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New Year's Resolution - Adopt the World!

A couple of years ago I used to be one of those who prioritised December 31 as the day that I made my resolutions known. All too ambitious. All with a deadline. And everytime I failed to realise them I felt like a total failure. Total muthafucking failure. And later on in life I noticed that I was not a failure because I couldn't reach my resolutions, I was a failure because I set them in the first place. These days I have daily resolutions. The secret is to take your meal in small bites instead of wanting to devour the whole cattle.

And now 2010 when I started I told myself that all I wanted was to fix the world; one step at a time. And I only stared in February to remove one pedophile principal from a high school. My plan was simple; use any meant necessary, as long as it's based on truth and fact to pluck this cancer from our society. It took time and in October the bug was gone - detoxed forever. It was one of my resolutions.

2011 I have only two resolutions; The first one is to see to it that Mhala Traffic Testing Ground is closed pending investigations into corruption, money laundering and extortion. I have simple ambitions. I don't care that it takes me one, two, four or twelve months. I will only feel good when that muthafucka is closed and heads roll.

My second ambition is to adopt the whole world; one child at a time. But not really one child as like Nelson Mandela Children's Fund but those with the potential to be something in the arts. Simply put I want to strive to produce a mixtape for all the rappers I think have potential, create a platform for all the visual artists with talent, publish poets with skill and something to tell. I want to adopt the whole fucking world.

I think I should confess that my ambition is fuelled by what I see happening around me. I will mention a few individuals who feed my muse. Vonani Bila has carried the cross of literature and the arts for many years; often focusing in areas in the periphery such as villages and hamlets. He has exposed more poets, playwrights and authors who if he allowed the city-based status quo to prevail would have never seen the inside of a book store. And at 38 he is far from stopping, always striving to open more avenues for rural artists to be exposed.

Mathata Mashile is an enterpreneur to whom soccer has always been a part of his life. While he did not manage to play at the highest leagues he pursued business and today he regularly sponsors community events with the potential to channel youth energies into positive platforms. He stages soccer tournaments which's logistics and financial support he scrapes from the bottom of his pocket to realise - with no corporate support.

Pitso Mashilane started Amazwi Poetry Club which grew in strength and produced some of the most powerful bards today. The majority of those have the potential; once they have outgrown puberty to be anything the want to be in the world of arts. One of them is feature on the video which I posted in the opening of this post.

This post will be incomplete if I forgot my heart in human form - Keitu Nkoto Anne Malebye. She is many things to many people, an actor, a singer, a sister and anything you want her to be - as long as it's positive and beneficial to a greater human race. She started a group of children performers called Bana Ba Bongi who kick butt like nobody's business. She funds the troupe from her own pocket and continues to support these kids who have the potential to be the next layer of performers in this country.

These people I mentioned do not have deep pockets; they just have pockets and bigger hearts. They include Luv Ur Hood's founders Khutso 'Katsuko' Malele and Hlompho 'Master H Lepulana' Lekhuleni. Mxolisi Nyezwa. Last but not least Matshilo Motsei and all the women in Maviljan she works with to better the lives of women and children. All they have is a heart - often bigger then their fists. And I reckon if I asked them their New Year's Resolutions they will be linked to the community works they have been doing for all these time - without any payment.

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OPINION

Define Your Sound

The other day I listened to Gauteng MEC for Arts and Culture Lebogang Maile saying they are waging a campaign to have more of local music played on radio and television. I was disappointed I should say. I thought MECs should be busy with policy issues instead of stressing on whose song gets more airplay on radio. I thought songs make their way to playlists based on how deep and recent they are. A song must deserve to be played not advocated to by a politician. Radio stations must not be threatened with withdrawal of advertising if they don't play a song by that guy who gave his time to a political party during the last campaign for election. I'm not saying Bra Lebza touched on that but often you can see the signs - 'menemene tekel'

So, while I was worried about that I tried to fathom why some of the local songs fail to make any impace on the market. My findings were very dodgy but I would share them with you in parables. If you were looking for a ton of bananas for a Fruit Festival you are staging. You arrive at market where fruits are sold and you find a hawker standing next to a big sealed MAERSK container. "I'm looking for bananas, what do you have in the container?"

