deride her or exalt her: the
SKELETAL TREE ive lived
Tree Old. connecting all of us through her feet,
in psyche wards, before,
roots, fed by water, her ambient, to pain, memory,
i've
alcoholism, or fantasy are futile exxcape - we are
ghosts. just unstable.
children
of
memory-
but
alcohol
or
met
visionaries.
dream
without dissillusion, while awake, are ascension -
even
I
stay
the
old
into the hole: neither defile nor exalt her spirit,
apocalypse
connect with other manifestations of her as thee
again cant desecrate nor
old tree - impute a higher degree/ of freedom-
eviscerate an old Pueblo
eternally/ to her spirit:::
cavewoman.like
coming
here
I
Amprayer Mustapha cloudy in all our heads: at her burst – ethylinto all forests (and living things)through rooted feet of
neither
trees into thebloodstream of oldest women who
her
walkedout of marshes and tried to diein order
other
forget chaos (the need for teeth or blades or
her
bombs) but ethanolonly dulls memory, doesn’t
impute a higher degree/
erase
of freedom- eternally/ to
us,
like
mushrooms
we
thoughtwould
defile
spirit, as
nor
exalt
connect
with
manifestations thee
old
of
tree
-
dissipate some poisonsour wounds dulled – we
her spirit:
said we are-forgetting everywhere soldier sisterto
:: cloudy in all our heads:
the
at her
contraryshe
saidI
am
ascending
from
burst – ethylinto
theworm.holefalling into Alice’sRabbit hole.I am a
all
seafarer no ground freely sinking. aqua aquarium
things)through rooted feet
abyss-
of
the
internal
hydra.Fear
her,
yes,
but
forests
(and
trees
living into
embrace her, old spinebark and iron seafaring
thebloodstream of oldest
jaw- water is everywhere- Memory. Notes: i have
women who walkedout of
the
marshes and tried to diein
experience
needed
to
walk
with
you,
i
suffered abuse, self inflicted, and literally have
order
forget
chaos
(the
nightmares when im awake,
need for teeth or blades
or bombs) but ethanol only
dulls
Mustapha
memory,
doesn’t
erase
us,
like
Jinadu
Shaman
would dissipate some poisons
City,
our wounds dulled – we said we are-forgetting
through
everywhere soldier sister
spontaneous
the
contraryshe
saidI
am
ascending
from
an
unemployed self ordained
mushrooms we thought
to
is
living
in
receiving
Lagos visions trance:
transmissions
a
theworm.hole
spiritual
falling into Alice’s
onto
Rabbit hole.
and
I am a seafarer no ground freely sinking. aqua
modifications
aquarium abyss- the internal hydra.
and
Fear her, yes, but embrace her, old spinebark and
nothing
iron seafaring jaw
everything is accidental.
- water is everywhere - Memory. SISTER COMPLEX Note: it's happened many years, I say, it's no longer traumatic, that's what i believe when it's no
longer
traumatic,
but
memory
is
a
cycle
maniac. or a ferris wheel, or a carousel, or a pulse, that comes around, but its a pulse that goes. there was paranoia, there were long walks drinking beer in front of police cars, jumping out my skin everytime a car drove past us, as I walked you, home the father can scan the whole country, for us we would only be Safe in Europe, we stopped drinking, well I did, and you took time to walk walk kilometers with us, and your heals bled, when I got home, half a rum bottle, and I was able to lift carcasses into the freezer, so that I could pay your landlord, at the farm. (im not patriarchal, but I believe you need help sister, every where I go you are in need of help, my head follows me wherever I go.
cave
in
pages/ directly artificial is
projected expressly with in
out
syntax
grammar; error
but
RECIPROCITY HAS A NEW LIFE. ncedisa mpemnyama
content
with
the
nakedness, ingceke
washing
of
innocence
our
smashed
enveloped
by
the darkness. Smashed in the dirty waters of self
You enjoy me as I enjoy you. Reciprocity has a new life. From the sweet nectar of our love you have made
ruin
me reassemble myself. Made me remake the lines
feigning
and
black power:
realign demarcation itself. Play around with
and
nawe,
a
censor. volatile
Mna entity
composure
and
we dance
the contours. Still reeling and staggering with the
and gyrate menacingly to
drunkeness of your kiss. I waiver as I struggle to
Dana's
put a wager on how I pick truth in those searing
concerns
moments when we lie naked like two teenagers
money and varara forms
morosely gored
tamed by
ANC
of Ubuntu. You enjoy me and I enjoy you. Reciprocity has a
and forces itself in our
new life.
to side like branches of a
broken world. Moving side tree in the brutal wind as I
We try to dance but fail and flail. Still feeling the
concern myself with the
pinch as the vile African sun burns the knees of
center.
hellen zille to pink. As we cool drink think tanks
center. We enter grunting
of white dreams that kill as we speak with spit at
like
the corners of our foul mouths. We reassemble
I'm hunting for solace in
from the seams. As she speaks we dwell in her
between those thighs.
