Prince Kaybee injects meaning into house
The house producer and deejay attributes his success to making more than just beats, basing his hits on lyrics that empower to create songs with meaning.
By: Sabelo Mkhabela
16 Oct 2019
16 Oct 2019
Culture
Samthing supreme
Musician Samthing Soweto has burst on to the scene with a chart-topping album and seems destined to keep us singing along for years to come.
By: Tseliso Monaheng
15 Oct 2019
15 Oct 2019
Book Review | Meanwhile …
Queer graphic novels are starting to enter the mainstream, repurposing the meaning, impact and narrative of comics. Qintu Collab’s Meanwhile… is the latest offering in this genre.
By: Tshegofatso Senne
14 Oct 2019
14 Oct 2019
Political Songs | Voicemail For Jill – Amanda Palmer
Legal abortions are still under threat despite a global trend towards more liberal abortion laws. Palmer is the voice of a multitude of women making decisions about their bodies.
By: Charles Leonard
11 Oct 2019
11 Oct 2019
Book Review | Waste Tide
Chen Qiufan’s ‘Waste Tide’ describes migrancy, pollution, corruption and class struggle South Africans will recognise.
By: Gwen Ansell
10 Oct 2019
10 Oct 2019
Winnie’s fashion and politics
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela chose her outfits strategically, allowing them to speak when she could not, letting them become both acts of resistance and nodes of African pride.
By: Ntombizikhona Valela
9 Oct 2019
9 Oct 2019
Political Songs | Patria – Rubén Blades
Unlike South Africa, many countries have the foresight to appoint specialists to their arts, culture and tourism ministries. A fine example is Panamanian musician and activist Rubén Blades.
By: Charles Leonard
4 Oct 2019
4 Oct 2019
Text Messages | Chairman Mao’s toxic dreams
Though communist, China is also a bastion of capitalist commerce embroiled in a trade war with America. Seventy years after heralding the country’s inception, what would Mao Zedong make of it?
By: Darryl Accone
3 Oct 2019
3 Oct 2019
Poetry Review | Everything is a Deathly Flower
Maneo Mohale’s debut collection revels in a quintessentially queer African aesthetic.
By: Megan Ross
2 Oct 2019
2 Oct 2019
Long Read | Do black lives matter yet?
It has been five years since the inception of the Black Lives Matter movement. What has it accomplished and what important work has it left unfinished?
By: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
1 Oct 2019
1 Oct 2019
Highlife music digs deep for its roots
Ghanaian guitarist Kyekyeku is bringing socially aware sounds to a new generation, making revolutions in people’s minds.
By: Gwen Ansell
1 Oct 2019
1 Oct 2019
Sylvia Glasser comes full circle
Dancer, choreographer and company founder ‘Magogo’ Glasser has put her life’s work into a book. It took 20 years to complete and launched alongside a production of one of her works.
By: Robyn Sassen
30 Sep 2019
30 Sep 2019
Political Songs | 10 Commandments – The Specials
Saffiyah Khan stepped in to help a woman cornered by fascists and ended up recording a song with the band featured on her T-shirt that day.
By: Charles Leonard
27 Sep 2019
27 Sep 2019
Text Messages | A ruling against patriarchal prerogative
The three women who overturned British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s proroguing of Parliament helped set a clear constitutional precedent – and struck a blow against the Establishment.
By: Darryl Accone
26 Sep 2019
26 Sep 2019
The active memory of Lebo Mashile’s ‘Venus vs Modernity’
Though Sara Baartman has been represented across many platforms, her subjectivity remains mostly silenced. Now a poet and singer breathe life into our ancestor on stage.
By: Kgomotso Moncho-Maripane
25 Sep 2019
25 Sep 2019
Lady Skollie’s expansive art
By challenging the exclusivity of patriarchal, white-walled gallery spaces, the artist who dares to represent the darkness in her community creates new spaces for art to flourish.
By: Danielle Bowler
24 Sep 2019
24 Sep 2019
Reviewing new album releases
Recent releases reflect the unavoidable state of the world and contain thrilling experimentations with the possibilities of musical recordings.
By: Lloyd Gedye
23 Sep 2019
23 Sep 2019
Political Songs | Resistencia – Los de Abajo
Raised in politically minded families, the band members of Los de Abajo have stayed true to their leftist roots as the struggle in Mexico continues.
By: Charles Leonard
20 Sep 2019
20 Sep 2019
The patriarchy expects you to follow these scripts
There are many scripts that women are told to follow in the machinery of patriarchal fear taught by South African society.
By: Pumla Dineo Gqola
19 Sep 2019
19 Sep 2019
Text Messages | The truth about the truth
In a time of increasingly malleable versions of the truth from men in power, ‘to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle’ are salutary words of caution.
By: Darryl Accone
19 Sep 2019
19 Sep 2019
Historical experiments on the will to live free
In an attempt to write the lives and freedom dreams of black women on the margins of most archives, African American thinker and writer Saidiya Hartman plays with the speculative.
By: Asher Gamedze
16 Sep 2019
16 Sep 2019