Kapture the Moment!

Very few South African producers would bet on Fruity Loops being their sound software of choice. They rather vouch for fancy brands such as Q-Base and MPC 300. However when one listens at the finished product the creativity fails the technology.

That’s until you meet Kapture, real name Ronald Malele (24). Born and raised in Bushbuckridge, Malele started his schooling at Saile and moved on to Ditau High School where he matriculated in 2007.
He says that he discovered his love for music, especially the innovation and creative side of things while he was studying PC Engineering in Joburg. While the world of technology is still what pays his bills he has ventured into serious beatmaking as his mixtape, which is still in the pipeline titled From the Underground bears testimony.
Driven largely by sampling underground skits and dodgy (unpopular) interludes his fascination with underground hip hop comes to the fore. “I grew up listening to house and hip hop but I loved hip hop more because of the messages it has. My favourite rappers were and still are Jedi Mind Tricks, Canibus, Gangstarr, Ben Shaper, Proverb, Optical Illusion etc.” Kapture says.
His evolution has resulted in him hooking up with Mpumalanga’s number one indigenous rapper Masta H (Mapulaneng Mixtape Volume One) on his follow-up mixtape. Masta H, real name Hlompho Lekhuleni swears by Kapture’s beats and says he is looking forward to working closely with him on his June release.
“I have worked with different producers such as Hydrogen, Rudy, Khulekani, Juniour, Tapsmash and many others but I find Kapture’s beats to be at another level and am looking forward to rapping my Sepulana rhymes on them”, he says.
Fruity Loops, the software that Kapture uses so well in real underground and deep songs such as The Graveyard, BBR Finest and The Angelic is also a favourite of award-winning 22-years old American producer Lex Luger. Luger has produced for artists such as Rick Ross, Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa and many others.
Kapture is a very talented young man whose command of sampling reminds one of a younger and less-arrogant Kanye West, is on point. It will be smart for some of Mpumalanga’s hip hop artists to familiarise themselves with his sound, especially those on a conscious tip and wanting beats to carry their message across. “The Graveyard is the name of my production which I chose because the graveyard is the last place where we all rest, so this means my sound is the beginning of the end.”, Kapture says in conclusion

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Onse Artist in District Six

Outlaw artist Sandra McGregor understood the vast vistas of storytelling outside of the then much-hyped oral literature and the glam offered by DRUM magazine and its genius writers such as Can Themba and Blake Modisane. Afrikans have over the years succeeded in having their knowledge transferred from one generation to the next through campfire tales – that was before someone exposed the pen and paper to them. Folk tales have survived various assaults since nobody had the power to burn – literally every Black person with a story embedded in their mind. And when they started using various mediums such as photography (Alf Khumalo), sculpting, painting etc the apartheid wheels came off.

Thus, when Sandra McGregor saw District Six – a mixed residential area that had defied any attempt by the apartheid government to divide by race – and not rule the majority population of South Africa she saw a canvas hungry for her oil and brush. Over many years she recorded life in this ‘controversial’ part of the Cape, including the day the bulldozers came with instructions to bring to an end a social experiment gone gory.

It was 1962 when she settled there as an artist – almost an outsider in a community that was MADE IN PRETORIA. Dolores Fleischer, who authored Onse Artist in District Six made it her mission to trace the route that Sandra took, her muses, her rags to riches story, her inspiration, her uncelebrated talent and the probable reasons she felt at home at District Six.

When I have to review work as disarming as Onse Artist in District Six I am confronted with the reality that the best story of South Afrika’s artistic excellence, including its place in the world has not yet been told. The Van Goghs, Picassos and friends don’t have nothing on our artists. What with the robbery that took place during apartheid years – some through curators who took in their own possession classic works by South Afrikan exiled artists such as Gerald Sekoto and the raping of works by sculptors Noria Mabasa and Jackson Hlungwani to the point where they adorn majestic buildings outside of this country – bought at a pittance.

Paraphrasing what Steve Biko said about a people with two versions of history, Fleischer not only makes this poignant point to stick out throughout her biography of McGregor but she also uses it as a political tool to interrogate the past. “The individual spirit and its artistic expression can never be destroyed”, a blurb on the back cover makes that point very clear.

