The 32-year-old jazzman’s latest album, Iladi, serves as a homage to the rich cultural practice of thanksgiving — a reflection on the guidance and blessings he has received throughout his journey. At its core, Iladi, released on the Blue Note record label, is a musical offering that echoes the ceremony after which it is named. 

We are meeting at a Johannesburg coffee shop where I find him busy with his least favourite part of life. “I’m just getting admin out of the way,” he explains, laptop open beside a half-eaten breakfast. 

Despite the mundane tasks of day-to-day life, his mind is elsewhere—firmly rooted in the spiritual and creative space where Iladi had been born.

Reflecting on the significance of his album, Sikhakhane speaks with deep appreciation for the journey on which he’s been. 

“I am grateful for so many things— I am thankful for the guidance in my journey, the journey of music, the journey of seeking — the journey of trying to figure out my voice in this music path,” he says. 

The process of creating Iladi was not just about crafting songs; it was an exercise in self-discovery and an opportunity to pause and give thanks for the guidance he has received along the way. 

“This is a season where all these gifts are amplified, and I can see the support that one has been getting and accolades — appreciating how the process of this journey has been unfolding in a positive way. Now it is the time for me to just stop and be thankful,” Sikhakhane says. 

Iladi is a thanksgiving ritual where families gather to show gratitude for their successes, pay tribute to their ancestors and seek further guidance from them. 

The Durban-born Sikhakhane draws on the elements of this ritual to structure his album, and brings listeners into a space where music and spirituality converge. The album mirrors the progression of an actual thanksgiving ceremony. 

“Iladi is a ritual that is practised and it serves many purposes,” he says. “How I relate to iladi is through events in my upbringing that I have seen around iladi as a way to pay gratitude and seek guidance, and as a way to acknowledge this other world, which is our ancestry world.” 

The first track, iGosa, translates to “leader” in isiZulu. This is a significant choice, as in traditional ceremonies, acknowledging and honouring the leaders — both living and ancestral — marks the beginning of the proceedings. 

It sets the tone for the rest of the album, with each track representing different elements essential to the success of iladi. 

As Sikhakhane describes, gratitude plays an important role in the ritual. Through his album, the saxophonist creates a sonic representation of this practice, celebrating the spiritual connection and wisdom shared through tradition. 

Growing up, iladi was a regular feature in Sikhakhane’s household. His father would gather everyone around to offer thanks whenever there was an achievement or a moment of significance. 

The ritual included traditional beer, food, and sometimes the symbolic act of slaughtering a chicken or goat, which would be shared the next day. 

For Sikhakhane, these ceremonies were a powerful way to connect to his ancestry, foster community and mark milestones in life. 

He recalls that music was always part of the celebration, something that is evident in his album’s rich, layered compositions. 

Just as songs would accompany his family’s iladi rituals, the eight tracks on Iladi serve as a vessel for storytelling and gratitude, evoking the same meditative atmosphere of the ceremonies he grew up with. 

One of the most striking aspects of Iladi is its ability to draw listeners into a contemplative, almost transcendental space. 

As Sikhakhane explains, the album is a way of seeking further guidance and inviting listeners into the positive space he has created for himself. Through his music, he builds a bridge between the past and the present, between the physical and spiritual realms. 

The album features Sikhakhane’s long-time mentor, Nduduzo Makhathini, on piano, with Kweku Sumbry on drums and Zwelakhe-Duma Bell le Pere on bass. 

Their interplay creates a harmonic blend that feels both grounded and ethereal, guiding listeners through the narrative of Iladi just as the ritual itself guides participants through gratitude and reflection. 

As we part ways after our conversation, I can’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for the reminder that even in the busyness of life, there is always space to stop, acknowledge, and give thanks. And to listen to music.

“That’s like one very strong memory of all of that time,” jazz musician, composer, leftwing activist, cultural worker and educator Asher Gamedze tells me on Zoom from Cape Town. “It was the rain — it was pouring.”

