Ja. Edition 7

19 FEB 2016 EDITION 7

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2016, we greet you with wary waves, but we greet you nonetheless.

Last year Ja. magazine winged most of its editions and this year we plan on doing the same. Only with better organisation and the help of a few friends. We have now officially partnered up with The Journalist and Jam That Session, and we’re also stoked to have a new editorial member, Andy Mkosi.

Last year we learnt that while local art is important and rad and that showcasing it is one of our favourite things to do, it doesn’t exactly pay the bills. With these small partnerships we are now able to pay a few of our contributors whose work is republished through our magazine, and while it’s not exactly a first paycheck, (more like a bit of milkshake money) knowing your work has worth can make an artist’s day and it certainly makes ours, so we urge you to keep creating and contributing. This is also a thinly veiled, but humble call to anyone who would like to be a benefactor – let’s grow!

Moving on- In our first edition of the year we have multimedia packed pages with video links to some of the coolest content out there, made by you. We went to our first festival, CTEMF to read about the theatrics of live electronic music. You can also read about the politics of hair, an Instagram account that we just heart, a Q&A with The Lazarusman, beautiful poetry and harrowing short stories. Go ahead and dig into the depths of the damn delicious work you’ve created.

Ja.team Apology: In Edition 6 we published a poem by Sihle Ntuli titled ‘Grace’ and mistakenly included another piece by the poet titled ‘and after that, we didn’t talk’. We would like to extend our apologies to the poet and our readers for the error. You can read the full version of ‘and after that, we didn’t talk’ on page 53 of this edition.

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FINE GRAIN:

STORY OF A SAND SCULPTOR PHOTOGRAPHS AND WORDS BY NIAMH WALSH-VORSTER

It’s a day for building sand castles in Durban and at 8.35am on a sleep-in kind of Saturday the sculpting has already begun. A lone sculptor has his back to the fun-runners on the promenade of North Beach, smoothing grains of sand from a beach buffalo whose head sits silently judging those power walking by. Thulani, another sand sculptor, bursts the man’s bubble of concentration by telling him there are people to see him. Abandoning the animal, he greets us with the kind of smile South Africans had on the fourth test match and says, “so where do we begin?” This is his cue to launch into the life history of Innocent Zungu.

“I’m the guy coming from nowhere,” he begins. 24 year old Zungu has travelled across much of KZN, but calls Durban’s North beach home. It is the place he has lived and learnt; now he finds himself part of the city’s well known collection

to continue etching the sides of a new sculpture he his making. When he first arrived in Durban he spent his first night sleeping under the pier, and still recalls the exact date. It was on the beachfront that Zungu first learnt

of Sand Sculpting artists that welcome beach bums and tourists. “I travel a lot. I’ve been to Stanger, Margate, Amanzimtoti. When I was young, like from grade 1 to 7, I lived in Hluhluwe.”

After leaving school in grade seven, Zungu then found himself down and out in Empangeni. After trying to find work and having no luck, he eventually hiked to North Beach. Zungu pauses

that to survive he had to fine tune his senses and skills. The morning after his first night in Durban he went for a morning dip in the Indian Ocean, “I left my clothes to go swim and then when I got out they were gone,” he explains.

Living on the beach front is also how Zungu linked with others, and as a

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PROFILE

teenager he learnt from the best, but says his internship wasn’t a typical one.

“There was a guy who I used to watch.

I was helping him and the others spray.

I asked him but he didn’t want to teach me. So I would copy the ears of the buffalo he had made.” Laughing at the mischief of his memory, he goes on to say that to teach himself how to sculpt, he would destroy a section of this guy’s sculpture and then rebuild it before anyone noticed. When asked where his

A Sam Smith song is now playing on repeat through his cellphone, but that is not all he listens to: The Weeknd, Lloyd Cele and Professor are just a few favourites. According to Zungu, the Big Nuzz man is “the best artist in Kwazulu-Natal!” But most of all he’s big on Hillsong and Gospel music. It was through the church that Zungu felt he was able to change his life and find focus. After a time when his life was characterised by alcohol, weed

predecessor is now, Zungu dismissively waves a hand across the promenade and states, “He’s smoking whoonga.”

and the occasional grand theft auto, he met two Christians from Harvest Church in Umhlanga Ridge, Shane and Danica. “They used to come here and visit and ask if they could talk

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about God. I used to run away when they came. They didn’t give up. Chase, who changed his own life, said to me, ‘these guys will change your life’. Then I told them I want to go to church. Finally they told me about God and Jesus.

Everything changed. I stopped zol and drinking. I focused on my sculpting.”

He is halfway through his new sculpture and informs us that he will use a lighter sand to make it “pop” out of the sand.

Locals and tourists walk up to the edge to watch Zungu and the other artists as they sculpt. Thulani stops what he is doing and asks for a donation. The man he’s asked, iPhone in hand, tells him off and mutters away while looking at the photo of free art he’s just captured.

Zungu explains that they cannot force people to give them money, “We are not selling the sand, we are playing in the sand”, but what many tourists and beach goers don’t understand is that as artists, their work needs to help them eat, and Zungu is always working. For Zungu, and sand artists like him, work is long and on most days, thankless. Like Cape Town’s wire artists or Jo’burg’s traffic light pantsulas, this sort of work is often seen as free art for public consumption and novelty. Durban’s natural beaches may facilitate the work that Zungu does, but its patrons don’t pay it much respect, or pay anything really.

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PROFILE Other work, such as assisting travel companies with deliveries, and moving goods have supplied him with a steady income, but Zungu always kept at his art.

Now, with a small amount of local celebrity, his sand sculpting skills have even seen him doing the Durban to Jozi trek for the Rand Show in 2014 where he showcased his creations for the many Joburgers who attended.

Zungu finishes the piece he’s been working on, sprays it lightly with salty water and makes a photograph with his phone, still playing Sam Smith. The thank yous and it’s too cool comments roll out, and a few days later Zungu is being interviewed by a cameraman who is listening to his story. “Ay, he’s getting famous now,” Thulani laughs.

“I’m so happy, you came with luck,” Zungu later says.

Working as a sand sculptor, Zungu has been able to save up and move to a place

North Beach is home to some of the finest sand in the world. Whether you’re a local

in Umlazi. There he started up his own business rearing chickens. He is able to make money through sand sculpting by providing advertising for businesses or messages commissioned by people, usually for R80-R200.

or a tourist, you should visit it. And if you happen to chance upon any sand sculptors whose work you admire, think twice before nonchalantly snapping a photo for Instagram and moving on. There is more to these works than well-crafted lines and shapes, there is art in those grains of sand, and a hell of a lot of stories too.

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LONG FORM

WELCOME TO

DYS

MORPH IA

BY LEAH SOLOMON

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MIA VAN DER MERWE

ORIGINAL DESIGN BY ALEX MAGGS

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and under-diagnosed psychological disorders, which is why so many people with the disorder are dismissed for being self-absorbed. The disorder manifests itself in many ways and can range from gazing at your reflection for 11 hours to undergoing 27 cosmetic surgeries.

Writing that is of a deeply personal nature, whether the intimacy is your own or another’s, is never easy.

Interrogating the mental, social, and physical side effects of a negative relationship with her own body, writer Leah Solomon produced a long form, multifaceted investigation into Body Dysmorphia. In this story, the writer makes sense of both her and other individuals’ relationships with their bodies, by placing them in a fictional setting, each one a character living out their days in Dysmorphia. We’re publishing chapter 1 of that story here.

