MTV Alert Concert in Retrospect
You know Represent is all about the people – one of our readers, Donna, sent in her take on the MTV Alert concert – Thanks D – enjoy readers. We hope all our winners had a wonderful time, Editorista and her chomees certainly did! Big ups MTV for the give-away and a fab night. Black men can mosh… … and white men can jump, the audience proved two Saturdays ago at the MTV Mot… orola concert in New Town. The party was flavoured with an incredibly mixed crowd, a variety of different bands and crossover of music genres from the hard rock of the Springbok Nude Girls through to the hip sounds of Jozi and kwaito legend Zola. The tent venue on Mary Fitzgerald Square was split into a swanky MTV style VIP area with plush white couches and viewing balcony that I was enviously admiring from the ‘ordinary’ people’s area just in front of the stage. The VIP area was crammed with beautiful, important people but front of stage was where the action and atmosphere took shape and the crowd certainly made the party. And while so many elements of the concert were great – the fun-loving crowd; the well designed and decorated venue; the ever cool MTV brand; the fast, friendly and reasonably priced bar service; the staging, screens, lighting and firework effects were impressive and the line-up looked like a great overall representation of South Africa’s music scene – I couldn’t believe that the organisers did not understand the mixed nature of the audience and could get the running order so wrong and as a result lose the crowd. Knowing the MTV brand, I was expecting a slick, professional show with spicy variety oscillating between rock, kwaito and hip hop to keep the crowed hyped. The concert started quite late at around 23h30 with opening bands Jozi and 985 getting the crowd jumping with their short, high energy sets. The length of time then given to the rock bands Springbok Nude Girls, Prime Circle and Barney Simon ensured that by 2am over half the crowd had lost interest, energy, were tired and decided to go home. As for the performances, Jozi was very tight and slick and 985 put on a good show but unfortunately the same can not be said of the band that I was really excited to see perform, The Springbok Nude Girls. Their opening with 3 ‘unknown’ songs ensured that even the most hardcore Nudies fans were looking around and raising their eyebrows in confusion! It felt like an arrogant performance but the fans forgivingly started to jump around when the hits...
Should the revolution be photographed???
Here’s a powerful piece sent to us by SowetoRocks.com – it talks of the new struggle for the youth – HIV and AIDS and how the youth need to, like their ancestors 30 years ago, take the situation into their own hands if it is to truly change. Today we were listening to a popular radio station and heard one of the female freedom fighters comparing the youth of ’76 with the youth… of today – we felt that her stance was an important one – Our take on what she was saying was that “The youth of ’76 had DISCIPLINE – they knew how to focus, how to get it together and how to move forward as one.” Question is, can our youth find the same discipline? Do they need an iconic image to remind them of this discipline? What do you think? Here it is: June 16th is a day set aside to celebrate the spirit and power of South African Youth. We proudly honour the sacrifices of the generation of children past; and there is no more powerful symbol of this than Sam Nzima’s famous photograph of our children bearing the bloodied body of Hector Pietersen. As you might expect, the world is a very different place for today’s youth. While they no longer face the oppressor’s bullets, boys and girls today face a far more insidious threat: the HIV virus. Society also sees today’s youth very differently, for our legal system rules the age of sexual consent is 16meaning it’s legally ok for a 16 year old to have sex with 49 year old if both consent. We do ask them to wait to 18 before they can elect a president, bear arms in our armed forces, drive to the club or consume alcohol. Somehow the responsibilities that go along with these rights are too much for 16 year olds. In our HIV and AIDS documentary UNZIPPED (sponsored by Levi’s Red 4 Life and run last year on SABC1), one of the most poignant moments is when a 17-year-old teen declared, “we need to realize that we are children playing adult games.” Clearly we need to ask ourselves when do today’s children become adults. (As an aside, when the parent protested that her daughter had no right to appear in our documentary without her consent, SABC required that the teen be visually distorted. Old enough to do it but not old enough to talk about it.) Generally accepted policy to prevent the spread of HIV amongst our youth is summarized as follows: A.) abstain B.) be faithful C.) condomize D.) delay having sex Given the...
Goats in Kampala
We have a beloved friend called Bob who now resides in Kampala in Uganda and regularly sends us the 411 on how he is doing and what he has been up to. This time around, we were blown away by what he told us and of course we must share it with you guys! Bob Wrote: “Did you know that in Uganda, we race goats (AKA embuzi)? Well if you didn’t, now you know! The event is fun fill… ed with all of Kampala’s celebs and fashionistas present. It’s a mixture of German School Beer fest and The Durban July. There is also loads of fun filled activities for the kids to get up to while their parents go from looking slick to sick! The main thing about the event is which hospitality tent(s) you are in, and trust me this is really important because it normally rains for an hour or two. The biggest one is always the Crane Bank tent but I must say it gets really crowded. This year, the tent that really rocked was the Kampala Casino tent which even had some tables in the corner for those who wanted to play games such as Russian roulette and black jack. All in all in was an amazing day!!! You can read some more about it on the link above (click on the photo) Cheers, Bob.” How cool is that? So if you guys are ever in Kampala, there’s one thing you can look into checking out! Sounds like quite a vibe! Thanks for the heads up...
