REVIEW

The Second Coming!

Twenty-three years old Thabisile Mnisi, popularly known as Nthabi has just released her follow up gospel album to the funky Bambelela. Her latest offering is titled Sivuselele and was produced by this Thulamahashe native who is a product of the famous Silk Voices choir.

Mnisi, who during an interview for her first album told this newspaper that as a born-again Christian she didn’t need to write most of her songs as they were unveiled to her is this year celebrating ten years in the music business.

Sivuselele is taking over where Bambelela left off, only that it is three tracks short as it comes with nine multi-lingual gospel deliveries. The song that should push this album to devout gospel fans should be Ithemba Lami which is in the old tradition of moving choral music. While Mnisi sings the backing vocals as well the lead stands out though while her coherent backing complements this delivery.

She plunges into the unknown through her solo delivery in Ngibekise Kuwe. It derives its strength from her strong vocal presence, but she ends up sounding more like Deborah Frazer than a unique voice from Thulamahashe.

Worthy To Be Praised sells off her undeclared influence of Joyous Celebration and Rebecca Malope. It works though, due to her unique voice, but the influence stands out like a sore thumb.
She goes back to church with Nkosi Ngi Qine which is pulpit confession, traditional gospel with a lead and choir. The saxophone sounds borrowed though instead of played.
Most of the tracks have an authority while the only weakness of this album is the same with gospel albums produced in this produced – they all sound the same. Heard one heard them all – they all sound like remixes of Sipho Makhabane, Amadodana aseWesile and Rebecca Malope.

Sivuselele is mellow with a mid-tempo sound. It’s a strong award contender though due to its top notch production and mixing by Stanley Chiloane. However for gospel to survive in this province and for Nthabi to develop her unique voice the music must be authentic and a deviation from reliance on programmed beats and synthesizers which creates banality would be welcome.

Sivuselele is available in stores as Nthabi said earlier, "gospel is not only music to me but food to my soul"

OPINION

Black Men Can’t Jump

How hypocritical was the activities of the last week for South Afrika. We have recently been grappling with issues of race with some saying racism will be dead when the Democratic Alliance finally condemns all whites who put dogs in front seats while the darkie farmworker catches flu in the base. We can't assume that white means DA and darkie means ANC since I'm darkie but not ANC. Some saying racism will be gone once they have white aunties cleaning their floors. It’s interesting times for South Afrika because finally people are talking about these things that Nelson Mandela was comfortable with them being swept under the carpet. The native son Thabo Mbeki sparked this discourse with his stories of two nations, one rich, one poor, one white and one black.
However I personally think it shouldn’t take the DA to condemn white farmers to make strides towards national reconciliation; why can’t the ANC which is in power clamp down on those farmers? Why can’t councilors legislate against such barbaric behavior? Waiting for the DA to be the one raising such issues is further polarising this country’s body politik. And instead of wanting white aunties let the darkie professional who affords an auntie pay that auntie a living wage instead of exploiting them like whites are doing. Teach the white person how to treat you better by treating your kind better instead of expecting the white person to treat a darkie better while you treat your own like shit. Whites learned all this bad treatment from darkies.
Okay, I didn’t intend to be political but to raise an issue that left me cold – literally. It was the appointment of Gill Marcus as the new Reserve Bank governor from November 9, 2009.
Just recently the ANC was blowing hot and cold that Anglo-Gold decided to appoint a white male chairperson after the ANC’s own Cyril Ramaphosa turned down the offer. The ANC and its Sancho Panzas argued that there were many qualified darkies in the country to assist Anglo-Gold to fulfill its transformation mandate. It was a valid case even though we know what happened to Lazarus Zim and Peter Moyo when they were appointed to similar positions at formerly exclusively white-managed companies. We also know that some of those so-called qualified darkies are reluctant to work in the private sector as they are comfortable with plying their trade in the public sector where they can mess up SETAs, SASSA, NDA, IDC, SABC, SAA and Coega without any fear of repercussions as they answer to their own comrades at board level. We have these dodgy CEOs with no comprehension of King III or rules applied in Corporate Governance. They will not go to Anglo-Gold even if they were promised ten times what they are getting at government – for a simple reason that they can be corrupt at will and loot the Treasury and rest assured they will be deployed somewhere once unmasked.
I was left wondering this weekend where were those darkies that Black Management Forum and the Three Musketeers (ANC, SACP, COSATU) when President Jacob Zuma appointed a white woman to head the Reserve Bank? Marcus is as white as they come and no cosmetic interpretation of race will change her.