Be sure to read the full piece here.

Calm down, just because you don’t like your stomach or your thighs doesn’t mean that you have this disorder.

However, what is concerning is how many of the symptoms pertaining to the disorder are trickling into the general population of people. More and more people have severe preoccupations and obsessions with parts of themselves, but not severe enough to ‘qualify’ for a diagnosis. This often leads to people becoming silent about the battle they fight with themselves every day. People are too scared of being labelled as vain and selfabsorbed to verbalise their problems and seek help. People in a dysmorphic relationship with their body are forced into solitary silence because of a fear of being judged, judged by those who they’re convinced are judging them the moment they walk out the door. The complete consumption and thought of ourselves is draining, lonely and confining.

We all have that one thing, that one part of us that that we really wish wasn’t there.

We think about it constantly, to a point that it can stop us from doing certain things. You wake up in the morning, stare at yourself in the mirror and see an exaggerated version of yourself. Maybe you won’t make it out of the house that day. This preoccupation with a body part or something that isn’t even there are indicators of a psychological disorder called Body Dysmorphia. Someone is usually diagnosed with this disorder when their preoccupations and coping mechanisms impedes their ability to live, be social and have relationships.

It is one of the most under-researched

Welcome to Dysmorphia.

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And that’s what I would tell myself daily.

I’d stare at men in envy, wishing that I could be as carefree and unengaged with my body as they were.

It seemed like such a blissful world to inhabit. Extra tummy fat? Who cares!

Double chin? No worries. I envy that space.

I was walking to meet my first body, Mutale*. While strolling up New Street, I became more and more aware of my thighs chafing, making my tights rub together like sandpaper. The sound was isolated and it consumed my thoughts as I trudged along.

It made me think of those cliché moments in films where the sounds of the streets and the big, bad city collide to make the most beautiful symphony.

Except all I could hear was chshhhhh, step, chshhhh, step. All I could feel was wobble, wobble, wobble. Walking jelly. I felt like everyone was staring at me, like a circus freak is parading through the road. Perhaps a piece of performance art about obesity?

Flubber is in Grahamstown.

How could my next body feel what I feel? He’s a man, there’s no way he could feel this.

He looks fine to me. He smiles with his eyes and his mouth, a double whammy.

His hug was strong and warm and his laugh echoed through the venue. He reminds me of one of those teddy bears that tell you they love you when you press their tummy.

CHAPTER 1 LONG FORM

This guy seems way too happy to be living in Dysmorphia. Maybe he just moved here. And here I am, undermining what could be really damaging feelings he has.

No one can escape the conditioning and desensitisation of people’s battles with their outer appearance, even those most affected by such a tormenting relationship.

They think about them but they don’t speak about them. They analyse their bodies in the mirrors at the gym, because working out and fixing yourself is commendable.

They critique and question themselves at home, when no one is around, because feeling and communicating with yourself about yourself is less commendable.

Fragile masculinities, am I right? And that is treacherous territory to teeter between.“It’s really dangerous that guys don’t feel like they can speak about this stuff. You don’t speak about it with your friends, it’s not protocol,” he realises, and is unpleasantly surprised by the realisation. “I think it’s because as a man, your body is rarely pointed out to you. I mean, people talk about the hot male model but never the ugly guy whereas you’ll always talk about the ugly girl as well as the model.

“It’s okay in society for me to not think about it and its okay for me to be with my boys and not care about my body. It’s okay for me to focus on my sexual prowess as opposed to how women see me. Society allows for that, and society also enables my silence.”

We spoke and danced around the issue of men not being allowed to speak about their problems with their body. It’s a valid discussion but that’s not why we were speaking. He started to catch on that I was aware of his ploy to avoid speaking about himself.

I waited patiently though, because the ‘fuck society’ chat can only go on for so long.

“I have had a misunderstanding between how I view myself and how others view me,” Mutale explains. It took him a while to formulate this sentence because this is the first time he has ever come face to face with himself. I started to feel a little bad that I was causing him such linguistic conflict. But he assured me that it was about time that he addressed his relationship, or lack thereof, with his body.

“I realised that I think about my body a lot but I choose not to speak about it,” he confessed.

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“The desire to not be sad is greater than the desire to contemplate and think and really analyse the issue.” But here we sat, thinking, contemplating, analysing. I could tell that Mutale was uncomfortable, no matter how many times he denied it. He rubbed his hands on his khaki shorts, scratched his calves and constantly tugged and pulled at his t-shirt. Classic signs of discomfort. “My love-handles, ah man.” There it is. That’s why we’re here. Jackpot. Bingo. Whoomp there it is. The reason.

Guy meets girl. Guy and girl date. Guy and girl become physically intimate. Girl points out guy’s love-handles.

Guy becomes self-conscious. Guy hates love-handles.

“When I started becoming intimate with girls, that’s when I really started to become aware of my body because I literally had to expose myself.” He says this matter-offactly and with confidence. This is the first time he has kept a straight face while talking.

Mutale is a funny guy.

He makes fun of himself a lot, mainly through sarcasm and Saturday Night Live references. Humour is his “weapon of choice” when it comes to protecting himself from others. He was surprised that I pointed it out before he could bring it up.

Being in a dysmorphic relationship with my body, I know all the tricks too. The act of making fun of what you perceive as flaws is a shield. It’s a way of making sure that you hurt yourself before anyone else can. I mean, you hate yourself already so what’s a little poke really going to add? “I own my love-handles before anyone else can,” he says very forthright. He is leaning forward now, his elbows on his knees and his hand gestured towards me.

He speaks sternly. In a way, I feel like I’m being scolded.

“If someone cracks a joke about them I’ll crack an even ruder one so that it’s not funny anymore. They feel uncomfortable but at least it’s over.”

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“ Men don’t have body issues, at least that’s what people say.

The desire to not be sad is greater than the desire to contemplate and think and really analyse the issue.

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Mutale never used to own them. They never used to be a problem, until one intimate night with his girlfriend. It’s often assumed that you feel the most comfortable and at ease with your significant other.

That was the case for Mutale until his girlfriend pointed out the “bad boys”.

“Mel* and I were lying in bed and she was saying how I had lost a lot of weight except ‘these guys are still there’, she poked at my love-handles. She was kind of the catalyst to how I feel about myself.

“She would play with them and always make me aware of them. But I got over it because it was her.” Because it was her. Not him. It’s not about him. It’s about her and how she perceives him.

This is what it comes down to for us citizens of Dysmorphia. We are the ones who are damaged the most, but it is the approval, acceptance and admiration of others that we crave.

Body Dysmorphia is a creeper. It slithers into spheres of your life, disrupting its functionality, much like an unwanted alien invader that is killing your Proteas.

Mutale can’t be intimate with a woman without his love-handles coming first. They loom, they linger and they litter his enjoyment.

In the bedroom, not even comedy as a defence mechanism can save him. To be trapped in Dysmorphia makes you a different person, a façade. But the scariest part is no one else knows, no one else can see what you see.

“When I’m intimate, I try not to focus on them or point them out, because then maybe they won’t notice them. I become very aware if

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Men don’t speak about their bodies. That’s a thing.

any attention is paid to the boys, and if that happens, then I’m out.

“I always want her to be okay, so I fake it and tell myself I’m perfect until it’s over, and then I can go back to reality. Then I have to deal with post-sex blues. It’s bloody awful.”

Although his dysmorphic relationship with his love-handles is very much alive, Mutale still loves other parts of himself, and that is a great thing to have in Dysmorphia.

