Walter Sisulu resurrected
A VR film using Walter Sisulu’s Rivonia Trial testimony is a triumph of technology, creativity and collaboration – and a reminder of the precarious state of SA’s historical records and archives.
Culture
Fela’s beat, continued
Paying tribute to the genius of the late Fela Kuti, Afrobeat musician Femi Koya brings back the spirit of African musicians with his powerful vocals and saxophone.
Text Messages | History and inevitability in Hong Kong
The unequal struggle for continued autonomy in the city of ‘skinny skyscrapers’ has moved from the streets to the campus, where it appears there can be only one outcome.
How Zulu radio dramas subverted apartheid
Even though they were a product of apartheid’s propaganda broadcasting machine, Zulu language radio dramas proved subversively powerful by reflecting communal black life and creating new stars.
Political Songs | Aquele Abraço – Gilberto Gil
Gilberto Gil was among the musicians, writers and painters arrested in Brazil for being a ‘threat to good order’. Fifty years on, the Bolsonaro regime is once again censoring the arts.
Text Messages | Predictions from Berlin
Granta essays from the time of the fall of the wall and apartheid hail political leaders who aspire to ‘not victory, conquest or triumph, but renunciation, reduction and dismantling’.
Mazwai does it for Masekela
Thandiswa Mazwai channels the process, dynamic and spirit of Hugh Masekela as she and his band effortlessly tie together notes and strands from past and present.
Text Messages | Crying for Argentina
The neo-Peronists about to take up the presidency in Argentina have their work cut out for them as they face a debt burden in the billions of dollars and an ailing economy.
Protest songs and the importance of Billy Bragg
A new bumper release celebrates 36 years of the career of British singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, including previously unreleased material.
Anyone can make amapiano. Now to grow it
Amapiano has grown as a music genre, particularly as technology has developed and assisted in creating and spreading the sound. It’s the mainstream monetising of the music that needs work now.
Political Songs | General Suleiman – Zeid and the Wings
Lebanese musician Zeid Hamdan is pressing pause on his creative work while his country is in a state of revolution, one of many around the world in which citizens are protesting against the political elite.
Bridging the black Atlantic in jazz
The collaboration of Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo and African American jazz trumpeter Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith, broke new ground and should have grown cult status.
Text Messages | A mayoral change
History shows that mayors of major cities often go on to become presidents. For Colombia, Bogotá’s newest head administrator could spell a fresh era for the Latin American country.
Welcome to the festival of refugees
Malawi’s Tumaini Festival in the refugee camp of Dzaleka is a platform of hope, promising intercultural harmony and beautiful arts.
How can we look at the art of a murderer?
The curatorial choice to exhibit the work of Zwelethu Mthethwa, convicted of murder in 2017, is a minefield that poses the questions, what do we do with ugly genius and how do we centre harm?
Jazz dancing and pantsula perfection
An effervescent jazz dancer, Harry Msimango died in his sleep last winter. He didn’t become famous for his dancing, he simply stepped into the hearts of all who’d ever seen him move.
Political Songs | Beds Are Burning – Midnight Oil
The song, which demands that white Australians give back the land appropriated from indigenous people, topped the charts all over the world – changing lives and minds in the process.
Jabba’s Africa
The late Jabulani Tsambo – aka HHP – was a postapartheid South African icon. In the wake of anti-migrant violence in the country, his continental politics and legacy take on new meaning.
Text Messages | A continent’s unease
Cartagena, the tourist and heritage jewel where Gabriel Garcia Marquez began writing as a journalist, is far from immune to the turmoil sweeping through South America.
The lost photos of the Blue Notes
Rare images of the legendary jazz band show them playing in South Africa before being forced into exile. The pictures signal a restorative return.
The radicalisation of Khuli Chana
After a decade of setting motswako’s agenda, there’s an expectation that as the last standing founder of the hip-hop subgenre, Khulane Morule must address the realities of young people on the ground.