"I've got a little bit of everything"

"Okay, do you have bananas?"

"I can't say I have or not. I don't want my fruits to be boxed as either bananas, oranges or apples"

"Oright, so you don't have bananas"

"You might find them in this package, but I wouldn't say what I have in here are bananas or oranges. Depends on your taste. I have universal fruits"

Okay, next scenario. You want oranges and you go to a stall. "I'm looking for oranges"

"Okay, how many boxes?"

"A ton of them"

"Okay, this container here is oranges, best from the plantation. This one here is apples, best from the Cape. This one here is grapes, fresh from the Garden Route"

Who do you fancy to make a sale? The muthafucka who thinks being indecisive a sign of sophistication or the guy who is just a plain merchant?

That's the problem with local artists. A lot of them do not know the genre they are in. They obsess with releasing house albums they sell as house but enter competition as kwaito albums. Some release rap albums which they sell as kwaito and enter competitions as rap albums, or vice versa. It's easy to win a kwaito award with a hip hop album cuz it's bloody lyrical. And then artists wonder why they are not getting any fucking airplay. You should know if you are running a marathon, a sprint or a half-marathon. Take the example of Slikour. The chap is a hip-hop head. He releases albums and calls them MixTapes. Afraid to be benched by hungry cats he releases a mixtape without a mix. He then goes on and releases an album and calls it an EP, enters it for awards this year - repackages it for next year and the cycle continues.

Now, if I want to play your music, from your album, how am I going to playlist from a Mixtape? Especially when the damn thing is not a Mixtape in the first place. How am I going to playlist some chick called Luguqa if she tells me she is not playing Afropop but soul? Scared to benched by Lira and Mafikizolo I see.

So, instead of politicians playing the populism card and trying to look as if they know shit about music they need to tell their artists to define their sound. Imagine a filmmaker not wanting to tell if what they are releasing is a biopic, documentary, comedy, thriller, war drama etc. That would be chaos at the box office. You'll see cinemagoers marching out of theatres do demand their money. So, poor artists; define your sound and package your albums to reach the right market. With that you won't need Bra Lebza to advocate for you. Ask Lira and Niggaz With Attitude - no awards for telling what music genre put (s) food on their tables.

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TR

Phasoa Cyprian Mashego

Today we bring you the works of animation student Phasoa Mashego who is based in New Zealand. We will continue to bring you works by different animators who call (or once called) South Afrika home.



Any other artist involved in one or more of arts disciplines that have not graced our spaces should feel free to email us the code and we will review the video before posting on this blod. This is a public platform moderated by me. So, you play by my rules!



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REVIEW

And the rains came down – a review of pushing from the riverbank

I am a fan of Alan Finlay. So the moment his latest instalment of poetry, pushing from the riverbank popped in my mailbox, just six days after publisher Gary Cummiskey shipped it i had that foreplay anticipation that increases your breath and heartbeat. You know those seconds before you are deflowered.

I, still infront of my 15 by 15cm blue mailbox, the grey ugly key still hanging on the tiny lock tore open the fawn manila and felt the cover – gloss. I then flipped it around and was met by a poem; “why do i wake up at four/ in the morning and think; “now is the time to work/ to finish the day before/ it starts”? what day is it/ just night sweeping over/ us: as my little boy climbs/ into bed beside me says/ daddy i can’t sleep i want to/ talk” – pushing from the riverbank

I then slid it back into the manila and took the walk home, salivating like a mongrel after sniffing Dogmor. I got home, buried it with some few festive books and magazines crying out to be read first as if they gained something from my indulgence. They felt a little jealous that here i was with a new ‘chick’ while i hadn’t deflowered them. They didn’t know i was going to kiss and tell – with the new chick that is.