He still has parts to hang onto, parts that sometimes make handling his love-handles a doable task. He has something that a lot of people in Dysmorphia yearn for.

“I love the athlete’s body, that’s all I want in life.

That’s why I love my legs and my arms. I have nice meaty calves and my veins in my arms are popping. So yeah, half of me is getting there.”

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MERGING ELECTRONIC

MUSIC AND SLAM POETRY:

A Q&A WITH

THE LAZARUSMAN

BY DAVE MANN PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROCHELLE DE ABREU

The Lazarusman is a poet, a writer, and a musician. It is this combination of sound, spoken word, and ultimately, performance that makes his art so unique and so impactful. Always looking for new ways to highlight and strengthen the lyrical element in electronic music, The Lazarusman has taken his slam poetry to many a stage, be it a large scale, festival stage, or a small, quiet open mic platform. Read our Q&A with the artist below, and find out more about the words in the music.

MUSIC

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MUSIC

BEFORE WE GET INTO IT, CAN YOU TELL

WHEN DID YOU FIRST START MERGING

US A BIT ABOUT YOURSELF?

MUSIC AND SLAM POETRY?

I don’t really know what there is to tell or

Well to be seriously honest I had ambitions

where to begin. I guess the cliché would

of becoming a DJ while I ventured into the

help. Hi, I am The Lazarusman, I am a

vast wilderness that was spoken word. I

spoken word artist with a penchant for

was listening to a lot of dance music—it

electronic music (poets despise house

didn’t make sense to join a band because

music buy the way). I feel like I have done

that had been done before—so I needed an

some meaningful work in my time as an

outlet, I wanted to do something different.

artist. Funny enough I stumbled on this

It took me a while to find that, until I heard

whole “being an artist” thing. It is really

Martin Stimming’s music for the first time.

a laugh.

I was drawn to it and in that moment I knew I wanted to be part of it. Working

TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR HISTORY

with Stimming allowed me to open a lot of

WITH SLAM POETRY.

doors for myself.

Yeah it started when I was relatively young—primary

school

in

fact,

my

WHO ARE YOUR LOCAL INSPIRATIONS,

teachers introduced me to poetry in like

BOTH IN THE REALM OF POETRY AND

grade six or whatever. It turns out, shock-

MUSIC?

horror-disbelief; I was actually good at

I am fairly old school, I was big on the

it. So I used it as an outlet to voice my

underground hip hop scene in South

jaded and comical opinions of the world

Africa—mainly Optical Illusion, the old

and for some odd reason people enjoyed

Skwatta Kamp. Artists like Reason (whom

my work. I was in love with slam, I wrote

I went to high school with) helped me forge

a minimum of five to eight poems a day (I

my style and grow as an artist. I can’t

can see poets rolling their eyes like “yeah

say that there are people I looked up to,

right”) but I did, that is all I cared about. I

rather people who did work that I wish I

don’t write now because it easier for me

had created like Keorapetse Kgositsile—he

to freestyle my work.

just has a way of writing that I wish I could emulate.

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MUSIC

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YOUR WORDS ARE HEAVILY LOADED. DO YOU THINK SLAM POETRY ALLOWS FOR MORE FREE FLOWING MEANING THAN TRADITIONAL LYRICS? Yeah, haha slam was born because of the bridge between hip hop and poetry.

We still want to punch but we still want it to be poetry. Slam poets are infamous for saying what is on their minds.

‘TALES OF THE FOX’ IS AN INCREDIBLY NARRATIVE

STYLE

TRACK

WITH

POWERFUL LINES LIKE, “ALL OF A SUDDEN THERE WAS FREEDOM FOR BLACK HANDS IN WHITE AREAS AND TRUTH BE TOLD, I LOVE THE SMELL OF OXYGEN.” WHAT INSPIRED YOUR WRITING IN THIS TRACK AND DO YOU BELIEVE THE ‘UTOPIA’ YOU SPEAK OF TO BE ACHIEVABLE? The track is about my daughter and the world that she has been born into.

Hopefully she will be able to live in a time when race does not matter; she won’t see the divide that I saw growing up. I freestyle a lot of my songs and that day, I was contemplating the idea

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MUSIC of fatherhood and the world we brought my

achieve that, I build a relationship with the

daughter into. I have had some pretty bad

audience. The difference here is you are trying

experiences with racism, whether it was

to uplift inebriated people as opposed to the

abroad or here at home. I don’t use that to

serious types at poetry shows. I like the hardest

judge an entire race or a group of people

one because if one person can remember or be

and there are, luckily, other people who feel

inspired by my lyrics at Rocking The Daises on a

the same, so yes that “Utopia” I speak of

Sunday Afternoon—then my job is done.

is most certainly a possibility for the future that my daughter will thrive in.

THE PERFORMED POETRY SCENE IN SOUTH AFRICA SEEMS A BIT QUIET. WHAT’S YOUR

SLAM POETRY CARRIES THE IMAGERY

TAKE ON IT?

OF A LONE ARTIST PERFORMING IN

Yeah totally, we don’t rate live acts in this

LOW LIT, INTIMATE VENUES TO LIMITED

country, so much so that it is not a speciality, we

AUDIENCES. YOU’VE PERFORMED TO

don’t laud those people. Europe on the other

FESTIVAL SIZED AUDIENCES BEFORE.

hand…

WHAT’S THE EXPERIENCE LIKE? It is very different and demanding. It’s very

ANY ADVICE FOR ASPIRING, LOCAL POETS

easy for vocalists or wordsmiths in dance

LOOKING TO BREAK INTO THE SCENE?

music to become part of the ambience that

Ah great, I get to dish out some clichés! Do you.

enhances the music. My aim is to make the

There is a level of authenticity and idiosyncrasy

music my bitch, command it, and wield it

missing in the arts these days. Understand that

to my will. I will do what it takes to get my

the difference between you and them is you.

message across—dramatic pauses, playing

Too many artists are out here doing the same

with the effects box, let the DJ know what

thing as everyone one else. Do you!

I want. I try to find a balance and when I

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“Their hair falls to the ground, whilst ours rises in solidarity with the sun.”

For many women hair is a topic of contention, as well as a matter which few can deny ever having formed a relationship (good or bad) with the texture, length and subconscious politics of their hair.

In the process of making this piece I grappled with the complexity of navigating the conversations that women, specifically women of colour, are having about what grows on our heads; the way our hair is perceived, represented, sexualized, fetishized and appropriated in relation to our bodies.

Especially in South Africa; a country whose history is deeply rooted in race and cultural strife, in which western moralities, ideologies and modes of thinking continue to proverbially peroxide socially and culturally nuanced narratives of black women; a country that finds itself in a tangled conflict in terms of its own identity. It’s fitting that a topic such as hair, and conversations concerning hair and identity, are difficult for women of colour to avoid without resurfacing the soreness of having western normative

THE

standards of beauty so readily shoved down our throats, force fed into our psyches, and injected into our skins.

Having grown up with my hair I notice that it has had an incredibly undeniable influence on who I am, who I’ve become and how I am perceived accordingly, as well as the degree of social capital that is afforded to me purely on the basis of being mixed-race,

BE T

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VIDEO

BY DANI EUGENIE O’NEILL

REVOLUTION WILL

TEXTURIZED 25

VIDEO

the texture of my hair and the undertone of yellow in my skin.

cravings and thirst for exoticism have left my skin writhing in the past.