The destruction of District Six aimed at discouraging, through action human disregarding of the social engineering that was taking place in their mist, mirrors that of Sophiatown. The architects of poverty’s attempt to render history a lie by destroying the inspiration that ended up on McGregor’s canvass is not lost to Fleischer’s narrative which accompanies the paintings and the profile of biography artist.

Like The Artist in the Garden – the Quest for Moses Tladi by Angela Read Lloyd, the sting in the tail of these works is the fact that they are bios written to celebrate triumph of the human spirit – against odds larger than physical and legislative hurdles.

This is a beautiful book that will be useful more the day South Afrika answers back to critics of the modernity (contemporary claim) of its artistic landscape.

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The Artist in Our Garden - A Review


Apartheid was terrible because not only did it deny the majority of people a chance at self-determination but it also robbed its practitioners of an opportunity to discover a beauty outside of themselves. A beauty that was not pink or peach but Black – quite probably brown. Thus, the architects and their apologists were left existing in an aquarium environment of gross ignorance where everything that shone was gold.

This was the sad indictive conclusion I reached after reading – quite critically Angela Read Lloyd’s biography of Moses Tladi, the first South African Black artist working in an international style - titled The Artist in the Garden, the Quest for Moses Tladi. A beautiful picture-driven bio of an artist who never occupied any space in the mind of the Boer art fundis because their state decided he shall not be acknowledged as existing in a country of his birth. He is called the artist in the garden because, as apartheid would have liked it – the best idea of a Black person for anyone visiting South Africa was supposed to be that of a garden worker or miner who at the end of the day was so tired that he would not see the need to explore any career outside of the confines of subjugation.

Tladi, in that institutionalised oppressive system managed to become a painter, a brilliant one at that who captured the aesthetic of his institutional captivity with the view of a bird in a cage. When you look inside a cage all you see is a bird, but you’ll never know what it sees when it looks outside. One poet once said that ‘a bird, even in a golden cage still years for freedom’. True, the golden cage only charms the captor but the bird can see the freedom that exists beyond such glittering confines. Tladi escaped the cage in ways that made the captor angry and feel more the need to suppress his creative spirit.

The story of Tladi is the story of musician Enoch Sontonga, the story of author Merriam Tlali, the late sage Es’kia Mphahlele and all the Black soldiers who took part in the Second World War only to be relegated to footnotes when the story was finally told by Field Marshall Jan Smuts and his Boer generals.

It is a counter-story to Pablo Picasso’s imagined, media-hyped and celebrated genius, Breyten Breytenbach’s literary eccentricism and JM Coetzee’s purported eye for detail. The story of a star that continued to survive against all odds – even when the sun rose. The man who refused to be shackled and packaged in a box.

It’s for that reason that Lloyd’s endeavour to expose this rare gem deserves proper appraisal in a world that is known for giving posthumous awards instead of lifetime achievements and excellence prizes. While the consumption of artworks, especially the visual genre is still an elite hobby in our country it is through good narratives such as this that consciousness will someday replace literary apathy.

The Artist in the Garden – the Quest for Moses Tladi is available is all good book stores. I loved it and I promise you my sentiments shall be yours when you finally flip page 293







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A Series of Undesirable Events - A Review

I am a strong advocate of non-conformity. I don’t believe in structure. I detest any template and reject any notion that anything is absolute. Even the truth is not because it is ‘the truth according to???’ whose perception of it might have been strongly influenced by the tide of the times. The events of any era produce their own truths and lies. And such truths become lies once the table turns. So, I protest that anything is gospel unless inspired by the Creator. And the Bible is not a book of literature but history.
Being a non-conformist, if I was to put together my twelve disciples there would be, among them Zukiswa Waanner (whose experimental style in Men of the South and her retake of Can Themba’s The Suit breaks conformity barriers), Kgebetli Moele (for his shrewd use of his poetic license in Book of the Dead), Tshwarelo Mogakane and until last week Deon-Simphiwe Skade.

Now I know you are familiar with some of the writers I have mentioned above and you wonder why would I want to put together a disciple unit of scribes some of you might call rebels? I deliberately omitted Siphiwo Mahala whose retake of The Suit (The Suit Revisited) is still one of those short stories I read to remind myself that Afrika is the cradle.