Okay; the following day (which is today 15.12.10) i sat down and took serious bites on Finlay’s serving. The poetry is matured, as should be expected from Alan whose stint in his previous lifetime was editor of New Coin. Some people call New Coin ‘heaven’, saying that only few make it into its pages and it’s through the proverbial narrow road. Actually i had my first poetry published in the Coin when Alan was the editor and i haven’t managed to since then – which should say i have been on a wide road to??????? hahahahaha!

So, sometimes i go into reviewing poetry collections already prejudiced because i have professional relationships with the poets. Me and Alan met in Johannesburg when Shivava Cafe still existed as a venue where we could be creative while getting imbibed with the nectar. We hit it off – just like that. However that has nothing to do with how i interpret his poetry in this post.

Many years later Alan’s poetry still reflects the hunger of that simple man who wrote a poem about the mayor (Amos Masondo) of Joburg and called it a ‘found poem’. In it he was waxing lyrical about how a mayor who claims to understand Soweto lived in Kensington and how a march was planned to his house. Maybe when you have run out of labels you want to give people you like you might call Alan an activist. I probably think he’ll be the first to protest. He has worked with various poets though and his poetry is of such a quality that it does not need him holding its hand to stand out amongst others.

Alan’s poetry is characterised by rich imagery and a descriptive element that gives his work a strong presence. On the child goes out he writes, “the father holds a wall against his throat,/ my son and i walk out into the garden and it’s getting dark./ swing me, he says. But it’s getting late. As the light/ leaves, his life/ the father has already gone into the dark to find the child...”

Well, quite truly i don’t want to quote the whole collection. It is littered with strong poetry which often defies the structuralism approach some poets love. This is very experimental, in style and syntax. Alan is as ease with language and style. One notices that he hardly pushes himself as poetry is not a personality contest. Maybe he just pushes from the riverbank – probably Jukskei.

This thin collection is made up of 19 beautiful poems, both in verse and prose with catchy titles such as the dream of the tiger, after the fire, case study no.1, the child goes out, the child wants his mother, in the back of the bakkie, enough of an interruption, i watch you go etc.

Pushing from the riverbank is published by that hot iron, Dye Hard Press; the pages contain some pre-school drawings that should remind you of that time in your life before you tasted a kiss. I don’t understand the relevance of them in the book though, same as the caricature of a seven storey on the cover.

Details of retail and how you can get it can be sourced from http:dyehard-press.blogspot.com or check dyehard’s Facebook page.

It’s worth a read and should form part of any poetry collector’s archive. It will be worth something someday – when we all learn ‘to live for writing instead of writing for a living’ (apologies to Mzwandile Matiwane RIP)

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Y

"I don’t Like Black People”- What? Say it Again.

Contrary to popular opinion, which would have you believing that i wake up every morning with an insatiable appetite to chase stray school principals who think getting high on their own supply is part of their perks, i actually am more of a literature fundi than a journalist. I do journalism once a week and literature once a year for 120 intensive days. So, i spend more time figuring out syntaxes than dodging deadlines.

So, with that royal mantle on i trekked to Joburg last week for the 5^th instalment of the South African Literature Awards. Well, i am connected to the awards in a cosy way, even though i would spare such details for next time - actually for people who love gossip. Here i was in Midrand’s Gallagher estates on the 8^th, surrounded by all this royalty i felt like an eight-years old in a chocolate factory. Writers, reviewers, literature fundis to me are royalty, so don't get it twisted.