My body of work is largely self-reflexive, and a point of departure for Crowning Glory which I considered during the inception and making of this project, and continue to interrogate, is my identity as an artist, as a mixed-race woman, and as a female who continues to oscillate between the blurred lines of love and hate when it comes to my bossiekop of curls.

We grow into our identity and womanhood having to undress ourselves of the projections, policing and emotional weight of our hair. It’s in undressing and unlearning that my relationship with my hair became a process of self-love, selfidentification and reclaiming of my own narrative as a black woman. Crowning Glory is a reflection of that. It’s the social, historical and ancestral glory of the black female narrative. It’s a reference to the political volume of hair and identity. It’s an interrogation of womanhood, black pain, the commodification of culture, and the complexities of being “other” in a society that thirsts after being different, yet negates the trauma of living the “other”.

An oscillation that has always been uncomfortable to discern because of how much and how often the denialism of my blackness has in the past played the protagonist in my narrative of selfidentification.

It’s the burden of having to answer questions like, “What are you?” or reaffirm my blackness to people whose token-

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INSTAGRAM

COLOUR, COLLAGES, AND FINDING ORDER IN CHAOS We first stumbled across Mexiy’s Instagram feed towards the end of last year and immediately loved it. Her work comprises images detailing lesser travelled spaces, graffiti and street art, outdated architecture, and general banality, but through a different perspective, all chopped and sorted into vibrant, eye- catching colour collages.

Having first fallen in love with the medium of photography at the age of 13, Mexiy’s rarely without a camera and often takes her photography to far removed spaces in search of an image or a piece of public art. “I get a rush with graffiti because it’s almost like a race against time,” she says. “Some pieces will live forever, while others will be removed before the sun sets. I consider myself a ‘graffiti hunter’ because that’s what I do. I search high and low for these works of art, no place too dirty nor dangerous.”

The colour collages, she explains, are a result of pure coincidence. “I had gone through a stage of liking green and posted about three consecutive green images. I was intrigued by how these three images formed a whole new image of their own. I posted a few images of the same colour thereafter and could never go back to posting “mixed colours” because there are so many things around us that correspond with each other in colour.”

We’re glad you never went back either, Mexiy. Take a look a look at a few of her collages here, and be sure to creep her Instagram too:

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INSTAGRAM

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PERFORMING LIVE

ELECTRONIC MUSIC:

THE THEATRICS

OF CTEMF WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDY MKOSI VIDEO BY PHILELA SINGAMA

It’s around four in the afternoon when I’m woken by an 021 number flashing on my phone. It’s my colleague Philela informing me to start moving towards the Cape Town CBD. I drag myself off the couch and make my way to the taxi rank. We breeze through the freeway and seven minutes later I’m in town. Walking towards City Hall, I catch myself wondering whether or not the locals chilling at The Grand Parade even know about the event that’s about to take place over the next few days.

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FESTIVAL

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The gig is the Cape Town Electronic Music

like only a few years ago now that artists like

Festival (CTEMF), an annual three-day

The Real Estate Agents and Felix Laband

event that features some of South Africa’s

were pioneering live electronic music in

biggest electronic musicians as well as a

the country through live scratching and

handful of international acts. Established

impromptu turntable setups, festivals like

in 2012 as a platform for South Africa’s

CTEMF do a great deal to showcase the

burgeoning electronic music culture and

rapid growth of the genre.

industry, CTEMF has gone from strength

But electronic music, in all its growing

to strength, even gaining international

popularity, primarily exists online. I am

recognition. This year, 39 exciting acts

reminded that it’s only a select few who

and artists were lined up for the weekend

have the privilege of owning a Twitter or

taking place from 2- 7 February, spanning

Facebook account who know about these

a range of electronic genres from hip-

things, especially electronic music which

hop and kwaito, to ambient electronica,

exists in the online spaces frequented

dancefloor- house and everything in-

largely by the white middle class. With

between. Considering it was what seems

the 2012 CTEMF debut hosting a number

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of black artists you could count on your hand, the festival’s representation has increased ever so slightly over the years (you can just make it to two hands now), but it still has a long way to go. I ride this train of thought for a while longer before it arrives at another point in question— if electronic music primarily exists online, how does it translate to the offline, live music experience?

The answer to this question is met almost as soon as I arrive at the venue.

At City Hall there are people and there is sound and all of it is in excess. This was to be expected. Sound is thumping through the corridors coming from various corners of the venue, pink, purple and red lights flare out from the stage as I walk towards what I discover is the ‘main stage’, while Cape Town based hip hop crew Driemanskap do their thing. Behind them sit high, sprawling screens, on which strange and captivating images are being flashed and looped. The images range from cryptic, maze like patterns, to people jumping off of tall buildings. Standing there, in front of this audio- visual scene, it’s a few tracks later that I remember what I’m actually there to do – cover the event and make images.

This hypnotic, near overwhelming display of imagery however, is the answer to my question. There is a theatrical element to these musicians, and certainly, if all musicians are performers, then these DJs, producers, and rappers are here to put on a well-rounded performance, online or offline, regardless of genre.

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FESTIVAL

The visuals are a constant at CTEMF. You

and covers were moving around in all forms

need only witness a performance by Sibot and

on the screen, a milky type of white and this

Toyota, the pinnacle of live, local electronic

strong beautiful green. While I make images

performance, to know that the theatrics of

of Petite, he switches from a silhouette to an

live electronic music are as much a part

illuminated artist as the lights hit him. “He is

of the show as the music itself. Similarly,

so hot, fuck!” screams out one of the girls in

musicians such as Haezer take to bringing

the crowd.

actual dancers, dressed up and glittering in gold, to enhance his live shows. Another act

It’s clear that in an age where those of us with

I was looking forward to was the perf Petite

readily available access to the internet reach

Noir. Before he even stepped on stage, his set

the majority of our music online, far removed

was visuals from the get go. It was as though

from stages and live music venues, there is a

the audience were waiting on a movie to

need for a heightened level of performance

begin as the screen went from black, to being

in the live context. In electronic music, and

filled with a white that formed the letters of

specifically in South Africa’s electronic

his name, bouncing up and down the screen

music, that performance really is something

and building further momentum. By the time

to behold. And considering a festival such

he emerged screaming “Wassup Cape Town!”

as CTEMF which is only in its fourth year,

to a crowd that was already screaming out his

South Africa’s musical theatrics are only just

name, the screen took the form of familiar

beginning to grace the stage, now it’s just

visuals which I remember seeing online

a matter of access and inclusivity, but we’ll

when stalking his career moves. The colours

have to see how next year’s festival plays out.

dominating his La Vie Ebelle album videos

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WHEN WE WERE BLACK P1

THE LETTER

BY LANDA WILLIE PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUXOLO POYO

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PHOTOGRAPHY Dear Educated child There was a time when we were black, when an education I didn’t understand or believe in was forced on me and so many others. I have tried to give you the best in what we’re told is a ‘democratic’ country, yet I still see you fighting for #feesmustfall. I still see you fighting for equality. I still see you being set up for failure by a system I, as your parent, trusted to carve out a better future for you. I still see you having to apologise for your blackness, for how you deal with the scars of the past, because you were told who you are, what you are, what you should be and feel.

Dear educated child, This is from your uneducated parent.

I see you drowning under white supremacy. I see it tied around you mentally and physically, disabling your ability to move, progress or even think! I need you to continue fighting. I need for you to break this belief of white supremacy chained around you physically and mentally. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know it!

From your Uneducated parent

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RANTS

WHY SO WHITE, ANIMAL RIGHTS?

