Friday, 21 January 2022
Percy Mabandu is an art historian and freelance writer based in Pretoria.
South African jazz artists tend to immerse themselves in art spaces other than music. It is a visual and musical communing across forms that meet not only in artistry, but also in politics.
Five solo piano albums released in South Africa during the Covid-19 pandemic give shape and sound to our search for meaning amid the isolation of the moment.
It is part of the required creative courage in jazz for the artist to take us into his confidence like this, as Mandisi Dyantyis and his band perform a poetic workshipping of their new material.
The alto saxophonist and composer’s debut record could well place her in the pantheon of jazz giants, standing tall as one of the lone female voices among the reed players.
Legendary percussionist Mabi Thobejane banged the drum with flourish and put the instrument at the very heart of the unforgettable music he has left the world.
Eulogy, newspaper article, novel, poem… the obituary epitomises communal mourning, another aspect of being human that has been wrenched from society by Covid-19 restrictions.
The events of 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville forced South Africa’s artists to create work that responded to the political moment. Many used their creativity to bolster the liberation movement.
East Asian cultural workers power their protest with images from movies, songs and memes; even pieces of South African struggle heritage find their way to the burning streets of Burma.
The jazz world is celebrating the centenary of the late, great American pianist and pioneer of cool who was an iconic composer with strong ties to South Africa.
Could the long history of racist medical malpractice, social media conspiracy theorists and big pharma profiteering threaten the success of South Africa’s biggest vaccination programme?
The split in the International Pentecostal Holiness Church follows a pattern that has long shaped the flowering of Christian churches in Southern Africa and beyond.
Heading into the 2010 Fifa World Cup quarterfinals, South Africa was a nation clawing at its lost pan-African footing. But BaGhana BaGhana crafted Mzansi’s moment of redemption.
The sweet science was the most watched sport in the country when South Africa took its first steps towards democracy, creating heroes held in high regard both then and now.
Enoch Phiri makes more money working as a gardener for different people each day of the week than he did working full-time for a company, although coming to South Africa was not his first choice.
Migrant workers beat many challenges to reach South Africa and are often vulnerable once in the country, but they risk it to provide a better life for those they’re forced to leave behind.
How two jazz artists, Miriam Makeba with Jol’inkomo and Thembi Mtshali with Yakhal’inkomo, took on the African cattle complex.
The iconic music of Abdullah Ibrahim’s Mannenberg, recorded in 1974, celebrated contemporary South African reality as well as capturing it for all time.
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.
As politicians shake off the election season trauma of being stranded on the Metrorail, Percy Mabandu considers the train as a force that shaped South African music over the decades.
When his bursary fell through, Tendayi Sithole found a home among train vendors who opened a way for him to save for university. It led to him becoming an associate professor of African politics.