Dookoom is the grimy noise-rap incarnation of Cape Town rapper (and past Die Antwoord collaborator) Isaac Mutant alongside producer Dplanet. The pair present a dark and unapologetic sonic landscape in Kak Stirvy, a track that sneaks in underneath the skin and bubbles up in an aggressive onslaught. The equally abrasive music video for the song, which was shot in the group’s home of Heinz Park, features Isaac Mutant in some Jeremy Scott sunglasses and smoking with his boys, as well as some rather peculiar playboy bunnies. Watch it below and stream Dookoom’s 6-track album here.
Killakam for okayafrica.com, a blog dedicated to bringing you the latest from Africa’s New Wave.
Despite Africa’s impressive economic growth, it’s clear from the way people talk about and do business on the continent that views of Africa have not changed dramatically in the past 20 years. Some views are excessively positive, others overly negative. Both are equally harmful. We – that being me, my husband Matt and our friend Ishtar Lakhani – think it’s high time that changed. And so an idea was born – to do something to make people see Africa differently.
The aim of the T2T Africa expedition is to help people see Africa differently. (Pic: Supplied)
Having lived in three African countries – Ghana, Kenya and South Africa – and traveled or worked in another 20 between us, we learnt the hard way how narrow our view of the continent was. We now know that different size and colour condoms are required in even neighbouring countries. We know that a marketing campaign that was successful in one country can fail in another simply because the model wasn’t wearing shoes, and in that country only prostitutes don’t wear shoes.
We’ve learnt that differences go deeper than belief systems and languages, and similarities are not neatly contained within the arbitrary lines on maps. The treasure chest of cultures that exists on the continent requires more understanding and respect.
But what would be the best way to share these lessons? The most obvious way would be to illustrate that Africa is a continent of 54 diverse countries and to show as many countries as possible in as much detail as possible. We believe achieving this could be as simple as getting in a car and driving as far as time and money would allow.
This would give us access to some of the many unsung, self-funded projects that sustain thousands of people each day, allow us to learn about some of the cutting-edge technology that is helping to push the continent forward and, best of all, meet lots and lots of people. It’s these details that we believe could help all of us see Africa differently.
So that’s what we’re going to do: three friends, 24 countries, 165 days and 30 901km.
From the 5 October 2013 Ishtar Lakhani, Matt Angus-Hammond and I will be driving from Tsitsikamma in South Africa to Tataouine in Tunisia, via the southernmost and northernmost points of the continent with detours to the east and west coasts.
Along the way we will share as many pictures and stories as we can of the things we will see and learn, whether it be the story of a start-up entrepreneur, a trail blazing eco-tourism initiative or an incredible human being whose name we should all know.
The months-long trip will take the three South Africans to the four corners of the continent. (Pic: Supplied)
We’ll send updates via Twitter, our Facebook page, website, a weekly blog here on the Mail & Guardian’s Voices of Africa site and through as many other channels as we can along the way.
We also hope that our journey will make a difference to the people we meet along the way. One of our team is doing a master’s degree in food security and the other two have been part of a successful food garden in Orlando West, Soweto for eight years, so it made sense to take advantage of this experience.
So in addition to our #seeAfricadifferently campaign we will be planting 45 food gardens – an average of two per country – en route. The seeds and water-carrying equipment for this initiative will be purchased with R61 050 raised via Thundafund, Africa’s first crowd-funding platform, over a 60 day period.
Volunteers are being sourced via social media and experts all over the continent are generously giving us their time to make sure this has the best chance of succeeding. We know the gardens won’t all survive and that if we go back in two years some may no longer exist. But we also know that with the right people involved, within five years a single garden could be feeding an entire school of 60 staff and children daily.
Preparing for this trip has already taught us many lessons and the only thing we now know for sure is that while we don’t know what we’re in for it’s sure to be one heck of a journey. We hope you’ll join us for the ride
Tracy Angus-Hammond is a disabilities activist and social researcher with a passion for convincing others to see Africa differently. She volunteers at Nkanyezi and occasionally contributes to Africa: The Good News. She is also the owner and manager of a research consultancy, Angus Hammond Africa. Tracy has lived, traveled worked in more than 20 countries in Africa. Follow her on Twitter or visit the T2T website for more details on the trip.