BY DARSHA INDRAJITH ILLUSTRATION BY MARTHA SOTERIADES

There’s been a story doing the rounds on social media lately. It’s the story of Opal, an orangutan in captivity at the Natal Zoological Gardens. Although Opal’s case has been going on for years, it recently gained mainstream attention after an escaped tiger from the same facility, owned by Brian Boswell, was shot.

After the tiger shooting, animal rights and welfare activists held protests against Boswell’s use of captive animals for entertainment (he also runs the Brian Boswell Circus). Passionate about the cause, I RSVPed on the Facebook event...until people started using the

part of that protest.

Animal rights activism in South Africa, from my experience, is conducted in a way that takes whiteness as the default perspective (much like society in general), and reinforces this in its ‘activism’. One of the ways this is visible is through white activists’ discussions of issues such as cultural slaughter, which quickly turn racist and paternalistic.

I’ve found many animal rights activists to be condescending and ignorant of contexts.

Animal rights and welfare aren’t simply about non-human animals and don’t exist in a vacuum. Most forms of oppression follow similar structures, which is why animal

hashtag #BoswellMustFall.

As someone who has been involved in the South African animal rights community and has noticed the way most of the community

perpetuates

whiteness

through its ideas and activism, the appropriation of the “MustFall” hashtag in a community that is largely white, mostly ignorant of why that is a problem, and unsupportive of the initial student movement, did not sit well with me. As much as I wanted to protest the use of animals for entertainment, I couldn’t be

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rights form a part of a broader social justice struggle.

When most people picture an animal rights activist or vegan (or both), it’s usually a wealthy white person who comes to mind. Animal rights are seen as a “white thing” and veganism has been immensely whitewashed, because the narratives surrounding animal rights centre whiteness. You don’t have to be white to be an animal rightist, and you definitely shouldn’t let your animal rights activism come from the perspective of whiteness. In fact, I think intersectionality includes the animal rights struggle.

So, why is #BoswellMustFall a form of appropriation and how can the animal rights community be more intersectional?

Considering the experiences I’ve had with animal rights activists who condemn Opal’s captivity or Cecil the lion’s killing but are silent about Marikana or Black Lives Matter, the use of a hashtag that was created by a movement that aims to disrupt the ubiquity and normativity of whiteness by centering black experiences is an appropriation. It’s an attempt to use the experiences and the work of an activist community for one’s benefit without supporting or even acknowledging those struggles. It’s reminiscent of people who compare non-human animal oppression

to slavery, which is another appropriation of black experiences and struggles by a mostly white group.

The

way

animal

rights

activism

is

conducted and thought about needs to change. It needs to be more cognisant of the inequalities and complexities of race, class and gender. For me, and for many other black feminists, animal rights are a part of our intersectional struggle for social justice, and veganism (depending on the context) can be viewed as a form of decolonisation.

The white supremacist construction of the animal as the Other relies on a humananimal binary. The use of non-human animal names as racial slurs is also a common tool of racism, constructing the black Other as animalistic in opposition to the (white by default) “human”. By rejecting this construction of everything that is human as everything that is white and creating an alternative to what it means to be human while rejecting the human-animal binary, race and animal rights intersect.

The animal rights movement, locally and globally, needs to change dramatically to

become

more

intersectional.

The

white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist conception of human and non-human animal relationships isn’t the only model, and it is certainly not the ideal.

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THERE’S A NEW AFRICAN SUPERHERO ON THE WAY, AND HE’S TALL WITH BLUE EYES AND AN ANGLOPHONE NAME.

BY LUMUMBA MTHEMBU SKETCH BY NIAMH WALSH-VORSTER

I recently woke up to discover that there is a TV show about an African superhero coming soon. His name is Eli King and his powers come from the Cradle of Humankind. I love this idea; its time is overdue, but there are a few points of concern.

My first problem is that the superhero has blue eyes. If Jongo’s writer and codirector, Gareth Crocker is going to cast a big, dark, burly African national by the name of Pacou Mutombo in the lead role, why make his eyes turn blue when he touches his life-giving crystal?

Superheroes have to have something that sets them apart, but this just smacks of Dragonball Z, where Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Trunks and Goten all get blondehaired and blue-eyed when they turn super-Saiyan. The Japanese may have decided to make their superheroes look like Durban surfers but there is no need for Africans to do the same. White people already have everything so I understand why superheroes would be moulded in their image, and I understand that black people aspire to everything white, but why

does my black superhero have to aspire to whiteness too, with Aryan eyes that give him special powers? If anything, he is the one who should break the mould.

My second problem is that there are very few South Africans in Jozi with Mutombo’s stature. I am 5 foot 6 inches and it would not be a lie to say that many would consider me to be of average height in Jozi. Mutombo looks like a cruiserweight, whereas most South African males weigh in at the welterweight mark. Once again, I admit that superheroes have to be larger than life, but at his height, Mutombo would struggle to fit in the backseat of a taxi, which leads me to ask: how would he blend in?

The last issue that affects the believability of this black superhero is his pseudo-biblical Anglophone name.

I have never met any black man by the name of Eli King in my thirty years in this country. Is he supposed to be Liberian?

I can understand if he is because there are many foreign nationals in the city

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of gold. Since Jongo is set in Mzansi, I would have preferred to address my superhero as Mandlenkosi Mthembu, or, failing that, Mindlos would have done just fine. It leads me to question the level of research that has gone into this upcoming show. It also leads me to wonder to whom this show could possibly be aimed. Has this show been glossed over by white liberals who have pounced on a halfbaked script to capitalise on a black middleclass that is hankering for aspirational models?

My friend, Bin Laden, tells me that I should stop complaining because someone has actually brought the concept of an African superhero to market. Congratulations to them. I hope the show does well.

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WORDS

BY NEGASI

ILLUSTRATION BY JADE BRANDT

I’m writing this from my bedroom, covered by a blanket, watching the last evidence of rain fall down the window. It’s stopped raining for now, I hope it rains more, there’s a drought after all.

It’s been two days since I finally finished writing exams and now I’m waiting. I’ll be waiting for twelve days before I go to school to fetch my report. I’m in grade eleven (hopefully grade twelve next year) and I am an artist.

I could say a writer, or a poet, or a creative director to be but no, all these titles, as wonderful as they are do not do justice to what I want to be, so an artist is the only way to describe it.

This may all seem normal so far, I mean, where’s the shock factor but trust me, getting to a point where I have the confidence to declare myself an artist has not been easy. As a young black man, only 17 and the first generation ‘born-free’ in my family, there’s a lot of weight on my shoulders and the many wanderlust black Africans who dare call themselves artists.

Black people are not the only ones going through this, I know that but the following dancing of words is meant to be the narrative for black people because well, you write what you know and also there’s a different dynamic in white culture when it comes to pursuing art.

The profession has been accepted by a majority of white people. If a white child tells

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their parent they want to design lamps for a living chances are that parent will be happy for their child and support it (this is not always the case, I know).

With black people it’s different. And if you’re about to argue, be quiet and read on.

Coming from a less than rosy past, the black South African has gone through some shit. Our freedom, only twentyone years old, has given us a new world of opportunities that we never thought possible. As young people, we’re really excited and passionate about our futures in art. This is all great, really it is, but this same optimism hasn’t rubbed onto the families that raise us.

Many black families in South Africa, and

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from some of the conversations I’ve had with young people from other developing African countries, black families in Africa don’t fully understand how art can be a viable career.

