Don’t Miss Jazz on the Lake
Aug15

Don’t Miss Jazz on the Lake

It’s a yearly Represent ‘favourite must-do mahala event’, Jazz at Zoo Lake, do yourself a favour, pack a picnic basket, grab your friends and go and celebrate Jozi’s 80th birthday this year on Sunday the 7th of September. We’re chuffed the line up is much improved, featuring Simphiwe Dana, Jimmy Dludlu, Don Laka and Zamajobe to name but a few… go on and Represent! (Residents included!) Read all about it at Johannesburg Tourism site here or the awesome Joburg.org site here. See our photostory on our RepresentFlickr site from Jazz at the Lake in 2005 here....

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Get ready for the MAMA’s – MTV Africa!
Aug15

Get ready for the MAMA’s – MTV Africa!

Our dedicated scribe of the moment, Reuben ‘The Matrix’ Malema, attended the MTV press announcement of the ‘MAMA awards’, MTV’s pan-African music awards brought to you by MTV and their sponsor ZAIN (a telecommunications company…). He reckons healthy competition is the way forward to uplift and keep on diversifying and enriching our music scene, we have to admit, we agree! See our photostory at our RepresentFlickr set here. Read all about the event below – the official media release follows. Sharpile RTMM! It’s official, MTV Networks Africa is here! And if all the over-the-top hoo-hah of Tuesday night has any truth to it, then the end for the MTN SAMA Awards is definitely not nigh but rather in a very real way so resoundingly here. The setting of MTV’s “take-over-Africa” spectacle was the Japanese themed Tokyo Sky of Fourways, Johannesburg. Ja, the ambiguity was very clear: the guillotine’s blade has gut-gushingly fallen on the video-jockey controlled entertainment industry in this part of Africa! I have to admit though, with all the fine sushi, on the house liquor en masse (Double Remmie Martin and Lemonade…one more please sir!), the glitz and splendour that was blatantly flaunted, the Network has a lot of credibility and plenty to offer Africa’s musicians in sharp contrast to the MTN SAMA Awards that favours the same few artists all the time and only focuses on SA. Let us not forget the controversy-riddled quagmire of the recent MTN SAMAs which did not help the situation either, in fact if anything – this year’s SAMAs managed to quicken the event’s long awaited coup de grace. Competition is often a healthy thing and in this case it’s long overdue. The Media targeted event (Nou Ek Spog!) had the makings of a typical TRL show on MTV Base. The MC was as chirpy as all the free flowing video mouthpieces on the network’s channels. The program direction was lively with a twist of spring. The audience (le paparazzi!) was very receptive, although at one stage a tad disappointed (we’ll come back to this one…). Mr. Alex Okosi, a Nigerian born, American raised, British groomed and now South African Corporate Executive is the driving force behind MTV Africa’s no-holds-barred takeover bid. His passion and inspiring vibrancy is believable enough to prop-up one’s expectations of the fresh wave of reprieve that has at last beached on our shores. An array of Dj’s and musicians were bopping away, including Cleo, KB, boys from Skwatta Kamp and Brickz. One particular artist caught my attention, the 12 year old In-cha who is an ingenious (lest I be tempted to declare her a maestro) violinist....

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The Return of the B Girl @ 88 on Friday
Aug13

The Return of the B Girl @ 88 on Friday

Fly flyers all over Jozi this weekend, must be that Spring is springing early this year. The Party People crew are already well recovered from the Oppikopi bash and ready to dish it up to you with even more flavour this Friday night with a full  juicy line up of sweet sounds. They tell you as it is: “For those of you who have been living under a rock and have missed all of Bahamadia’s shows, we hope to see you there.” Word! Merely a week after performing to an immensely diverse crowd at Party People Oppikoppi, Northam on the 9th of August, and killing it I might add, the queen Bahamadia, along with her talented Dj, Dj Statik will be getting ready to bring back the real definition of the B Girl to 88 Lounge in Norwood. Sharing the stage with her will be an equally talented South Africa line up by the likes of Party People’s first lady Fifi, Miss GolDigger herself and of course what would a Hip-Hop party be without Dj Kenzhero. Catch all of this at 88 Lounge on the 15th August 2008. Doors open at 8:00pm and the damage to the pocket is R100. 00. Woman’s Month Special:Ladies R80 before 9:30. For more info on our featured artist check out...

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Mawe-2 LIVE at House of NsakO
Aug13

Mawe-2 LIVE at House of NsakO

Nice flyer design from the B-side crew. We’re sure the music at House of NsakO in Brixton is going to be just as sweet this Saturday night. Just up the hill from Melville, aim for the tower then hit a right and head for the High Street ;). The B-side Party with Deejay BlaQt presents Mawe-2 ” live “… As he takes us through the soulful jazzy sounds from his debut album – titled a fools hope, So expect an explosive perfomance… with DJ BlaQt taking us through the night with some of that good music….@ House Of NsakO ( 101 High Str., Brixton Jozi town ) & R 40 bucks guarantees you a dope night out.. http//: www.myspace.com/bsideblog http//: www.myspace.com/mawe2 http//: www.mawe2.rooftopmedia.co.za http//: www.myspace.com/djblaqt Download Deejay BlaQt`s Bside mini mix …. http://www.zshare.net/audio/14680764a732b4a4/ Check the tracklisting & artwork on :...

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Connor Cullinan at Obert Contemporary
Aug13

Connor Cullinan at Obert Contemporary

We do our best to post cultural, entertainment and artistic events that bring vibrancy and value to your free time. Quality. So believe us when we say, lovers of art, get to the Obert Contemporary in the next two weeks for…..: connor cullinan: carne vale. 14-30 august 2008. obert contemporary is pleased to present ‘carne vale’ by connor cullinan from 14-30 august 2008. michael smith, the managing editor of artthrob, has written the following review of cullinan’s latest exhibition: ‘making a painting is usually less like building up a whole from a series of base units as much as it is about throwing everything you know and everything you’ve seen at a surface: layering, praying, falling apart and then layering some more. connor cullinan’s works quietly challenge this impulse. their evolution seems almost sculptural, in that the final image is achieved exactly through a process of unit-based construction, with lines, diamond shapes, rectangles and elements of pattern. the systematic process the works require for their production engenders a contemplative reading of their aesthetics and ideas. they ask the viewer for time and consideration rather than a gut response. in fact, the trope of ‘system’ underscores all of cullinan’s images: their grids, matrices and repetitions reverberate with a sense of some sort of metaphysical pattern or design. yet frequently the images rendered within these systems pull against them, and in a cautionary tone seem to speculate about how far from this order humanity has strayed. cullinan frequently works from media images, newspaper and magazine pictures. these operate as starting points for his exploration of ideas that fit into his conceptual framework. this is true of all ten of the paintings in the show ‘Carne Vale’. the show’s content addresses this notion of ‘carne vale’, an italian phrase for ‘farewell to flesh’. in contemporary english the phrase has morphed into ‘carnival’, but cullinan’s works refer to its designation as a pre-lenten festival during which indulgence is tolerated in preparation for lent’s asceticism. he works with the idea that the current social climate of excess and self-indulgence is a signal of future limitations on these things, as if humanity is playing out an ancient cycle of feast and famine on a grand scale. his formal approach thus seems entirely appropriate for this conceptual terrain, eschewing as it does painterly excess and surplus gestures. possession is a case in point: the picture of a man with arms raised, crying out, is composed of a series of jagged striations which recall a disturbed bridget riley canvas. yet even in this, the show’s most immediately emotive image, violence is muted by methodical construction. in ‘host’,...

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