However this year's awards didn’t come without some level of controversy. While the adjudicating part of these stellar accolades is as tight as security at a nuclear facility, it was a winner who chose to play Jonah weeks before the ceremony. Acclaimed Afrikaans author Annelie Botes (Thula-Thula) decided to spoil my mood by coming out and saying she does not like Black people. ‘Doesn’t like Black people?”. Botes please, what have they ever done to you? I know the English locked your ancestors in concentration camps and denied them basic human rights. But Blacks. All Blacks ever did was to endure years of torment and brutality while your own people, who you didn’t condemn once killed and maimed them. And now that they survived apartheid you decide to dislike them. Okay Mami, Blacks are not going to disappear simply because some 53-years old Tannie doesn't like them.

That was a blot. The awards ceremony went well. Notable contributors to the South African literary landscape were honoured on the night. Amongst those i can remember by name are Kgebetli Moele (Book of the Dead), Kevin Bloom (Ways of Staying), Mandla Langa (The Changing colours of a Chameleon), Peter Horn, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Karabo Kgoleng, Kobus Moolman etc. I remember these few because some of them are people i have shared conversations with over red wine some godforsaken part of this country in the past.

The event was graced by people larger than me;

Max Sisulu (Speaker of the National Assembly) whose aura can melt ice, retired judge Pius Langa, Minister of Arts and Culture Paul Mashatile, Sol Plaatjie Museum's Sabata-Mpho Mokae, author Siphiwo Mahala (When a Man Cries), Prof Pitika Ntuli (inhloko yemamba! haha), spindoctor Sandile Memela and Ngidi (publisher), and many other important people i shudder to mention that they slipped my memory.

Performances, compeering and entertainment were provided by Prof Kole Omotoso (Vodacommmmmmmm), Tu Nokwe, National Poet Laureate Prof Keorapetse Kgositsile ("an omelette can never be unscrambled"), activist Prince Shapiro and storyteller Gcina Mhlophe. You would have easily spotted very important people in the crowd such as the CEO of the National Arts Council of South Africa (dark like my chocolate) and the Gauteng MEC for Arts, Ntate Maile (bua comrade bua!)

I was there. I came i saw and took the pictures. I want to be critical of things but when things went as smooth as they did, courtesy of well-rounded South African wine and good food (not traditional), who am i to find fault? The next instalment of the SALA is 2011 and you know – Kasiekulture will be there! Ahoy!

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REVIEW

"Last Night I cried tears of Joy/ What did I do to deserve this" - Ricky Ross

I have truly been meaning to write something about music. It's been a while since I have listened to a good album and thought, damn, let me put something down and share with friends how I feel about some bout of creativity. That's until I listened to Teflon Don by Rick Ross. Well, while it's a point of contention and embarassment that 50Cent loves to call him Officer Ricky, I think the name actually sound kosher.

Ricky's one mistake is that of thinking beefing people is the way to go if you want to build your rap career. I mean it's actually so childish for a guy who burst into the scene so late in his age. People born in 1976 should be considering retiring now - okay unless you are Dr Dre (1965) or Snoop Dogg (1971). Other rappers born in the seventies are either dead or retired. But Ricky just refused to stop. Also if you are going to have beef with a mogul like Fiddy, make sure your shit is tight.

Here I don't mean you have to spit lyrics like Tupac and Biggie because Fiddy is nothing compared to a lot of cats that are ripping the scene open with pitbull rhymes. I am not afraid to say that Fiddy is not qualified to tie the shoelaces of Drake. He might be on the same downlow, laid back tip like Lil Wayne but there was a time that Fiddy was hot. That's after he failed to die trying but actually got rich.

Now, with Ricky my interest rests with Teflon Don where I can pick a few good songs and write volumes of thesis about them. I am not in the luxury of actually mentioning Ricky's rants by name since he has to pay me to promote his album to that effect but this July 20, 2010 release really rocks. However he was careful about the people he chose to feature in this album, exposing his paranoia about being overshadowed by bloods he might later need to beef.