The year was 2011, I was in grade seven and was about to enter the exciting world of high school (Disney lied to us all, it’s not all singing and Wildcats) and I wanted the closest thing to the Disney version of high school so naturally I applied to an art school in Pretoria, majoring in music. I lied myself through the audition, told them a story of my grandfather being a guitar player and that I wanted to continue his love for music blah, blah. Maybe I should’ve taken drama because they bought it and I made it into the school, with my instrument of choice being piano, I wanted to be the next Ray Charles minus the blindness. I was introduced to this new world of kids my age who could, like chameleons, shift into different characters on stage. I met people who could paint stories on canvas, allowing us a glimpse into their souls and minds. I wanted this, for life. The shift came when I realized two things: 1. No one could ever be Ray Charles and that I sucked at piano.

2. My family was not about this art thing.

“So what do you want to be?” my grandmother asked me with her warm smile and big eyes that resemble mine. “I want to be a musician,” I said in Zulu with my yet unbroken voice. I didn’t see anything wrong, I was born into a world where limit was a word we didn’t recognize. I dreamt

bigger than my means and I still do.

The problem was my family had been raised with the mentality that successful career paths lie in medicine or law or science. These are all important things, but so is art. Like all these other industries, art has been there for centuries – from the days of the Khoi-San and Cleopatra, it has survived the test of time.

The problem wasn’t that they didn’t appreciate art they just didn’t understand it enough.

2014: now in grade ten, I looked within myself for any resemblance of a career that would satisfy me and make my family happy. I found the world of advertising, very much still grounded on creativity; I thought I had found my calling. But something, a force within me didn’t sit well with this choice. I didn’t want it; I wasn’t doing it for myself. I guess that’s one of the problems that come with allowing people to dream for you.

So finally, I accepted my fate and made peace with the beautiful tragedy of being an artist.

A job that will kill you if you allow it to. I’m currently wanting to do some creative directing with different people in Durban where I’m based until I finish high school. I’m creating opportunities for myself. It’s scary, being an artist, never knowing where your next payday will come from, never knowing where your work will take you. But there’s also a wonder to it and that small piece of heaven is what we live for.

So young black child of Azania – find courage in that creative dream and flourish.

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BY MALEBO MOLOTO

ILLUSTRATION BY JADE BRANDT “Reflections of your love/Have come to wither I thought I’d done my best to memorize/ A picture fades of you and I together, I haven’t come to terms with how we said goodbye.”

This is a story about a girl I used to know. She was a small, quiet girl who kept to herself and stayed out of trouble. She was a scared girl, never really sure of the ground she stood on…shaky ground for the most part. A displaced little girl who wept for years in silence, and whispered wishes hoping they would materialise. One of her wishes was that she would be part of a normal family, whatever normal means.

A family full of love and joy, and not simply a family in a movie or a family she would read about when she buried her nose in a book in order to escape. She pressed on night and day to keep on living, and tried so many ways to keep her soul alive.

I was never interested in what came first, the abuse, the alcohol or the infidelity.

It didn’t matter because this was my reality. It was not all bad, my parents loved me and I them. I still do. Knowing what I know, I wouldn’t want it any other way - it made me the woman I am today. My mother was a great woman; she had her own battles, but great all the same to me. As the years went on, she become ill and passed away..

I remember everything leading up to

that day like it was yesterday. I remember it was a Friday night that my dad took her to hospital and she was to spend the night there. This was after countless hospital visits and her being a patient for days on end in hospitals. I remember that Friday, my sister, dad and I took my mom to the hospital and I remember when we left we said our goodbyes and how we would come see her the next day. We went back home on that Friday night, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep without effort.

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Saturday, the 7th of April, 2001, my dad got a call in the early hours of the morning and I remember him coming into the room I shared with my sister to tell us that the hospital called and that we should pray. I remember what I prayed, verbatim.

I said, “God, please let my mother live till I am 21. That is 8 years from now and I will be grown up by then so I will be able to handle her being gone.”

I prayed that, rolled over and went back to sleep. I woke up to the sound of the cartoon, “The Weekenders” and I remember looking around the room and noticing that our long time family friends were there. It dawned on me that my dad had still not returned from the hospital and no one knew what was going on (although in hind sight, I’m sure they did). A while later, my dad walked in the house, I met him and a family friend in the living room. My dad’s eyes were very telling – he had been crying. I remember the family friend saying, “We lost the battle, she’s gone.” That was it.

Ever heard your heart break, I mean, literally?

That’s what happened in that moment to me.

My world went…I still don’t have the word.

We buried her a week later, and for me, life went on as usual. I was sad sure, but I went on. The deception of thinking you have dealt with things when really you haven’t, the rug will be pulled from under your feet and you

WORDS won’t know what happened. For me it came years later, as I progressed in high school it dawned on me all the things that would happen in my life that my mom would miss. That’s when it hit me that my mom had passed away. I thought of my matric dance, I thought of when I would look for my name in the paper, I thought about going to varsity, getting married, having kids. It came rushing over me and I was finished. I fell into darkness. I was so mad. I was mad at God first. How dare He? How dare He take my mother?! What was I supposed to do? We made a deal, He had to keep her ‘til I hit 21! I was so mad at my mom. How dare she die? How dare she abandon me? How could she be so selfish?

I was so mad at myself. You see, the Friday that we took her to hospital, I had to take her to a doctor’s appointment. When we got there, the line was so long, I was already tired from the long nights before and I didn’t feel like waiting. My mother didn’t want to wait either so we went back home and we slept. I was mad because it was my fault. Had I not been selfish and thought of myself, she would have gone in to see the doctor and maybe… These were the emotions I went through for a long time. I remember in my second year, I

was on my bed talking to a friend and I burst out crying talking about how it was my fault.

I will never forget the words my dear friend spoke to me that day, how they went beyond what I logically knew to be true but started me on a journey of healing. It took me that long to finally get to the point of forgiveness.

God is amazing that way, He didn’t just want me to be healed from the pain of losing my mother, but he wanted to restore me, renew my mind. He healed me from the feeling of abandonment. Yes, my mother had died, but I wasn’t abandoned. The hurt was gone.

The anxiety was gone. The feelings of being worthless and unloved were gone. I collided with the Father and I was never the same.

I can’t give 12 steps or a home remedy, or tell you what to do when times are tough, but what I can say is that He is a good God. In the midst of the pain, hurt and confusion, He is a good God. He has not forgotten about you.

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POETRY

COFFEE WORLD

BY ISABEL RAWLINS PHOTOGRAPHY BY NIAMH WALSH-VORSTER

Black coffee, black smile worn down brown caffeinated teeth, dark and strong and sweet.

Coffee breath on coffee tongue wide coffee eyes still crusty from sleep.

Coffee hands hold coffee mug on coffee step with coffee shrug.

Morning coffee sunlight, early coffee wave.

All the coffee’d men and women driving coffee cars going to coffee work to do their coffee’d jobs.

PORTRAIT

BY NUBLACCSOUL

Black Woman, brewed up strong - your sun-deep skin estranged from the outside, in this summer’s sunset dust settles on your dreams.

The fingers of your left-hand fancy reaching out, pursuing plundered passions that give blood to life.

Your work is outside where dirt piles into dunes of doubt and stories of silence

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SHE IS A GODDESS

Because she is not of stone, her heart beats.

She feels.

BY OTHEMBELE DLAMBULO Listen to me as I speak; I said I was heartless.

I lied.

Like my life depended on it I lied.

Trapped in my ribcage it sits there.