Constitution, the just-released double album on International Anthem Records by Asher Gamedze and The Black Lungs — Tumi Pheko (cornet), Garth Erasmus (alto saxophone), Jed Petersen (tenor saxophone), Ru Slayen (percussion), Athi Ngcaba (trombone), Tina Mene (vocals), Fred Moten (words), Nobuhle Ashanti (piano), Sean Sanby (bass) and Gamedze (drums) — was recorded almost as “live” on just that one day at Sound and Motion studios.

And never mind the weather. It was an intense day because, not only does setting up for 10 musicians take a lot of time and the studio closes strictly at 5pm, but there was the issue with fetching the lunchtime pizzas.

“We’re just getting some pizza from Bin Rashied’s in Grassy Park, which is like under normal conditions, five, maximum 10 minutes’ drive away,” Gamedze recalls with a chuckle as he takes me back to the day of the recording. “But then there were road closures. So, we ended up having to drive around and it took almost an hour.”

They ended up recording the last take of the track High Land. New Home literally at five to five.

This was the second iteration of The Black Lungs. The first was part of a research project back in 2022 in Chicago where Gamedze put together an ensemble of avant-garde musicians, including  SuRa Dupart, Ben LaMar Gay, Adam Zanolini, Xristian Espinoza, Angel Bat Dawid, Chér Jey and Julian Otis, under the same name.

“So that was really beautiful, we just did one night at a place called Elastic Arts [in Chicago] which is a home for various kinds of avant-garde expression.”

He got further funding this year and decided to do it in his home city of Cape Town. The 35-year-old convened some younger musicians and adventurous ones who didn’t have a history in freer sorts of music, but were open to it, into the local version of The Black Lungs.

“I really approached that as an opportunity to kind of bring a group of people together that I liked, had a good vibe with, hadn’t played with all of them, most of them I had,” Gamedze says. “And yeah, try to kind of build an ensemble from there, you know.”

This approach is not just one he took in the creation of Constitution. “The ensemble experience of study and struggle is the basis of my thought and everything I try to do in this mad world,” he says in the album’s liner notes.

Gamedze sent the musicians some of the recordings from Chicago and then taught them the compositions in the rehearsals.

I ask the musician whether he had in mind what it would sound like, or if he allowed some freedom for the music to evolve.

“I mean, there’s always that kind of tension I think between what you imagine something to be and then what it becomes,” he explains. “And I think I’m getting better and better at releasing myself from what I imagine something to be and being open to what emerges while at the same time holding on to things I want to be specific about.”

I ask him if that is scary.

“In terms of a musical idea that you have in your head and translating it, and the process of that becoming more people’s [music] … I guess it’s like you wanted it to be interesting, you wanted to hold it up as an idea, in the same way that it does to yourself, to all these other people.

“And I think the scarier thing always to me is like, ‘Oh fuck, is this music actually any good?’”

Gamedze’s fourth album as bandleader, Constitution is an expansive album — one hour 22 minutes long across nine tracks. It is also powerful, challenging (in the best possible way) political music. As noted on Bandcamp, it is “an elaboration of the possibilities of autonomous constitution in and through polyrhythmic, modal, large ensemble music”.

In the album’s title, there is the obvious reference to the South African Constitution.

“There’s specific connotations around that and things that would come to mind, at least among progressive-minded people,” says Gamedze, “is the failures of the notion and the form of the Constitution that we have, which is obviously billed as one of the most progressive in the world, but really has no bearing on the lives of the majority of working-class and black South Africans.

“So, I guess at some level, there’s an attempt to engage with that notion, but to put forward a different vision of ‘constitution’, one that starts from a collective of people and moves from there.”

Jazz is associated with breath and breathing while playing — most certainly on Constitution with four brass players and two vocalists.

“The concept of breath is very prevalent,” Gamedze adds. “And so, the idea of constituting an ensemble, particularly a musical ensemble through breath as a way of constituting a collective subject, is one notion through which I think about Constitution.”

After all, for Gamedze “everything is politics. From the way we gather, from the way we relate to each other as individuals within a musical context to the way we relate to the people working in the studio.”