Boys of Soweto is the vividly shot tale of a dapperly-dressed circle of gentlemen, a group of suave-conscious South Africans known as Boys of Soweto. The short film, shot in just a day’s work, runs like a high-end fashion spread set to jazzy tempo, a love letter to both style and township beauty, a union perhaps most colorfully represented by Boys of Soweto. Alyssa Klein interviewed director Meja Shoba for Okay Africa.
Boys of Soweto, a vividly shot tale of a dapperly-dressed circle of gentlemen. (Pic: supplied)
What’s the concept behind the film? What’s the story? The concept is about six well-dressed men who make a point to look good in order to vie for the attention of a beautiful young lady who routinely passes their way. One of the gentlemen fortuitously gets close to her, and they all quickly learn that her affection is won by a simple and sweet gesture.
Is it your first short film?
I’m in UCLA’s graduate film program studying directing, so I have shot a few short narrative films already, as well as a short documentary on South African kwaito-electro duo Dirty Paraffin.
What is the most important aspect of the film? The fashion, the guys or the story?
After meeting and plotting with the guys of Boys of Soweto, we all decided to organically integrate fashion and township elegance as part of the narrative, not as independent entities. I wanted to let the sensibility of story be the core of the film, and let all other elements such as the guys’ chemistry and rapport with each other, the fashionable suits, the beautiful young lady, and the Soweto location all enhance the look and feel of the film.
Who are the Boys of Soweto?
Boys of Soweto is a South African fashion and style group consisting of Bobo Ndima, Mbali Bangwayo, Pirates football player Manti Molemo Moholo, Kronic Bonisiswe Nhleko, and Morgan Kgobane. The group has an urban sophistication to their gentleman style. They are lovers of all things fashion and are quite known in the Johannesburg scene.
What do you guys have upcoming?
At the moment I’m scripting an African inspired Charlie’s Angels-esque heist film that I wish to shoot in Johannesburg. And as for Boys of Soweto, they recently were commissioned by Palladium boots for a photo shoot and continue to keep pushing their group to the public. I have a strong feeling I will be working with the guys very soon! It was fun collaborating with them.
With more than half the population in many African nations under 25, the bright continent is currently undergoing an explosion of vibrant new music, fashion, art and political expression. Okayafrica is dedicated to bringing you the latest from Africa’s New Wave.
Department of Coffee sits in the middle of the chaos of Khayelitsha Mall and the train station. This up-and-coming coffee spot prides itself on being the only one that operates in Khayelitsha, one of the largest townships in South Africa. Three years ago, a trio of young entrepreneurs – Wongani Baleni, Vusumzi Mamile and Vuyile Msaku – who hail from the community approached the Ministry of Service Delivery, an investment vehicle that supports social entrepreneurs, to make their dreams of opening a coffee shop come true. They secured a loan from the organisation and set to work on the building, branding and development of what is now a promising enterprise.
Department of Coffee opened its doors in July 2012. To celebrate its first anniversary, the owners recently hosted a coffee-tasting event for the public. Baristas effortlessly kept four different kinds of cappuccinos flowing, while we tasters sipped on each and cast a vote for the one we preferred most. The excellent green cappuccino earned my vote.
Owners Vuyile Msaku, Vusumzi Mamile and Wongama Baleni outside Department of Coffee. (Pic: Department of Coffee’s Facebook page)
Near the staircase, an architectural drawing of the coffee shop’s future hangs on the wall, slightly skewed. Once the building expansion plans are complete, Department of Coffee will have a covered seating area facing Ntlazane Street while the current seating in front of the shop will be barricaded. This is great news – sitting outside with the chaos of people walking through the row of tables, smoke from the women braaing chicken feet next door and the cacophony of the train station is a little distracting.
Plans are in place to develop a covered seating area outside the coffee shop. (Pic: Department of Coffee’s Facebook page)
Department of Coffee has a lively, bustling vibe compared to the quiet energy of the coffee shops in the CBD where the loudest thing you hear is a spoon dancing inside a cup. The ground floor is literally a stage to showcase local talent every last Saturday of the month. Local artists perform for an often packed and excited crowd.
There are also crafters, their heads bowed, all at work, some weaving beads and some carving wood into human faces. Mgadi, a local artist, carves his signature shacks onto an A4-size canvas. “I have clients in Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands and for those I make large-sized artwork,” he tells me.