Trapped in my fragile body it lives there.

I hear it, dancing to the sweet tunes of chosen voices I hear it My heart.

For a moment, I wish I had it on a leash This thing that moves in me.

For a moment I wish I didn’t have it I have tried to convince myself I don't but I do I pick it up from the ground where you dropped it I dust it off.

I never expected you to catch me but I'm disappointed you let me fall.

But I’m still a goddess I am worthy Let not her beauty be defined by her curves or the length of her extensions.

Let not her worth be defined by the ability to satisfy her temporary man.

The feel of her soft warm thighs.

The melody in my “hi”s.

The touch of her gentle lips.

The rhythm of my hips.

She is a goddess I am worthy Even though at every chance she gets, so cheaply, she rents herself out to anyone with a minute to spare.

She exhausts her tear glands, gushing out her last pains through her waters she is left dry.

She is internally demolished, her organs have failed her. She struggles to breathe, she struggles to heal.

A stranger in my mirror, ghost in my shadow I Listened to me as I speak; She is a goddess I am worthy She is there for you when you don't have someone to turn to She is there to tell you it will all pass Through thick and thin When you had lost yourself she went and found you When you had no vision she lent you her eyes.

When you were staggering, blubbering like a hopeless drunk she helped you upright.

When you tarnished your reputation with your foolish ways, hers was tainted because she stood by you, with you.

I was your Salvation.

I am your goddess, I am worthy.

Of you and all that I desire.

Of you and much more.

Of me and all of me, For I am a Goddess and I am the best chance at a love fit for someone like me.

I am a goddess And you You are not worthy.

POETRY

and after that, we didn’t talk

BY SIHLE NTULI PHOTOGRAPHY BY

NIAMH WALSH-VORSTER

cell phone silence noise of expectation hotline stares blankly devoid of bling. voice as the dawn entering the lobe flowing sweet light soothed throat to that bitter residue and now the after taste. that night i dialled 8-3-1 i love you turned from last words to lost words you dropped your phone but not the call did not even bother to pick it up the sounds you made for him i heard the whole thing.

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LAND OF THE LEFT

BY CAITLIN STOBIE

in the town where I mastered the art of leaving the poets would stick to the dictum all lines must rhyme they wrote of flowers

or fights competing for appreciative clicks

in rosebank with their flatmates no one knew

the origins of the finger-snap the academics claimed they couldn’t twist their tongues when discoursing about corsa their defence read language is a vehicle in the country of frontiers and of colourless tears the political left drove nowhere fast but complained of potholed roads desensitised centralised here I met a man who said poetry should be a nudist beach I say that doesn’t mean every fool who bares his flesh is gifted we don’t need monumental histories when the slogan is this used to be a prison graffitied rainbow rhetoric fails to see the dirt beneath the baobab tree try to describe the red on our flag without bringing up spilt blood in this city no saints illuminate why we’ve learnt more of leaving than how to settle what’s left

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SHORT STORY

MY FAMILY LISTENED WHILE OUR

NEIGHBOUR BEAT HIS LOVER

BY TSHEPISO SERAME

The comfort of having lived in a security estate in a warm house with thick walls for most of this vacation had shielded me from the elements. Furthermore, not only was I unaware of the cold, but I had been ignorant to the fact that my father lives beside other houses on either side, because of the tall walls.

lack of empathy and apparent detachment was hard to swallow.

I expressed this confusion, shame, and lack of satisfaction with my mother’s response by turning to my step-father to ask why he doesn’t stop the man from beating his girlfriend. He replied by saying it wasn’t his place. He went on to say that in this place that they live, it is better not to get involved when two people are fighting.

That part of my vacation has ended now.

Last night was my first night at my mother’s newly rented RDP house. The house is small and cramped and just outside our kitchen door lives a couple in a shack with whom my mother shares the yard.

Together, my mother and step-father recollected and relayed to me an incident from the previous yard they shared with another couple. They were renting a RDP not too far from where they are now. In the same yard, lived another couple. My step father had tried to stop them from fighting one night, they said. That couple didn’t fight too often. But that time things were terrible. The lady who had been living next door to them had been sick for some time and had tested positive for HIV. She confronted her husband with the news. The lady accused her husband of having infected her, and that’s when the fight had broken out between them. It had been violent and messy.

Late night screams, stinging slaps and thudding kicks could be heard coming from the couple’s shack as we sat around our paraffin heater. I was horrified. The rest of my family was only slightly moved.

My mother comments: “It happens too often.” She went on to say that she was getting tired of the man’s drunken brawls and his beating on his girlfriend during the night, while she (my mother) tries to get some sleep for work. I was confused and ashamed by my mother’s comment. The

56

In the process of trying to stop the fight, my step-father had a fair amount of blood from the couple on himself.

The fear of infection to himself had been real in light of the circumstances of their fight. My stepfather was put on ARVS immediately. After a month he tested negative and is still to go for another test at the end of the window period.

we awaited the police around our paraffin heater, attempting to warm ourselves, safe and detached from the violence happening in our own yard, I started to curse the walls for being so damn thin that they couldn’t keep the cold or our neighbour’s screams out.

My step father expressed that he didn’t support domestic violence, but isn’t prepared to stop the new couple’s fights himself. He just could not put himself in harm’s way again. I could sympathise with him and his fears after my parents finished relating the story to me. I still didn’t feel it was right that we sat there and pretended to be helpless while another woman was being made a statistic. I called the police to alert them of the incident.

There is no sense of community at either side of the walls of poverty. Boundaries or not, people merely peep and sigh from their windows while others are being victimized in their homes. As

57

ABANTU

STAND- REVOLUTION,

EDUCATION, AND DISCOMFORT

BY NKOSAZANA ZAZA HLALETHWA

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MIA VAN DER MERWE

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THEATRE

Other Show, but this year saw Abantu Stand! take over in its glorious debut.

It’s that time of the year when South African universities open their doors to a host of new students. For most of these students, university spaces are entirely foreign. Their uncertainties and their optimism are high and they remain blissfully unaware of what they will come to know in this new space, academically, socially, and politically.

So how does one show achieve all these aforementioned outcomes? Abantu Stand! essentially set its premise on reflections of the events that took place at the university in 2015.

On arrival, the audience is met by the image of a black fist projected onto a white screen on stage. As the crowd settles, an array of music is played, including Hugh

As a way of familiarising the students with their new settings, Rhodes University’s Drama Department together with theatrical company Ubom! Esatern Cape Drama Company showcased Abantu Stand! from 8-12 February. The production aims to posit to these first year students, through a series of theatrical vignettes, a host of different realities that come to exist in the small Eastern Cape University.

Educational theatre of this kind has been used at the university in the past, in the form of the long running The Amazing

Masekela’s Thuma Mina and J. Cole’s Be Free. The stage is adorned with protest posters some of which read ‘The system already fucks us’, ‘Down with Capitalists’ and ‘The Minista must go’.

What gave the production its heightened form of uncomfortable reality was the lack of fabrication in the script. This is not to say that the piece was not work

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shopped and devised amongst a cast of both professional performers and students, because it was, only that the scenes played out by the cast were based on harrowing, real life scenarios that took place at the university currently known as Rhodes throughout the course of last year, with great emphasis being placed on the #FeesMustFall movement.

and discomforted the crowd. Instead of relying heavily on metaphors to relay sensitive topics, the scenes were played out as accurately as they would occurred in reality. Humour may have been used to lighten the mood, but never to the point where an audience member would lose sight of what is important.