This is basically because on Mafia Music, which is a cheap diss of 50 he brought Ja-Rule (relic), The Game (ahhhh) and Fat Joe (we're the best!). Ja was fine but often one needs cats who can hold down a diss without going into gutter jabs. The days of Hit 'Em Up are gone. Saying 'fuck you and your muthafucking Mama/ we gon' kill all you muthafuckas' might have sounded shocking in '96 but now we really want stuff that sounds like Nas' Ether. When Ja, says 'i smell pussy/ pussy got lips but it don't talk to me/ that's why you my bitch and you on my dick', one sees a relic dying for attention on the same stage he fell from.

Joe takes it further and raps about having choppers that 50 should not make them use against him and his Gorilla crew. It's Game who sounds hungrier and more lyrical. Ricky, well Officer Ricky sound the same ways he does on Crack A Bottle Remix. He makes jokes about himself when he claims that he 'get more pussy than Curtis Jackson just taking off my shirt'. I can see it, him exposing his bloated tattooed Maybach body.

Now on Teflon Don, there is a jam he does with Jay-Z titled Freemason. I, in my other life as a poet should say I found his lyrical prowess so overwhelming that whilst I got mad love for Jigga I somehow ended up giving Ricky 60-40. For god's sake this is not a cipher but 'damn a nigga made it'. "quarter milli on the muthafucka/ no insurance on the muthafucka/ ain't life a bitch', he raps on another jam with a catchy chorus of 'last night i cried tears of joy/ what did i do to deserve this'. The jam was produced by NO ID and samples Black Panthers' Bobby Seale who loved calling cops pigs. 'i wanna walk in the image of Christ/ but that bitch Vivica nice', he taunts Fiddy.

On the Freemason track he revisits the wisdom of black people. He touches on a lot of them building pyramids without the help of caterpillars. Then he lets us know that he is actually literate when he mocking touches on the assassination of JFK. 'my top back like JFK/ they wanna push my top back like JFK/ so I JFK, join forces with kings and we ate all day'. That's informed and gritty, with a twist of surrealism.

Overall the album was produced by lots of people, amongst them Kanye West who he also features. Among the guests one finds Jadakiss, Kanye, Jay-Z, Drake, Puff Daddy and a few unknowns. Why didn't he bring heavy hitters? Obviously he sounds paranoid.

And with 50 having exposed him as an ex-CO, a prison warder; that doesn't work well for street credentials. When he talks about pushing cocaine on the streets of Miami while driving flashy cars and you are confronted by a picture of a laughing officer in funny khakhi pants and shirt, it's hard to take Ricky seriously. However the nigga has style and strong lyrics.

Ricky will do one show in Cape Town this month. Wonder whether he will rap his whole catalogue of four albums or just touch much on Teflon Don, which while it is the one that gave him worldwide acclaim is still not his best album as Port of Miami had hunger and the lyrics were raw - minus beef. Officer Ricky - hahahaha!

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PROMO

3 Categories and 61 nominations announced for the MK Awards 2011


Thirteen MK Awards categories and 61 nominees were announced live on Studio1 on MK, Channel 324 on DStv at 20h00 on Thursday, December 2, 2010. They are:

1) Best Video
Crash Car Burn for Under a falling skyDie Antwoord for Enter the Ninja
Jack Parow feat Francois van Coke for Dans dans dans
Mr. X feat Die Heuwels Fantasties for Hyg Duiwel
The Parlotones for Stars fall down
Zebra & Giraffe for The inside

2) Best Group
Crash Car Burn for Twisted
Locnville for 6 Second poison
Die Heuwels Fantasties for Doodgewone aand
Zebra & Giraffe for The inside
Van Coke Kartel for Voor ons stof word

3) Best Solo
Bobby van Jaarsveld for Net for jou
Farryl Purkiss for Kissing devils on the cheek
Jack Parow for Cooler as ekke
Vaughan Gardiner for For jouJax Panik feat HC for Get up (if you're hot)

4) Best SFX/Animation
Hikatori for Johnson hates me
Hog Hoggidy Hog for Sherry Anne
Mr. X feat Die Heuwels Fantasties for Hyg duiwel
The Parlotones for Stars fall downZebra & Giraffe for The inside

