REVIEW

Luv Ur Hood -Easter 2012

While some people were lounging in familiar spaces (such as 606, Valencia, Civilize etc) getting sloshed, chatting under-age girls and lying to each other about how much they have in their banks and what car they will be driving in Summer the Luv Ur Hood bunch (Khutso 'Katsuko' Malele and Hlompho 'Masta H' Lekhuleni) was out at Kabila's Car Wash doing what they do best - hook up a tight show irrespective of the limitations of bad sound and an incoherent line-up - actually rag-tag. Like they say in other countries, 'even without you (Whitney Houston) the show must go on'.

And go on it did; opening as usual with the anthem 'Batho ba a shota' which gets Mr Doo on his element. This comical emcee was this day flipping the coin with a huge wall clock strapped around his neck. He lapped the stage and delved deep into his Sepulana and Xitsonga delivery that pokes fun at other rappers - alive and dead. The line I love with passion is when he says 'rappers masturbate with Rama'. Hahahaha, you should have heard how he got the whole crowd eating out of his palm.

But Do is a drop in an deep ocean made up of different sets, such as those from Thulamahashe (C-Well, Tazzy Taz, PLZNT etc). Some enthusiasts awaited a performance by another Thulas cat called SK but true to the hustler culture of the ghetto he was nowhere to be seen - gathering cash somewhere in this vast region of Bushbuckridge. I however spotted Spotja, Junia and Gazzolin. Spotja dropped a few lines during the freestyle stage together with another rythmatic emcee whose participation only ended there. Junia was strolling around like a Don let loose in the Carribean and never bothered to sing.

Masta H and KFB also took to the stage. KFB flamed the mike with two songs that come ripped straight from the streets. For a change it was refreshing to hear him go beyond his beat influenced freestyles and rapping something one can tell was scripted, edited and delivered with love for the game and fans. Whoever makes KFB's music truly understands his sound - playalistic and suave. KFB knows how to play on the beat as one can hear him on the Mapulaneng Mixtape's 1,2,3 Mabhebeza; together with Young K-Cee.

Speaking of Young K-Cee, he has matured since the days of his novice primary school lines reminiscent of everything despised about the Dirty South. Even though his delivery is tight he needs to evolve beyond rythming about stuff he loves (money), stuff he is (sickest kid emcee) and stuff he wants to be (Young Moolah). This young emcee must broaden his vocabulary and start using other people's experience to inform his lyrics. Hearing someone singing about mohawks and skinny jeans can't make for an interesting album. Young K-Cee the Kid needs serious mentorship; which he might get from his cousin Masta H.

Masta H was at his element. Actually it should be a conflict of interest for me to write about H since I also manage him. But as a fan his delivery is always on point. My judgment of his maturity goes beyond just the songs he performed, which come from his Mapulaneng Mixtape but also a song he recently recorded with J.O.P, where the hook is an intoxicating classical piece by Sabs (Masaba). It's a wedding song that can hold its own in the august halls of Italy alongsinde Placido Domingo and Jose Carerra.

Bushbuckridge was represented by its dons, the gothic crew that drinks and smokes like nobody's business and have scary rythmes that can get a coward shying away from College View, Maviljan and other town's outskirts. Even in the absence of Android the crew still held it down. These dudes need to have a mixtape and market it hard. The streets are waiting.

Obviously Katsuko was there too, threatening to rap and only doing it impoptu. Surely being an emcee is not the easiest role one can play. Familiar faces such as Sparkle, Dialectic (who dropped a verse or two), Adorn the Poet (who was manning the Luv Ur Hood merchandise stand), Black Pearl (who was expected to perform but didn't), Software (hmmmmm) and many more. Luv Ur Hood Easter rocked and they are planning another one for Youth Day! Ayeye!

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Reach for the Sky


Miss Mpumalanga hopeful Thato Matšie is only twenty-years old and can already see herself walking out of the Ehlanzeni Conference Centre with the crown on April 13. She is competing against 13 other equally beautiful and gifted young women – all hoping to continue to represent Mpumalanga at the Miss South Africa pageant later this year.

“I started modelling in high school, winning both the Miss Valentine, Lehlasedi, Shatale and Mapulaneng school contests. I am currently with Select Modelling Agency in Rosebank and have attended Miss SA workshops. At the workshops it finally dawned on me that if I want to be at the top I need to start at the bottom”, Thato says.

She adds that contrary to her earlier perceptions of modelling, it is not as easy as it is made out to look. Thato says her view was broadened at realising that she needs to be informed about what is happening politically, be intelligent and have a brain to understand the challenges faced by young people in the country. “I want to use my participation in Miss Mpumalanga to bring hope to the people of Bushbuckridge as a whole, rural areas and teenagers who are at a disadvantage, especially those who feel that they don’t have hope. I want them to know they can make it in life. I want to be their role model” says this hip-hop sensation Rick Ross fan.

Thato also confesses her liking for Thandiswa Mazwai and says ‘Mazwai is real, a woman-and-a-half. I love her personality’.

The leggy lass aspire to open beauty spas and libraries throughout communities as her way of reaching out. She says women’s health and beauty should not be exclusive to the elite but should be as affordable as a Pap Smear. “I want to be Miss South Africa, own cars and houses. My two role models are my mother, Lebo and Sibongile Sambo, founder of SRS Aviation. She’s the first black woman to own an aviation company and school in Africa. She’s a strong woman who has done a lot and motivated me. She comes from my hometown too”, Thato says fondly. She is also a Flight Attendant student in Johannesburg.

Last weekend her charity donated 250 school uniforms, shoes and bags to Lehlasedi High School and Boikhutšo Primary School learners.

“I believe that our fashion industry in South Africa must integrate our ethnic designs and fabrics into what are globally big brands like Gucci. We need to promote Africa and be more innovative instead of just being consumers” she says about our fashion industry. Her love for women’s beauty is one of the reasons why she wants to study Somantology later in her twenties.

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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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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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