Coupled with protest song and projected imagery to further cement the messages, the production did well to captivate from the get go, maintain audiences with incisive comedy and chorus work

Scenes displayed primary issues of transformation that the year of 2015 highlighted nationally. These issues include race, gender, academic and social transformation amongst others.

Besides being a fresh wound, and hot topic, the nationwide student led protests and demonstrations were also used to transport the audience through what the current context of a student’s life would look like.

throughout, and all in all, deliver a spectacular piece of theatre that both educated, entertained, and raised a good few questions. The Amazing Other Show has a considerable legacy, but judging by these past few performances, Abantu Stand! is here to stay.

The play opens with the #FeesMustFall dialogue between characters wearing hashtag emblazoned t- shirts. They are discussing the everyday hardships of university life, tied shrewdly to broader, nationwide narratives. In other scenes, characters are seen grappling with issues in the intimate spaces of school and home.

At a glance, a piece of theatre like Abantu Stand! may seem unoriginal and safe in its makeup. Yet there was something special about the production that both intrigued

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REVIEWS

MUSICAL EINTJIES:

REVIEWS WRITTEN OVER A SMOKE Jumping Back Slash: MM001

BY DAVE MANN

London born, South African relocated DJ and producer Jumping Back Slash is back with another EP, MM001.

Titled as the first in its series, the EP signifies the beginning of a number of releases under the collective name, ‘Mshini Music’. True to its name, MM001 is a stripped down, mechanic collection of tracks, with a loose arrangement of looped sequencers, vocal samples and JBS’s signature high, punctuating synth.

When played in its entirety, it builds up to be a chaotic, but well-crafted piece of machinery, propelled forward by endless drum beats and equally at home in a dark, dingy club, or grinding through a pair of headphones, turned up full blast.

The Moths: To Hell With…

A far cry from Durban’s Winston Pub and the like, it’s fast and loose surf rock that’s just gritty enough to be at home in the streets of Jozi. To Hell With… is the latest release from The Moths and comprises six fast and frenzied instrumental tracks. The absence of vocals allows a more considered listen through the album allowing the group’s reckless synchronicity to shine through.

And the drums… oh the drums. They may just make the EP. For now, you can listen to it here, but you really should make an effort to see them live and in their element.

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CREATORS & CONTRIBUTORS

DARSHA INDRAJITH Darsha is a Masters student at the University currently known as Rhodes, where she also teaches digital media. She is a digital media producer and spends too much time on the Internet.

SIHLE NTULI Born in 1990 in Kwa Mashu and currently in Grahamstown.

Ntuli has an MA in classical civilisation and his first book Stranger was published this year. Read more about him in our artist profile for this edition.

ANDY MKOSI Mkosi is new to Ja. editorial team.

Part time journalist and full time awesome. An artist based in Cape Town and co-founder of Jam That Session.

ISABEL RAWLINS Completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Rhodes in 2012. Since then has built stone houses on an island in Croatia, planted saffron bulbs in Italy, served beers in Britain and currently teaches English literature at the University of Zululand.

CAITLIN STOBIE Caitlin is a writer currently reading for her MA in Critical Theory at the University of Kent, Canterbury. She has been published in journals like Aerial, Aerodrome, Flash, The Kalahari Review and uHlanga. Her interests include music, science, justice, animals, shapes and feelings.

MALEBO MOLOTO A tax consultant by day, a blogger by night and sometimes has ice cream for dinner. Lover of God and children, Sunday school teacher. Is a woman who colours outside the lines and wants to live in such a way defies gravity.

DANI EUGENIE O’NEILL 22. Young black female artist, photographer and illustrator, living and working in South Africa. Parttime marauder of small towns; full-time maker, explorer and liker of things. Black is the only black.

Currently pursuing a degree in photojournalism and digital media UCKA Rhodes.

NIAMH WALSH-VORSTER Writer and photographer working in the greatest city where it’s too hot to work, and everyone is way chilled and the ocean colour looks a bit kak but the people are just too great. Niamh is basically Durban’s fan girl.

Someone pay her for that.

JADE BRANDT Freelance graphic designer/ illustrator based in Cape Town. Has worked in advertising but later moved into freelancing as an illustrator at Anotherlove productions. She thinks exercising involves sketching, reading scary books and just obsessing over all things design, not forgetting comics.

Dreams of becoming an animation heroine someday.

NEGASI A young artsy South African who dabbles in poetry, blogging, talking his shit and finding ways to successfully do the same dance seamlessly for different songs.

PHILA DYASI Writer who goes by the name NuBlaccSoUl. All writing serves as a documentation of his life and a vehicle to share my stories with the world. They are similar to the experiences of others so the narrative of each being is never lost.

LEAH SOLOMON Leah grew up in Pietermaritzburg, KZN and still stings to admit it. A writer and constant festival goer, she enjoys writing about the people who keep the arts in South Africa pumping. Durban is her favourite place in the world and that’s probably where you’ll find her in the years to come.

NKOSAZANA ZAZA HLALETHWA

LANDA WILLIE Unorthodox creative/fashion blogger, writer, pursuing a career in Journalism. Cape Town based creative. Landa tells stories about her heritage and the beauty that is this dark skin, stories that have been told but never listened to or acknowledged.

MIA VAN DER MERWE A photographer, with a heart set on documenting that which inspires and makes them smile. Mia graduated with a degree in Journalism and Media Studies at RU. She dabbles in multimedia photography and videography; is a Photojournalism Teaching Assistant at Rhodes and freelancer.

Mia’s currently doing a Masters in Fine Art photography and video.

TSHEPISO SERAME Born in Bloemfontein and now in Cape Town reading towards an undergraduate Laws degree at UCT. An intersectional feminist with radical self love and truth being at the core of their politics.

Story telling has been a means for to make sense of the complexities and contradictions in her own upbringing, and the world that exists around her.

Upcoming Arts journalist from Pretoria. She loves travel and shedding major light rays on the underground world of art. She enjoys a good trap song and endless Instagram curation.

OTHEMBELE DLAMBULO 20 year old, South African borne, black isiXhosa speaking female.

Originally from Butterworth, Eastern Cape. Currently studying BSc Construction Studies at NMMU. Considers herself a wordy person and enjoys writing down thoughts, dreams, fantasies and aspirations. I live by Ubuntu.

DAVE MANN Freelance writer and eintjie smoker. Just moved to Jo’burg and yoh breh the graffiti here is nice hey.

LUMUMBA MTHEMBU Recently acquired Masters in English with distinction. He is about to start PhD and is a former Mandela Rhodes scholar. Interests include blackness and whiteness.

YOULENDREE APPASAMY Writer. Journalist. Book smart/shy. bell hooks and M.I.A inspired womxnist

MARTHA SOTERIADES Designer, illustrator and future cat lady. In her spare time she embroiders, makes cutting remarks and smashes the patriarchy.

MATT KYNASTON Studied at the university currently known as Rhodes and is now sub-editing to pay the bills. Lover of obscurity, cats and all things absurd, he’s either reading or sleeping at any given moment and never stops listening to hip- hop. This bio has to be at least 50 words, so this sentence should have him covered.

PHILELA SINGAMA A self-made film maker, writer, Youtuber . She started her career as an intern at Live Magazine SA. She was given an opportunity to produce news video inserts for eNCA and assist in a video project for Relate Bracelet Company. She worked as a writer for UWC Varsity Magazine. She studied Bsc in Physical science at the university of the Western Cape

DOODLE ART BY YOULENDREE APPASAMY