MUST DO: Jazz lovers get to CTIJF
Jazzinista’s we hope you’re planning ahead to catch the broadly diverse line up at this year’s CTIJF taking place in less than 3 weeks! Ranging from some of SA’s hottest current bands like Goldfish, 340ml and Siphokazi, then showcasing some of the less commercial but deeply intriguing South African jazz cats like Carlo Mombelli & The Prisoners of Strange and McCoy Mrubata… through to two of our favourite international bands – acid jazz group Incognito from the 90s (still a friend of mine!) and the AMAZING Congo-Belgian all-girl group Zap Mamas (call me!) – And smoothly topped off with an edgy hiphp touch – Mos Def feat The Robert Glasper Experiment (to name but a few), it’s gonna be shaking in Cape Town! Surely this range of talent must put the festival on the global lists of ‘must attend’ jazz festivals. Here is the full line-up. Just added to this list is the young and fabulous Zaki Ibrahim, read all about it below: 340ml; Carlo Mombelli & The Prisoners of Strange; Goldfish; Kyle Shepherd Quartet; Magic Malik Orchestra Napalma; Ndumiso Nyovane; Pete Philly & Perquisite; The Robert Glasper Experiment; Shakatak; Siphokazi; South Paw; Stewart Sekuma; Al Foster Quartet; Arturo Lledo; Dave Liebman Quartet; Dianne Reeves; Emily Bruce; Freshlyground; Hugh Masekela; Incognito; Jonathan Rubain; Kyle Eastwood Band; Loading Zone; Maceo Parker; Maurice Gawronsky feat. Feya Faku; New York Voices; Peter White; Ringo Madlingozi; Rus Nerwich’s collective imagination; The Stylistics; Zap Mama; Jonathan Butler with special guest Dave Koz; Dr. Malombo Philip Tabane, “Opera Meets Jazz” Mike Del Ferro, Sibongile Khumalo, and Shannon Mowday; Abigail Kubeka, Cape Town Jazz Orchestra, McCoy Mrubata and Special Friends and Mos Def feat The Robert Glasper Experiment. To complete this year’s lineup, organisers of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival revealed that Zaki Ibrahim will join the other thirty-nine acts that appear on 03-04 April at Africa’s Grandest Gathering. While she refuses to categorise her music, what Zaki dishes out is a fusion of hip-hop, earthy soul, deep house, broken electro-acoustic beats and jazz-inflected vocal intonations. Still in her 20’s, the Toronto-based South African singer has taken up as her mission, the creation of smooth hip-hop. Born to an exiled South African father and Scottish mother, Zaki spent her early years shuttling between Cape Town and the city of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in British Columbia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia> , Canada. She was drawn to hip-hop at early age and started to perform when she moved to British Columbia ’s largest city, Vancouver. Explaining the pull of hip-hop on her, the singer who has been living in Toronto since 2001 describes how as a child he listened...
First Ever AFRICAN fashion week
Wow, amidst all the mishmash of the myriad of fashion weeks and not knowing which city or country we’re in or which season, who would have thought that the creme de la creme of an entire continent’s fashionistas could come together on one stage. Only in South Africa, land of big dreams and even bigger doers. Nice one. Represent Africa! Great timing, HINT: If you didn’t know already, big chunky and colourful Afro-inspired necklaces are the MUST HAVE accesory this Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. We look forward to more info. Inaugural Africa Fashion Week to draw world attention African designers will be scoring the winning goal during the upcoming FIFA Confederations Cup in June, when the inaugural Africa Fashion Week takes place in Johannesburg. African Fashion International (AFI) has announced that the first Africa Fashion Week will be an eight-day showcase of the continent’s leading designers from 12 to 19 June 2009 at the Sandton Convention Centre, replacing Joburg Fashion Week on this years spring/summer calendar. Africa Fashion Week – which will feature designers from up to 15 countries including top South African designers – is set to become an annual event that will also be held during the FIFA World Cup in 2010. Visit www.africanfashioninternational.com for more details. Image: David Tlale’s...