Outgoing governor Tito Mboweni had three darkie deputies who according to Zuma do not cut it as potential governors. If it was Anglo-Gold or Alexander Forbes that made such a statement you would have had the musketeers blowing hot and cold, but because it’s homegrown felony – fine.
Tito was hounded a few years ago for allegedly saying that white women should not be excluded from benefitting from Affirmative Action since they were not given opportunities as well in the past. BMF called on him to apologise for such a statement because white women have always been benefitted from patronage dished to their husbands, fathers and brothers.
Then Tito ruffled further feathers when he allegedly said that it was not easy working with darkie executives because they have a tendency to job-hop and can’t be relied upon to build a sustainable organization. He said that they were all about more money and not building careers and organizations.

Now to chuck him out and replace him with a white woman is an endorsement of his ideas which were deemed reactionary and more in line with the thinking of his employer, the native son Mbeki.
Coming to Marcus, the truth is that a white person is a white person and her political affiliation does not change the fact that her appointment is the saddest day for Affirmative Action and transformation. My argument is not that people should be appointed because they are darkies but that there needs to be consistence on the part of the ANC.
Are we saying all whites become darkies by joining the ANC? If that is the case then the race issue in South Afrika is so thinly defined that we need to reopen the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and talk about who did what to whom and when.

PS. I’m stacking the Tito Mboweni banknotes to boycott the Gill Marcus ones for at least a year – hahaha, joking.

TRU

One Giant Lie for Mankind

Yesterday was, according to American space legends the day that Americans put a man on the moon. It has been a story that has been so contesed that at this point in time I have read so much literature about it from both sides to start wondering if it indeed happened. I buy into the scientific reality that it's possible to put man on the moon - I however refuse to believe such can only be achieved when the space becomes contested. Remember Sputnik One and Two? If you don't know anything about the Sputnik Programme then you are not qualified to dispute NASA's story.

I dispute the story of the moon landing because my understanding of the space and the Krushchev-Kennedy contest of the 1960s makes it difficult for ordinary people to believe it. My question to optimists has always been that if the US had such sophisticated technology to put man on the moon in 1969 why has been so hard to do it in the preceding 39 years? I mean if I made it to the summit of Mount Everest today, I should be able to do it again next year, or at least try to do it. The US hasn't tried to go there again since the 1970s. Former President George W Bush launched the Mars mission which will be undertaken in 2013, that is if Congress does not cut back on the NASA budget again.

I don't care what other people are saying I just believe that the Yanks never made it to the moon and that they are celebrating a Hollywood staged moon landing with a script to boot. Why would anyone freshly landed on the moon utter words about 'a giant leap for mankind' when they are supposed to say 'wow, ohmygosh!'

I'm cynical, give me faith or tell me something different.

REVIEW

And Then There was Hydrogen

There’s a story that when Jesus Christ was proclaimed as the king of the Jews much of the resistance to His kingship did not come from lack of clout but because of where he came from. The scribes and Pharisees were vocal about nothing good going coming out of Bethlehem.

DJ Hydrogen, real name Thabiso Seoma who opts to be simply called Hydrogen is such story. However, coming from a village of Madjembeni did not stop this talented musician from recording his first house album titled The Acapellas which is a fusion of deep house with an innocent flirting with some elements of Pretoria funk – synonymous with Mjava and MaChance.

The Acapellas is a 15-track offering with intoxicating beats and a clever use of samples that makes this album a must-have for a devout house music disciple. The tracks that stood out include Bushbugridge Muscle, Everytime we Touch, Rainy Days, Behind the Walls, I Believe in Dreams and Mpumalanga Rise.

Behind the Walls’ strength comes from its sampling of Tracy Chapman’s song of the same title. While the mixing leaves a lot to be desired if compared with other releases out there, very much DJ Oskido’s Revolution, it however is a clever attempt, which sounds hollow for a new deejay.

The track that should get you listening without tapping your feet should undoubtedly be I Believe in Dreams which contains a quarter of Dr Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream speech. It sounds topical in this time of Barack Obama and slinging matches between Helen Zille and Julius Malema.

Overall this is a well-produced album which should bring Mpumalanga its second house music SAMA next year. More with addictive jams like The Deeper I go, Welcome to Bush, Club Designer and Attention.

Hydrogen says he is just waiting for a deal to put his album to the mass market. “My inspiration comes from the Soul Candy crew of Euphonik and Fresh. I just don’t understand why they would import music from overseas when these shores have excellent musicians”, he says. Probably Jesus wouldn’t have been great if He was born in the city of Jerusalem.

YEAH

All The President's Men or His Master's Voice?

A few days ago I was speaking to one of my guys about films that changed my life and set whatever motion I am in on the rail. I told him that the first film I was ever expected to watch, analyse and learn was All The President's Men. That was when I was doing my journalism. Actually it was one of the first films that I watched once but can tell you today what it was about.