Our
center.
demented
You
fiends
as
Still from "if beale street could talk"
speech.
She's
screams
"Mamela".
I
scream
You enjoy me as I enjoy
brazenly with misplaced authority, "sekasie lam
you. Reciprocity has a new
lovie wam". Almost safe but never safe. And we
life.
are never sane like a mad man. chasing and raging to shallow the pain in the heart of the rain.
Some say it won't end well
Tasting the salt of corruption in our spit. Ruined
but I say may that cleanse
by dreams that fail to spill. Dreams of strangled
us of the pain that await
youth that root for brutes who rule with an iron
us. I'm scared and scarred.
feats.
The range and the scope of our love my love comes
You enjoy me...
over
us
like
spraying
us
a
waterfall with
the
Reaching not to scar each other we waltz into
orgasm of despair. In a
bestiality. Eye to eye dancing away the pain. A
stolen country where the
pain disgured by hope. A rude hope which comes
soul is the wreckage and
pain is our currency currently. You enjoy me as I enjoy you. Reciprocity has a new life. Ncedisa is a man of ideas. He lives to see Black people humanized. He has been a member of proBlack
formations
like
Blackwash,
September
National Imbizo (SNI), and currently Black First Land First. He has a deep-seated commitment to understand the relationship between art and politics and how these function to show power and also keep Black people sane.
Karabo Ngoepe, News24
AMAFA- POLITICS AND PROBLEMATICS OF [HERITAGE = INHERITANCE]
Claremont Histories Kamish Gallary
vusumzi nkomo
into
a
crisis
(simple)
words like ‘transference’, ‘heir’,
and
‘inheritance’,
more
so,
or
more
fittingly, in the spirit of September, ‘heritage’. Second year African film studies, I picked up a book by Manthia Diawara which carried a chilling
black
youth
in
South
excerpt whose exact words (like the title of the
Africa
are
book) I cannot recall: someone was quoted saying:
arguing that they have not
my politics is that my father bought me oxen, but
inherited anything/much.
I might not be able to do the same for my son.I
In Star Wars (not too sure
view(ed) this as a ‘particular’ ‘black-dilemma’, the
which
‘Lived Experience of the Black’,that throws
protagonist, a young white
justified
one):
for
the
man, assures his father, “I will not fail you!” (I
Wilderson III, understand
hereby
that
argue
that
Inheritance
makes
this
these
social
assurance possible). This statement works only, &
identities,
is
are not stable positions,
made
whatever
possible, it
is
under that
these
the
conditions:
patriarch-Father
positionalities,
conditions,
for
Blacks.
transferred to the Son is recognizable by the Son.
Following
this,
Said differently: the patriarch-Father did not ‘fail’
propose
the Son, and the Son knows this. This shared
thinking about inheritance
knowledge, between the patriarch and his junior,
= heritage. What have we
is part and parcel of this transferred
inherited?
a
I
new
hereby way
of
Schadeberg, Jurgen,
inheritance=heritage.
This
means,
had
the
What
have
we
not
patriarch-Father ‘failed’ the Son (either through
inherited?
What
parental ‘error’ or absence), they would be having
nature
our
a completely different conversation in that scene.
Kwaito? Gqom? the out-
The
of-tune/off-beat/ness
Son
is
indebted
to
the
Father;
of
is
the
heritage? of
inheritance/heritage can also be thought of as
our sonic offering to/for
accrued
the world. Vosho? Babes
possession
against
an
imminent
dispossession.
Wodumo. Ourselves. We’ve inherited
one
another.
shared
amongst
For black Sons and black Fathers, this channel of
Books
transference is a fractured channel. Not only are
comrades.
black Sons fatherless, it’s difficult to think of the
possibilities. Conundrums.
black Son as ‘heir’ (because it’s also difficult to
camaraderie. cushions and
think of the black Father as a patriarch) without
couches
contradiction. We must, by way of Frank
home away from home.
