For all of us who cannot be in Mzansi right now in a Jo’burg club dancing/listening to kwaito/house apres the latest World Cup match here is Secousse SA Kwaito House Mix by Moroka from the Secousse Sound System. Mix contains classic and new “chunes” from the South African music scene. Stumbling on RSA kwaito/house like this is always exciting here at casa forota since I have found it so hard to find and buy any South African music in my usual online/offline places.
Icon: Former model Iman Abdulmajid is set to receive the Council of Fashion Designers of America 2010 Fashion Icon award. Although Iman made her mark in the “frivolous” world of good looks, the impact of her presence there and on the wider world of the African/black visual image is undeniable.
Refugee: In above puff piece, former refugee Iman makes a great point about what women displaced by the Congo conflict need. No, not charity but help to end the war (as funded by conflict minerals from that region), so that they can re-build their communities. Not sure if the whole fair-trade cellphones concept will take off, though.
The Bicycle Portraits project was initiated by Stan Engelbrecht (Cape Town, South Africa) and Nic Grobler (Johannesburg, South Africa) early in 2010. Whenever they can, together or separately, they’re on the lookout for fellow commuters, and people who use bicycles as part of their everyday work, to meet and photograph. They’re finding out who rides bicycles, why they ride bicycles, if and why they love their bicycles, and of course why so few South Africans choose bicycles as a transport option.
The two photographers (bike enthusiasts from Cape Town) are using the startup Kickstarter (creative project funding platform) to raise funds to make their project into a hardcover book.
Thanks to a post on Kate Bomz’ lovely tumblrlog I happily obliterated a recent Friday evening discovering the culture of the Swenkas of South Africa. Swenkas?:
The swenkas are a small group of Zulu working men which formed in South Africa following the abolishment of Apartheid.
These well-dressed men are proud and considered to serve as an inspiration to others. On Saturday nights, these men leave their work clothes behind and don highly fashionable quality suits to impress a judge, who is a randomly picked. Traditionally, the prize for the most stylish suit is cash, but on special occasions such as Christmas, the winner may receive a goat or a cow. This traditional fashion show still happens today, but it is unclear as to precisely when it was instigated. The men follow certain set values of Swanking, such as physical cleanliness, sobriety and above all self-respect.
It is not clear what the precise roots of the swenka culture are. There is the acapella Iscathamiya music, where the performers, inspired by African-American ragtime/jazz fashions took a sense of formality and elegance. Also like migrants everywhere else the workers needed to buy swanky outfits for their return home to show those they had left behind that they had made it in the big city, regardless of what the daily reality was (is) of life in the mines, the construction sites, and white homes where they worked. Regular competition seems to have raised it all into an art form and a subculture.
The three video clips below highlight the various threads that make up Swenka.
Mini-feature on the Zulu ISICATHAMIYA choir competitions in Johannesburg
“artsworld” feature on Iscathamiya choral and Swenka fashion competitions in Johannesburg
Trailer for 2004 documentary “The Swenkas” by Danish director Jeppe Ronde. Synopsis here
See also: Vice magazine: Swanky Swenkas Snip from article from Adolphus Mbuyisa on swenking:
I am one of the organizers of the Joburg swenkas. I don’t know how many suits I own, maybe 20 or 30. If I see a suit I like, I simply must have it. I also have lots of shoes, ties, and shirts. It is important for everything to match if you want to win a competition.
….
I live in a room in Soweto. My family is very supportive of me and my clothes. They don’t mind that I spend so much money on suits—they are proud of me and they like it when I look smart.
Screen shot from designer Paul Smith’s web site
Speaking of Swankiness, See Also: Underscoring the power of the imagination in subcultures like the Swenkas and sapeurs, fashion designer Paul Smith has a new fashion line for spring/summer 2010 called “Mainline” influenced by Congo Brazzaville’s sapeurs:
See Also: Through all this I can’t help but think of Hugh Masekela’s song “Coal Train” (aka “Stimela”) about a train carrying men from the hinterlands of southern Africa (all of Africa these days?) who uproot themselves from their homes, lands and loves in the pursuit of dreams of wealth and comfort. The dreams that crash into the reality of migrant life and that are rekindled in Swenka fashion and Iscathamiya music/performance.
In the 1970s and 1980s, so many promises were made to Liberia and by Liberians. All of them would be broken over the next two decades. As part of a long term project I’m beginning, I plan to document the spaces of these broken promises.
See also: Guy Tillim: Jo’burg Landmark image series from 2005. From Tillim’s artist statement:
The decay of Jo’burg’s centre can be ascribed to many factors but perhaps none more so than the absence of Body Corporates. These had become relics of a more genteel era; the communal responsibilities that are contentious in even the most well-heeled blocks were not marked out. Windows were broken and not repaired. Lifts froze and their shafts became tips.
The relationship between tenants and owners or their agents deteriorated with disputes over the state of the buildings, and in some cases resulted in unpaid rents and dues. The buildings started looking like fire hazards, and the City Council began closing on them for unpaid utilities.
See also: Zarina Bhimji: Out of Blue: Zarina Bhimji (Uganda/UK) was a member of the Asian community kicked out of UG in the 70’s; she returned there a few years ago and among other things documented (film/photos) the decay in the public and private buildings that had been abandoned by fleeing Asians during the nightmare that was the Idi Amin years. Some of her images were featured in the landmark International Center of Photography photo exhibition “Snap Judgments“.
Nollywood is the massive, pulsating film industry in Nigeria, which the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has declared the world’s second-largest film industry, after India’s Bollywood, based on the number of films produced. Shooting past Hollywood without the world noticing, Nollywood has made it to second place with films about family, love and honor, about AIDS, prostitution and oil, and about ghosts and cannibals.
ARCHITECTURE: Tanzanian-born star-chitect David Adjaye has a show at London’s Design Museum. Urban Africa contains over 2000 images that he has taken over the last 10 years of the civic/commercial/residential architecture of all of Africa’s 53 capital cities. In a BBC interview[audio: interview starts around 5:40] he talks about how people have strong visual connections to the wild landscapes of the continent, but are a little baffled when told about about how cosmopolitan the cities are. The show’s goal is to redress this situation.
I wish I could go see this show. These days when I go back to Nairobi, I see the architecture in a different way. There are many old buildings that intrigue me (designed to address a certain notion of africanness and local climate needs) and new ones that leave me aghast (designed to mimic some bland, uncreative notion of modernity).
Posted: April 3rd, 2010 | Author:kamau | Filed under:music, music video | Comments Off
Movimento Brasil Long form commercial commissioned by Brazil’s Brahma beer on the launch of their beverage in the US market. Great inspiration video to watch as the mercury rises and we shed insulation layers here in the northern climes (does any one other nation know how to express muenjoyo than the Brazilians?) Awesome soundtrack, particularly for the samba and capoeria segments.
UPDATE: See also: Clip/excerpt below from the commercial describes in more detail, the roots and goals of capoeira.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Dimanche a Bamako by Aitken Jolly One of the legacies of Malick Sidibe’s work getting accepted by the elite art/culture crowd methinks is that it has encouraged fashion/editorial image makers to explore using African models, fabrics, etc. beyond the “safari, wild animals, raw nature” concepts that have previously dominated interpretations of Africa. This is a good thing.
See also:bold constructions by Viviane Sassen “Photographer i like” Sassen is most interestingly incorporating African themes into her fashion/editorial/personal work.