BYE BYE Kara thanks for making us proud
So we were right, Kara really needed to up her game if she was planning on making the final three for the Project Runway competition. Her sexy black evening dress was the least favourite of the final four which saw her being booted out of the competition. Go and check out Kara Janx’s website here and read all about the amazing success she has had thanks to … being on the show. Apparently Kara did take part in the fashion week along with the other three winners anyway (so what was the booting out all about) and her collection was the best! Kara says her business has grown phenomally and she is now a celeb designer with fans asking for autographs whereever she goes. Now that’s our kind of reality TV, where real talent and skill make you famous. You go girl! ====================================== People are starting to get suspicious. “Why do you never party anymore on Friday nights? Is it winter? Do you have new friends we don’t know of? Places you don’t want to share with us? Are you getting old and boring?” Well, being cold did have something to do with it, but the second season of Project Runway had a whole lot more. It all happened one Friday night about 7 weeks ago when, too exhausted to go out on a Friday and missing her man who was gallavanting elsewhere, Editorista went to visit her best friends house with pizza’s in hand. You see the best friends were moving house soon after into their very cute semi in Brixton (what a super cool suburb for young buyers) and everyone wanted to talk about the move and just chill together… Needing to zone out of the weeks stresses, we skipped quickly through the cable ‘bouquet” – cuddling up next to a warm fire, we settled on “Project Runway” on E Entertainment, “just another reality show” we thought. How wrong we were. 7 weeks later we are confirmed PR addicts bordering on freaks and Friday nights will never be the same. Project Runway works very simply. There are a whole bunch of talented young clothing designers in New York who have to create a fashion garment every week under extremely tight budgetary and timing restrictions. Each week someone is eliminated and the team gets more competitive, the creative bar is raised and the bitchiness soars. Heidi Klum is the presenter and the judges are all well respected (Nina Garcia) and entertaining (Michael Kors) fashionistas. Drawn essentially to the creative integrity and challenge at the heart of this wonderful show, we were even more delighted to hear the flat...
MADONNA IN SA? READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Because we live in a democratic society, it is OUR freedom as well to WRITE WHAT WE LIKE! In reading further, you are automatically signing a contract with us that we will not be held responsible for any emotional trauma or any other mental breakdowns if the following information is not TRUE. If it is, you can thank us later! Ok, one of our soldiers on the underground informed us that word on th…e street is that Madonna will be coming to SA! She is rumoured to be performing two concerts in October at a golf course in Cape Town. This is all the info we have so far: Date: We don’t know yet Time: Sometime in the month of October Venue: Not sure, we hear there is lots of grass and little white balls everywhere! REPRESENT DOES NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS IF IT IS NOT TRUE! P.s. don’t say we never told you...
Where to go Party people?
Saturday nights in Jozi don’t have much to offer in terms of feeding your musical souls! If you love old school Hip Hop, with a twist of Jazz, a dash of funk, mixed with a little bit of soul music, we know what a group of your kind of people will be getting up to this Saturday. DJ Kenzhero is hosting one of his jams at Rocka (formally known as Color Bar) on Saturday the 26th of August. Off the topic – doesn’t this annoy you?! I went to the University of Johannesburg, formally known as RAU! Eish, I don’t know about all these name changes sometimes and I don’t know about you, but I loved the name Color Bar! Anyway – It starts at 9pm and R50 gets you in the door. I promise, this will be the best R50 you spend this year. If you love Hip Hop, I mean the real deal and considering you don’t live in New York City, this jam is the closest thing to chilling out at a Hip Hop joint in Brooklyn New York! I have never been there myself, but I can only imagine that’s how they do over there (just let me dream). But like myself, if you live here and want to listen to music that takes you so way back, it brings tears to your eyes, Kenzhero is the man for you! Copies of his mix tape ‘Party People’ will also be available for a sweet R40 at the door. Tumi will be in the house, blessing the mic alongside DJ papercutt, to add to your dose of musical pleasure. Don’t forget your thinking caps at home cause these brothers are deep and they will blow your mind! Come party with likeminded individuals who all share an appreciation for GOOD music! Visit www.djkenzhero.co.za and school yourself on this brother if you don’t know about him yet. For more information contact: info@djkenzhero.co.za MORE...
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