Promises
that
and
become
warm meals. the warmth between a lover’s legs.
[I’ve
we’ve inherited the upheaval that is the black
world-
radical (aesthetic) tradition. The Anthemic Sister
and being in it.
Betina. uMoya ka Johnny Dyani= Mbizo’s bass.
Life,
Winston
with all its promises and
Ngozi’s
bamaGxagxa.
Yakhal’
uMam’
iNkomo.
Zondeni
uBugqwirha
Sobukwe.
Zanele
possibilities,
Muholi. Biko’s brains. shared meals. our traumas,
me.
loss,
My
collective
dispossession.
‘thingliness’, debt
and
possession
indebtedness.
and blues.
dues. a Varara truce (read compromise). o’Accuse.
always
loved
the
fascinate(d)
grandma’s
wrinkled
hands, my mom’s lap, a slice of warm freshly
Crossroads, Cape Town
We’ve inherited the Motenian compulsion; “…a
baked bread with melted
historical and aesthetic compulsion; a compulsion
butter, daydreaming, WWE
to make or to produce everyday; to produce
Raw,
contradiction, painting, theory, to produce the
OutKast.] My heritage.
and
sounds
of
lyrical, everyday disruption of ethnography, art, history …”
bcoz
they,
these
things,
are what we have. if not A compulsion to care for one another, the world.
the only things we have.
We inherited a world we are compelled to end;
(putting
not its vices but the world that makes those vices
that capital, unreasonably
possible and are immanent, that is, inherent, to it.
so, moves in, creeps in,
It
invades
not
only
these
things
but
our
very
is
also
attunement
a to
world, what
because Moten
of calls
a a
historical “specific
aside
the
fact
political intention”, we are compelled to Love. [it
capacity
is out of Love that we must end the world].
these things, which, yet in
to
(re)produce
another register, i shall call [political] ‘life’).
94
Gqom:
2017). This view is limiting
(maybe
we
might
think
of
Gqom
as
(see
Sithole,
Sipho:
something, a thing, a sound, perhaps a ‘din’, that
and
de-values art or aesthetics. or something, a thing,
because it ignores the fact
a sound, perhaps a ‘din’, with no aesthetic value.
of
but if we think productively about and with Gqom,
inherited
we
quite
pioneers: a creativity that
interesting: Gqom, in thinking with Moten, is the
precedes colonialism, and
idea of working, or moving, against the very idea
seems
of aesthetic value, cutting and eclipsing it. The
This too, Kwaito as well as
might
stumble
across
something
limited; the
simply
creative by
set
to
genius Kwaito’s
outlive
it.
Gregoire Johannes Boonzaier (South African, 1909–2005)
negation of this notion. Gqom// the out-of-
Bra
Sipho
tune/off-beat/ness of our sonic offering to/for
intervention,
the world). Like it or hate it, we inherited it.
heritage.
Sithole’s is
our
think
about
Birthed in the diaspora. I Kwaito:
the
pre-94
energy
of
political
want
heritage
to
not
an
mobilization and conscientisation which sought to
economy
shit
or/and social + cultural +
on
Verwoed
and
the
irrational
white
of
as
consciousness (‘irrational’ white consciousness is
religious
tautological,
accouterments
btw!)
which
he
personified
was
+
wisdom political only
transposed to a whole new aesthetic elaboration
streaming from an often
on
are
romanticized past (pre-94,
The
pre-colonial-occupation),
Black(ness)’s
always
already
freedom
dreams
deferred,
(which
anyways).
emergence of Kwaito has been linked with the
but as an organic process
apparent economic inertness of Black youth post-
with no fixed temporal
situatedness. aesthetics,
There are
is
in
no
doubt
our
conflict/critique,
politics, i.e,
in
dialogue with the past and its agents. In other words, we are ‘making’ heritage in as much as we are its recipients. Additionally, I want to move further from the dominant critique of Heritage (that, as young black people, we didn’t inherit anything/much) by way of exposing its limits and setting new parameters of thinking about ‘our’ Heritage, which I believe might usher us towards virgin critical avenues. uVusi (@aph_ekapa ) is a writer, (visual) artist, educator, media practitioner, political + cultural activist, organizer interested in the ways in which
Black
people
(through
their
cultural
expressions) aesthetically & materially resist the historical + everyday forms of anti-blackness.
sukoyika