I should admit that when I went to journalism school I had heard a few things about the Watergate Scandal that hatched what is up to now the situation of the first United States President to be dogged out of the White House. In the 1970s the US was going through a lot of problems, actually it was daily moving from scandal to scandal. It was the year of the Vietnam War, when the Yankee gains were being reversed daily by the VietCong and the US embassy was classified 'high target' by the Chinese backed guerillas.

1979 spelled the overthrow of the Shah in Iran and the longest US embassy hostage drama in its history. The 19080s spelled the Iran-Contra, the US being more pre-occupied with continuing two wars lost by Portugal in Angola and Mozambique. It was a difficult year for whatever US president. The last thing the US needed in the 1970s was a Repulican led CIA spying campaign on the offices of the Democratic Party at Watergate Hotel.

So, the film All The President's Men is borne out of that spying scandal but is explored from the part of the two Washington Post investigative reporters who uncovered the cover-up and exposed the president to the point that he was forced to resign. Not thousands of young US GIs in body bags has ever convinced a sitting president to throw in a towel, but a spying scandal at home did.

The two journalists who worked tirelessly against various threats from many dangerous Washington goons ended up winning every available award there was on the media for brave men like them. In the context of South Afrika they would have won the Vodacom, Mondi Shanduka and little others including the CNN Afrika one. The two men became quite big, and no wonder in some newsrooms they still swear by them.

So, for me I reckon the thrill in every journalist is in doing the right thing, chasing corruption wherever it happens, not taking bribes, not doing PR masquerading as journalism, not killing stories because they expose your friends as frauds and corrupt. I have recently heard of journalist who do water-tight stories only to send them to the corrupt people involved so that they can buy their silence. It happens quite a lot and at times I'm like, 'am I really part of such a profession that has been infiltrated by bad apples?'. When I started being a journalist was like being a doctor or a policeman.

Recently all the journalists who should expose the bad deeds of the president's men, have themselves become the president's men. Shame!

ANALYSIS

The Day The Story Died

When you see a bunch of journalists looking dejected don’t ever be stupid enough to think that maybe one of their own died – maybe a Rupert Murdock or Larry King. I doubt if they’ll ever cry if such happened. They never did when the Bang-Bang Club disintegrated.

In this world there are only two things that journalists dread – a deadline and the death of a story. A deadline is every media person’s internal opium that urges him to work harder or else he will miss it. It’s a bus to heaven, it's adrenalin.

To a journalist a deadline is like the last train out of a park station – you miss it you are stuck. They can bear missing everything (including coming during coitus) but not a deadline.

The second fear is when a story dies. How does a story die without ending you might want to know? A story dies when you allege that the minister (at national or in the Western Cape) used taxpayer’s money to buy a luxury Mercedes Benz and even corroborate your story by asking his PA who swears to god that she was with him when the transaction was sealed, his former driver who says “YEAH!”, that security guard at Rondebosch who says he saw it for the first time on June 30, the leader of the opposition who says she has dealership documents to support the sale, and the minister’s spokesperson who says he can’t comment on his boss’ personal ‘shenanigans’. Wow, you have a killer story of how the minister who earns R70 000 a month managed to buy a car costing a million at a time when the Credit Act limits how much of his money can be spent on luxuries and the global recession is on the rampage.

And then your shrewd editor rejects the draft and urges you to get bank records of the transaction plus check the Registrar of Member’s Interest and viola, the muthafucka actually used the credit facility afforded all executive council members to purchase the car and it has been declared. Apparently you discover that the credit facility allows him to get a car worth R1.1 million but he went for a measly million. And yeah, it was taxpayer money, and yeah he went with his PA and a driver.

Then a twist, apparently he was bonking the PA who he forced to do an abortion two months ago then dumped and she’s got a vendetta, the opposition leader requested the same allowance and was denied, the driver was reprimanded for using the minister’s car to transport marijuana since protocol dictates that it is not searched at roadblocks and the border and the poor security guard acted in good faith.

Now, why am I telling you all these? It’s because my friend saw a lot of hacks outside the Jackson family home, some sobbing and sitting their Versace bottoms on pavements and mistakened their fake crocodile tears for emotion and pain at the death of Michael Jackson, Peter Pan, The Gloved One, MoonWalker, Wacko Jacko, Lehlanya etc.

No ways, some of those fake mourners were dedicated entertainment journos whose beat (where you are deployed) was Michael Jackson – and with his death their biggest story died – and probably their beats will follow as well. So, don’t be fooled, journalists have no heart, when they see you they see a story and nothing else – once they have milked you dry they move to the next source.

PS. I’m a journo so be careful how you interact with me. I might quote you one day