Now, Skade’s novella titled A Series of Undesirable Events is a peep-show into what this writer, who I have never met has in store for our literary landscape. I often get tired of justifying why I appraise some books and deliver positive judgments while I stump other like a badly translated Holy Book. Comrades, I am a literary adjudicator in the English panel of the South African Literary Awards (SALA) where I serve with a Doctor and a Professor and my competence to put forward an argument on literary merit is unchallenged. Your book becomes literature when we say so because we have read hundreds if not thousands of titles and we know what a good book read like.

And I dare say, A Series of Undesirable Events is a blerry brilliant story – though more could have been said between these 90 pages. Skade could have thrashed out details about his characters and added more flesh on the novella weighing 165 in a city where novellas die. Impressive because this novella does not face its demise but survives to be appraised.

Skade’s flirting relationship with his characters and their intricate stories robs the reader of any opportunity to fall in love with them, embrace them and peel more layers to discover their aesthetic. He tells us what they all do for a living, which is good and often shines through the narrative. He delves deep into that – especially towards the end when it’s just Moshe, Tumi and Tshitso who are reminiscing about lost friends and acquaintances over green bottles.

The poems accompanying the prose add a necessary colour to the canvas, and leaves the reader wondering why can’t they stand alone – without being adulterated by the prose.

I love Skade’s narrative because of what I call non-conformity. Throughout the 90 pages he manages to be all the characters in the novella and see the world through their eyes. He even manages to become someone as miscellaneous as Lorraine. He juggles being a man and a woman with a passion Waanner would be proud of. Waanner is three times all ‘men’ in Men of the South.

Skade’s book is so well-written I had to read it seven times before formulating this thesis. I don’t kiss ass (even when I get free books for my growing private library) and I am brave to say that Skade is a useful addition to our literature family. His story is set in a city very few people have tackled without touching on its pre’76 geo-political make-up (not make-over). Cape Town never changes – and Skade’s narrative is a testament of activism about this magnet with a table – the magnet that should be declared the 8th Wonder of the World for its eternal captivity in a time warp. The last European outpost in the South.

If this book pitched for any award I adjudicate it would have stood a chance to walk away with an accolade for creativity – depending on with whom will it be swimming. A worthy read I am comfortable to call – the first in a line of many. Even though it’s not mine.

Skade is extremely talented, his style seductive and the simplicity with which he tells the Undesirable Events addictive. Go buy it and read.

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"Bare H ba tshware/ i got a new swag"

The much-anticipated Sepulana mixtape of Luv Ur Hood founder Hlompho ‘Masta H’ Lekhuleni was finally launched in September. Lekhuleni, who has since gone to outsell all the first copies in two months spoke Kasiekulture back then as the climax of his labour was shipped from Pretoria where the final touches were put.

The 17-track mixtape titled Mapulaneng Mixtape Volume 1 is the first hip hop recording to be done in the obscure language of Sepulana. “While the mixtape is a pure Sepulana album there are other artists who are featured who sing in their languages as well. It is a classic Mpumalanga potpourri”, says Masta H, popularly known as H. He says for the mixtape he worked with Junior Mkari, a producer based in Thulamahashe. He features on his songs rappers such as Shogun C-Well, KFB, Young KCee, Junior, Android and Adorn the Poet. The music was provided by beatmakers such as Hydrogen, TapMash, Bacteria, Rudo Charma, Calliber, Junior and KP.

The mixtape also includes individual songs by JOP (Lehlabula), Katsuko and Mr Doo (Yo Hip-hop). Yo Hip-hop has been making rounds for some time and is already a popular ringtone amongst Mapulana folk in Bushbuckridge, Daveyton, Soweto and Tembisa. “Katsuko’s Ke Tšwa Bush song is also on rotation already and has been adopted as the Luv Ur Hood anthem. It has a video on YouTube, which is rare for artists without a deal”, continued H.

However the same can be said about Lekhuleni as well. Having just recorded Mapulaneng Mixtape Volume 1 last month he has already featured in O’Mang, an SABC commissioned documentary where he raps in Sepulana. Four of the songs from his mixtape have already been procured for inclusion in the documentary. “Motshenyoleng wa Bhayiza, O’Mang, Mapulaneng and Mayibuye will get national acclaim when the doccie is screened” added H. It means that H saw his first paycheque before he had an album out.

On the week of his release H performed during a soccer tournament in his hometown of Shatale. He said the release of the mixtape was well-arranged to coincide with Heritage Month. “It is this month that we have to be proud of ourselves, where we come from and the languages of our ancestors”, he said. He added that he hopes that with his mixtape already out he hoped to feature in the province’s Heritage Month celebrations as there has never been any participation, especially in rap by Mapulana, who are an integral part of Mpumalanga.