Represent Review: H2O- More than just a jol
10:00 Am. And unusually quiet for what can only be described as a milestone event. Ten years of the biggest dance party in Africa. Yet this time around, strangely the people hadn’t camped outside waiting to be allowed in. This time, there was no queue extending down the street for people waiting to park nor an equal mass of people walking in and lining up, waiting to get in. What was going on? Upon entering the venue I felt the energy begin to heat up as the music had already started to fill the air. The crowd was small, but growing by the minute and you could feel the twinklings that today was going to be unforgettable. The sun was beating down on us as the African tempos started blaring out the speakers filling our bodies with the energy to make it through the next few hours. This was going to be insane. We milled around, checking out all the floors and getting a feel for each one. Each dancefloor provided it’s own unique flavour to the day – each perfectly located so as not to drown out one another in terms of sound and crowd. I grabbed myself a drink from one of the tents and relaxed to take in all of my surroundings. Before I knew it, the party had really begun. The crowd started getting their ankles wet and so began the cheers and whistles as the DJ began to drop some insane mixes. The next time I turned around to check out the scene, I saw thousands of people with their hands lifted jubilantly up in the air, accepting the music, letting the rhythms take control of their bodies. This was it, this is what we live for. United by music, united by one energy. This is who we are and this is our message. We are South Africans and we know how to party! One hour after the next, swaying the amassed sea of people, the music just kept coming. It didn’t let up, not even for a second. Even when the lines weren’t connected for Fresh to begin his set the crowd was entertained by a beatboxer who not only had the crowd jumping and screaming for more, he even had the one and only Vernon in the background doing his signature move. Only in South Africa can we make a party happen even when there is no sound. The rhythm is in our blood. Ironically, being a party called H2O, we were blessed by Mother Africa raining down on us. The crowds started to dwindle down which was disappointing as there was...
The JAG honours fallen resistance artist
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind— But how could I forget thee? – William Wordsworth. So many of us do not know about the brave, the selfless, the unnamed, the unmarked, the forgotten heroes of our past who sacrificed everything, even their lives, for us to have our freedom today. Let us NEVER forget them, but instead ensure that their names and their deeds are forever close to our hearts and minds, keeping them alive in respect and love. Make sure you get to the JAG to share this poignant retrospective of the art of the master artist Thami Mnyele who was killed at the hands of the brutality of the apartheid security forces. Do yourself and your children this favour, and feed your mind. Details below on the conference to be held pre-exhibition and the exhibition details. From the end of November, the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) will be hosting an exhibition honouring Thami Mnyele, a South African resistance artist who died at the hands of apartheid security forces in the 1980s. The Thami Mnyele and Medu Art Ensemble Retrospective Exhibition opens at the JAG on Sunday, 30 November 2008 at 6.30pm, and runs until 30 March 2009. Thamsanqa “Thami” Mnyele (1948-1985) was a talented artist from Alexandra who was committed to bringing about social change in South Africa through the medium of art. This quest led him to exile in Botswana in the late 1970s, having decided to take a stand and actively participate in the struggle. In Botswana, Mnyele became a cultural worker with the Medu Art Ensemble, co-founded by his friend Mongane Wally Serote. Medu had units dedicated to the anti-apartheid struggle, dealing with music, theatre, visual arts, graphics and cinema, and counted among its ranks South Africa’s current Deputy President Baleka Mbete as well as musicians Hugh Masekela and Jonas Gwangwa. In 1982, Medu hosted milestone conferences relating to South African art, including the Symposium on Culture and Resistance in Gaborone and Culture in Another South Africa in Amsterdam. Today, the Thami Mnyele Foundation’s residency programme for African artists in Amsterdam continues to bear testament to the late artist’s far-reaching influence. As a result of their commitment to the struggle in general, and to the ANC in particular, Medu members became targets of the apartheid security apparatus. In 1985, a day before he was due to move to Zambia, Mnyele was killed along with other activists and civilians in a cross-border raid orchestrated by the South African Defence Force in Gaborone. The JAG will be paying tribute to the work of this seminal South African graphic artist during the retrospective exhibition, and...
Love Jozi do it again
What more can we say… Yes, we’re proud to say they’re part of our extended family, but damn they never fail to blow us away with their superb sense of innovative style, always keeping us on our toes and filled with renewed vows for our city. Love Jozi we ♥ u. Respec’! This time round it’s all about Jozi being a MODEL CITY… (naaaasss…) this exclusive range of Model City Love Jozi t-shirts is available as part of the Virgin Mobile Pop Up store that will be popping up all over Jozi in the next month and a bit… just click on the flyer below! PS: Brad, don’t forget we need two to represent here in...
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