5) Best Newcomer

Die Tuindwergies for Kopskudkinders
Wrestlerish for Oliver Tambourine
Alleen na Desember for 3hoekige 4kant
Dance, you're on fire for Blockade
The Pixie Bennet band for Edge of the line

6) Best Feat/Colab
Dans Republic (Foto na Dans en Flash Republic) for Afrikaans
Jack Parow feat Francois van Coke for Dans dans dans
Jax Panik feat HC for Get up (if you're hot)
Louise Carver feat Zulu Boy for Warrior
Monique & Snotkop for Ek val vir jou

7) POP
Monique & Snotkop for Ek val vir jou
Snotkop for Dalk 'n ses
Lianie May & Jay for Toe stop my hart
Bobby van Jaarsveld for Spieeltjie
Nicholis Louw for Nommer asseblief

8) Neon
Flash Republic for In the name of dance
Mr. X feat Die Heuwels Fantasties for Hyg duiwel
Jax Panik feat HC for Get up (if you're hot)
Yesterdays Pupil for Mechanisms of the universe
Locnville for Love rush

9) Best International Hit
30 Seconds to Mars for Kings & Queens
B.O.B feat Haley Williams for Airplanes
Eminem feat Rihanna for Love the way you lie
Katy Perry feat Snoop Dogg for California gurls
Lady Gaga for Bad romance

10) Best Campus Hit
Wrestlerish for Oliver Tamborine nominated by KovsieFm
Jack Parow for Cooler as ekke nominated by MatieFm
Dans Dans Lisa for Sing in Skaamte nominated by PukFmStraatligkinders for Hande wat dra nominated by TuksFm
Die Antwoord for Enter the Ninja nominated by UJFm

11) Best International Breakthrough Act
Prime Circle for BreathingLocnville for There
Die Antwoord for Enter the Ninja
Jack Parow for Cooler as ekke
The Parlotones for Life's design

12) PORNSTER
Lianie May for Honey honey
Nicholis Louw for Water jou mond
Will Mono for Seks for plesier
Snotkop for Parapapa
Ray Dylan for Stout

13) Best Live Act
The public are invited to nominate any bands for the Best Live Act category by going to the MK, MXit, the MK mobi-site or by SMSing ‘Live’ followed by the name of the band to 33693. SMSes cost R1.50 and no free SMSes apply.

The Best Live Act will win a Hyundai H-1 van while the public who vote for their favourite nominees stand the chance of winning a Hyundai i10. Go to for more info or visit MK on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/mktv.co.za.
The 2011 MK Awards will be hosted at the CTICC in Cape Town on 26 February 2011.

For more information and voting go to http://www.mkawards.co.za

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SHOW

Once Upon a Time in White River

Commemorating Sixteen Days of Activism Against Women and Child Abuse

A South American poet and political commentator made it explicitly clear that he wants nothing to do with lyricism that has nothing to do with liberation. He was to a certain extent right – often lyricism for the sake of rhyming sucks. It sucks because artists spend countless hours yepping about themselves and how they are the dopest in the business. Well, I have been to plenty sessions but I can’t tell if there is what we call a dope poet. What I know is a poet whose is spot-on. Maybe we can call them a spot-on poet.

Spot-on means the bard touches on issues we all relate to. They produce material about situations we can all relate to – love, death, funerals, loss, pain, happiness, lust, weddings, trauma etc. They write about emotion and not daffodils which are an existing subject.

Maybe I’m trying to sound all-knowing but it’s my take – my opinion which I am entitled to, which if someone wanted to rob me of this right and you were aware of it you should give your life to protect it.

Well, the reason I am so chaffed is because I am still in a post-orgasmic stage of one of the best poetry, music and drama sessions I have ever attended. Our 16 Days of Activism against Women and Child Abuse jol at White River Civic Centre which brought together talents from Xpressions Sessions (Kriel), Bana Ba Bongi (Shatale), hip hop and rap crews from Madjembeni and some poets from other parts of the province. We had the best music, drama and poetry session under one roof – and did everybody pull up their socks?