“I hope the powers that be at Arts and Culture, government, promoters and municipalities are listening. This mixtape was long overdue and I know together with amaShangaan, amaNdebele and amaSwati, this potpourri of cultures is going places”, he concluded.

Well, that never happened, as the powers that be were busy obsessing with politics - tribal and partisan.

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An Apple that fell Far From the Tree

They used to say an apple never fell far from the tree. Recently this idiom has come under serious challenge. First it was Marc Brown, the son of former defender and SAFA Lowveld President Mr Allen Brown choosing basketball to soccer and now it’s the same son, now going by the name of DJ Prodigy occupying the number two spot for Polokwane on the online music chart reverbnation.

This simply means that for a few weeks now he has been voted the number two house deejay in Limpopo by music lovers who get to listen to hundreds of songs on the file sharing site. He debuts at number 19 in Mpumalanga, regardless of having already released three EPs and in line to release another one end of September.

DJ Prodigy, a media studies student says he was inspired by the growth of the house music industry in the country to follow his passion after basketball. That passion has already seen him producing tens of songs which he has already played to rave reviews at the University of Limpopo and its surrounding clubs.

“My music has to be heard and played in Mpumalanga as I’m gonna need all the support I can get from my province”, said Prodigy, who also triples as a graphic designer and producer.

He says in Mpumalanga he will be competing on reverbnation with brilliant producers such as Extreme, Native and Da Capo. “I just did a remix of Papago o rata Mmago for Moko who plays a huge role in production and upliftment of house music. He also masters all my songs” adds Prodigy.

Prodigy’s music, which we had an opportunity to sample at a listening session is intoxicating and well-fused. It is deep house with saucy riffs and a thumping bassline, often over tribal sounds. “My favourite local DJ is Cula de Song while I draw my international inspiration from Lass Berenhof. For local house to work out we need to have a national top 100 list for house. In that way we can produce house music that we can export to other countries instead of always playing small”, he says with finality.

Prodigy plans to release his Chillour House Sessions Volume 1 Club Compilation soon.

His music can be currently heard on www.reverbnation.com/marc-da-prodigy brown

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Luv Ur Hood - Mkhuhlu


The fourth of five annual instalments of Mpumalanga's flagship hip hop movement Luv Ur Hood kicked off a storm on October 1. The session, still themed Marope ra Maja saw hordes of emcees from this sprawling township coming out to trade verses and asset their position in the province's hip hop landscape.

Hosted at Snoepie's Bar by Community Radio Bushbuckridge's hip hop deejay Matt, tens of fans lounged their Saturday afternoon under the barrage of unadulterated verses.

New voices and rappers of note who surprised many through their talent includaed dreadlocked Eghemu Village native Ronza Wakhona, Blazin' Blaze, Two Spin, Peta, Royal Air, Trick Boyz and the Skwatta Gang crew.

As it has become custom the movement's founders Mr Hlompho 'Masta H' Lekhuleni and Khutso 'Katsuko' Malele were also there not only to increase patronage but to explain how the movement works. Masta H, who already has a record titled Marulaneng Mix tape Volume 1 blew the crowd to smithereens with his opening freestyle verse during the open mike. Katkop was compeering the event and dropping impromptu lines which robbed him of an opportunity to perform his anthem Ke Tswa Bush.

However, Crazy Doggz's Shogun C-well was at his best and so was Mr Doo (Yo Hip-Hop) who displayed his multilingualism by dropping rhymes in Xitsonga, Sepulana and SiSwati.

The organisers say that this year's closing session will go back to its spiritual home, Ga-Kabila car Wash on December, where they expect all emcees sourced from Acornhoek, Thulamahashe and Mkhuhlu to converge for a grand finale.

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Spring meets Summer



I reckon you have been wondering why has Kasiekulture drawn to a yield in recent times. Don't stress comrades we are still here. The technicalities of the world since the Arab Spring has meant more clogging of the internet sytem. This here thing works like a heart and the more there is tension the more the veins get clocked and it slows down. But now I'm talking about the capitalist system. There seems to be some chap somewhere who is interested in making sure that anything coming out of fertile grounds for a revolution gets nipped at the bud.