Baristas prepare customers’ orders. (Pic: Department of Coffee’s Facebook page)
Baleni, Mamile and Msaku are determined to convince Capetonians in the city that Department of Coffee is the place to escape to. However, the other challenge apart from attracting a wider customer base is to carve one from the society in which they are located. Just 14 months on, they appear to be doing this really well. They sell an average of 200 cups of coffee a day at an affordable R8.50 each. This is a lot cheaper than coffee shops in the city, where you can expect to fork out up to R20 for a cuppa.
I am at Department of Coffee every other day, not just for their coffee but for the convenience and the vibe. The location is perfect for me – it is in the marrow of the township, allowing me to absorb the energy of the streets and the people in between sips of my cappuccino. Across from where I sit, the ladies selling braaied corn, cow intestines and chicken feet fling me back to my childhood in the remote Transkei village of Zikhovane. And for these 20 minutes, I exist contently in two worlds at once.
Department of Coffee is located at 158 Ntlazane Street, Khayelitsha. Opening hours: Monday – Friday 5am to 6pm; Saturday 8am to 3pm.
Dudumalingani Mqombothi is a film school graduate who loves reading, writing, taking walks and photography. He plans to write a novel when his thoughts stop scaring him.
It lets out a high-pitched scream as you enter, then a sneering laugh. It’s a walk-in vagina, a conceptual art installation that has South Africans wagging their fingers and scratching their heads.
When 30-year-old South African artist Reshma Chhiba was asked to produce artwork for a disused apartheid-era women’s jail in Johannesburg, she wanted to make a statement about women’s power.
What she came up with was a talking “yoni”, or vagina in India’s ancient language, Sanskrit.
“It’s a screaming vagina within a space that once contained women and stifled women,” she told AFP. “It’s revolting against this space… mocking this space, by laughing at it.”
Visitors enter the 12m red padded velvet and cotton canal by first stepping onto a tongue-like padding. Thick, black acrylic wool mimics pubic hair around the opening.
A view of the art installation “Giant Walk-In Vagina” installed at a former women’s prison by artist Reshma Chhiba in Johannesburg. (Pic: AFP)
The shrill soundtrack that assaults visitors as they stroll through the tunnel is a revolt against the women’s jail, built in 1909, that held some of South Africa’s leading anti-apartheid activists.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was incarcerated there twice in 1958 and 1976.
“I definitely did not make this work for the sake of controversy,” said Chhiba.
For her, it was about artistic freedom and challenging deeply entrenched patriarchal systems .
“You don’t often hear men talking about their private parts and feeling disgust or shamed,” as women often do, she said.
“And that alone speaks volumes of how we’ve been brought up to think about our bodies, and what I am saying here is that it’s supposed to be an empowering space.”
The artist also wanted to address the scourge of rape in South Africa, where nearly 65 000 attacks on girls and women are reported a year in one of the highest incidences of rape in the world – with little improvement.
But the installation, on display throughout August, has collided with some sensitive cultural and religious taboos.
“It’s the most private part of my body. I grew up in the rural areas, we were taught not to expose your body, even your thighs let alone your vagina,” said Benathi Mangqaaleza, 24-year-old female security guard at the former prison that is now a tourist site.
“I think it’s pornographic, I think they have gone too far.”
‘A sacred space’ Twenty-four-year-old gardener Andile Wayi thought the exhibition — on the site of the Victorian-era brick women’s jail and another that once held Mahatma Gandhi – as well as the Constitutional Court – was wrong.
“The [Constitution] Hill is respected, it’s a heritage,” he said.
The fine arts graduate,who is also a practising Hindu, has spent years of research into the Hindu goddess Kali whom she views as a symbol of defiance.
She expressed “shock” at the media onslaught and allegations of blasphemy from some Hindu followers who complained through radio talk shows.
“To talk about the vagina, or visualise it, is something that is not out of the ordinary,” she insisted
The exhibition, entitled “The Two Talking Yonis”, was the product of two years of discussion with curator Nontobeko Ntombela on the mythology of female power in patriarchal systems.
Visitors have to take off their shoes to walk through the softly cushioned canal.
“By talking off your shoes, essentially you are respecting it, making it a divine space, a sacred space,” said Chhiba.
Gender Links, a lobby group promoting gender equality in southern Africa, praises Chhiba’s artwork for re-igniting discussion on a subject normally avoided.
“It is bringing the private into the public, that the woman’s body is not necessarily a private matter,” said Kubi Rama, Gender Links boss.