The thing about fusing genres to make a potpourri of a festival is that nobody wants to be left behind. You don’t get actors wanting the show to be remembered for its poetry, poets don’t want the show to be remembered for the drama and musicians don’t want it to be remembered for poetry and drama. Right there you have a recipe for subtle competition. However on the day that we committed to Chant Down Fear and give voices to our woman it was to a larger extent collaborative. If you can’t beat them, join them, they say. If you can’t play a guitar or drums, sing or recite to them, if you can’t sing or recite, play an instrument, just don’t stand there and look at us as if we are in a zoo.

I don’t want to mention names of performers on this post because I might not remember others and that might be fertile ground for animosity. However I will touch broadly on what transpired and what had me inspired to rush home, draft this post regardless of being bushed and blog it within 24 hours.

The themes touched on the day involved woman and child abuse, though I must admit there was actually little heard on the abuse of the child. A sister touched on identity – the so-called cross-cultural frustration of Coloureds. The Coloured issue is a human rights issue – it’s a pencil-test issue. An issue that will refuse to disappear from our consciousness as long as we focus on differences and not similarities. Her style, which was both at-your-face and an

indictment on society’s obsession with defining something they are not was crude and telling.

Well, it was at this session that what was saddening on my part was to have a show in White River and not have a single artist who performed in isiSwati. All the isiSwati artists invited to grace the event and be part of a horde of artists united in their defence of women and children’s rights failed to pitch – except of course for Comrade Sifiso. But now, when you have been in this game as long as some of us you know that it’s not the poet that makes the poetry session, it’s the poetry – which was in abundance in various languages.

What was refreshing was the liberty people expressed to speak – in the language of their ancestors and dreams. They spoke in Sepulana, Sepedi, Tsotsitaal (not Scamtho), Afrikaans and English. Like I said earlier what was missing was isiSwati and for god’s sake this is isiSwati territory. Either they are not writing anything that has anything to do with liberation, they are obsessing with the Metro Awards which are coming soon to this town or they just don’t give a damn about women and child abuse. To have the whole ethnic group not giving a damn is scary. It makes one wonder why we had this session in White River when we could have had it in Kriel or Bushbuckridge where almost all the artists who performed came from.

It makes one wonder about the future of the oppressed people of Swaziland? Who will liberate them if not by their kinsmen and women in Mpumalanga? If one can not commit to a simple cause that does not carry a prison sentence as a battle against patriarchy and its manifestations one wonders how many are willing to put their lives on the line on a cause that might require martyrdom.

Okay, enough of asking question and now it’s time for what happened. Bana Ba Bongi, that troupe of inspired children I love so much didn’t disappoint. They prepared a show specifically for the event and did they act like there was no tomorrow. No prizes for guessing that when the curtain fell they got a standing ovation – not because they are young and need motivation, but simply because they kicked butt.

We had an inspiration talk from GRIP, the project that has committed all its resources to the fight against rape and women abuse in the Lowveld. Sister Nomshado, one of two people I will mention by name gave a thought-provoking address about abuse. It was refreshing to note that she focused a large section of her address to the people who matter – the kids. She spoke in a language they found penetrating and frank.

Then there was motivational speaker and ex-activist (by her own confession) Matshilo Motsei. Known for penning the controversial book on Jacob Zuma’s trial (The Kanga and the Kangaroo Court) she rendered an item about the shifting power dynamics. As if prophesying, she said society is getting used to the fact that men are gradually losing their dominance and paving a way for a layer of power-women.

Well, at the end of all the celebrations it was time to exchange numbers and network. We would have loved a braai, but there’s always a next time. Some of the poets who graced the event will be revealed – warts and all in the upcoming Bantu Letters poetry anthology – coming in March. Malibongwe!

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