They say what made the Arab Spring successful as opposed to the hundreds of African Springs over many years was the literacy rate in those countries. Immediately they started to protest they kept the world updated through social media such as Twitter and YouTube. They kept those images of brutality flowing and that is one of the reasons why the world stood behind them and eventually helped them topple their dictators. Well, while the same can't be said about South Afrika, however the jamming signals that roam our communities are a threat to our freedom of expression.

However that is not really the reason I have not been posting but it's one of them. I am back with a bang and you will receive your regular updates of our artistic and literary landscape here on Kasiekulture. I have been held down by adjudication of South Africa's beautiful literature and I have even forfeited to mention that I have completed a film titled Cast the First Stone which has already been flighted on Mzansi Magic.

Okay, stay posted. I am back with a bang!!!

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TRUE

Bana Ba Tau le Nkwe

The Great Roman Empire created the Christmas holiday to appease Christians and pagans with a day worthy of a festival. But for the great Mapulana nation of South Africa who are largely based in Mapulaneng, the biggest festival in their calendar is the annual initiation school graduation. It wasn’t different last month as thousands of boys became men and girls graduated into women. There were more than ten such schools in the kingdom.

This year’s initiation graduation was captured by a television crew for an SABC commissioned series which is funded by the National Lottery Distribution Fund. It will be screened in 2012. The documentary, aptly titled O’Mang seeks to unearth the roots of South Africa’s often forgotten Black cultures. It is being filmed all over the country and various tribes feature in the series. The core focus is on events that shape each tribe.

Kasiekulture followed the crew over three days as they explored the story of Mapulana and their initiation (koma). The Mapulana chapter of the documentary started in their ancestral land of Pilgrims’ Rest, which according to historian Billy Malele is where Mapulana settled after defeating amaSwati at Moholoholo mountain by hurling rocks at them. “They deployed various chiefs to guard boundaries. they deployed Mogane, Mashego, Mashile, Malele and Chiloane to various outposts. Every terrain was allocated a chief to guard against the return of the Swazi army”, he relates in the documentary.

On the subject of initiation another historian Jonathan Malele elaborated about how around 1830 Mapulana decided their men had to be trained to withstand any threat they might face in the future as they were fresh from a battle that saw them flee from Barberton to Hoedspruit under the barrage of amaSwati Army. “They chose the harshest of weathers, Winter to conduct the training. It had to happen far from women so a mountain was chosen. Everything that a boy is taught and trained for in our initiation schools is meant to make them brave, never fear cold, understand astronomy, how to start a family and treat his wife”, Malele said.

Unlike the much-hyped and controversial amaXhosa, Mapulana initiation is only held in Winter. He added that circumcision (lebollo) was also added to go with the training as there needed to be a measure to counter venereal diseases which made the foreskin stiff around the glans. Initiation took six months then – which is a far cry from the six weeks of nowadays.

"Government demands that it be six weeks to ensure that learners are back to school in no time. So we are guided by legislation but we still initiate them correctly even though circumcision is not a big part of it”, says Sehule Initiation School minder Robert Mashego, who is also the chairperson of initiation school minders in Limpopo Province. His younger brother Linos was running one school in Thabakgolo this year.

The O’Mang crew, led by veteran film and documentary maker Bjorn Rudner filmed the graduation ceremony from August 4, 2011, when the initiates leave the burning school behind, watch a stick-fighting (matube) until Saturday when they go home. The Mapulana chapter of this groundbreaking documentary is hosted by artist Zakhona Mogane and revolves around her journey into Mapulana history and culture.

“The people here have a colourful culture and some of the things we have seen exceeded our own expectation”, said producer Rudner, who was excited by how the script started writing itself on the second and third day.

Linos Mashego told this newspaper that this year they initiated 166 boys and 93 girls and all of them returned home safe. His older brother says it’s a far cry from what is happening in the Eastern Cape where the journey into manhood is often the last journey taken. “They need to come to Mapulaneng and learn how initiation can be performed correctly. It’s a birthright, not a commercial enterprise”, Robert, who is also a traditional healer said.

Next year, another bunch of Mapulana boys will once again take the journey into manhood at one of the 13 or so initiation schools in Mapulaneng – and the custodians of Mapulana culture are adamant that they will continue returning home in one piece – minus a foreskin.

* O’Mang will be screened some time next year.

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