 Gamedze’s approach with the album was for all the band members to “get as deep into the music as they can”. And that meant, even with the rehearsals, the band would play the full, nearly 40-minute version of the title track of Constitution.

“I remember that everyone was committed and spiritually very present,” he says.

On the day of the recording of this future classic, the band members gave it their all.

Gamedze says it reminded him of the story of the John Coltrane spiritual jazz masterpiece, Ascension (1965), which inspired him when he composed the title track of the new album.

In his book, The House that Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records, jazz historian Ashley Kahn recounts how Coltrane wanted another recording of the 42-minute track at the end of the second take. The drummer, Elvin Jones “flung his snare at the studio wall, signalling his decision that for him, the date was over”.

Gamedze giggles. He was never going to try that after the band was “on fire” for the 40-minute track because, to use the sports cliché, “everyone left it out there”.

“And yeah, we definitely, I think everyone, we did great in the sense that we left it all out there, you know.”

The title track is the album’s centrepiece.

“Members of the dispossessed, won’t you lend me your ears!” This subversion of Shakespeare’s well-known line from Julius Caesar is the repeated vocal call and the rallying chorus throughout the cut Constitution.

While all the compositions, concepts and arrangements are by Gamedze, the words are by the radical American cultural theorist, poet and scholar Fred Moten, who also contributes spoken word on the album — word-fragments and samples of poems written and recited by him.

“Fred’s incredible. So generous,” says Gamedze. For about four weeks they met regularly and discussed ideas for the album.

Moten’s beautiful deep voice is on several tracks.

“They’re all part of one [voiced] piece, which I cut up into these sections,” explains Gamedze.

“These various pieces that come back to Fred’s voice and become a theme in some way … even as the ideas are getting more and more expansive, disentangled and wrapped up in each other.”

On the track Destitution, which reminds one of The Last Poets, the revolutionary 1960s proto-rap jazz group, Moten asks: “Does the dialectician have a sound?”

Assuming he is asking that about Gamedze, having listened to Constitution with close attention, my answer is a resounding yes. I am expecting critical acclaim around the world as with the previous albums.

But, I ask Gamedze, who are your listeners?

“In the contemporary music world, through things like Spotify and data and all of this, there’s a real intense drive for artists to analyse which markets they’re penetrating … and kind of how to grow your market where your listeners are.

“And I try not to invest any energy in thinking through that so much,” he says.

For him it is important that the music resonates with its listeners wherever they are. But he hopes South Africans will lend him their ears, and that Constitution “resonates with people from home in a particular way, and that means a lot to me”.

In celebration of 30 years of South African democracy, the Apartheid Museum and the Nelson Mandela Foundation present Born Free: Generation of Hope. This compelling photographic exhibition by Dutch photographer Ilvy Njiokiktjien documents the lives of South Africa’s first generation born after apartheid.

Curated by Neo Ntsoma and Azu Nwagbogu, the exhibition runs from 14 September 2024 to 31 March 2025. 

Through Njiokiktjien’s lens, visitors can explore the daily lives, struggles and aspirations of the born-free generation, capturing the mix of optimism, challenge and resilience.

The exhibition also features a documentary sparking conversations about the nation’s journey towards equality and justice.

Strauss & Co showcases ‘Balinese Girl’ by Vladimir Tretchikoff

Strauss & Co’s September auction week (16 to 18 September) will show Balinese Girl by Vladimir Tretchikoff, one of his most celebrated works. This portrait is estimated to be worth R5  million to R7  million.

Known for his bold use of colour and striking subjects, Tretchikoff’s Balinese Girl is a captivating portrait from his peak period, using the bluish-green palette seen in his most iconic pieces.

Bina Genovese, Strauss & Co’s managing executive, says the portrait exudes elegance and confidence, exemplifying the artist’s mastery. With Tretchikoff’s personal ties to Asia, the painting also reflects his nuanced understanding of the region’s culture.

Also featured is Chrysanthemums in an Oriental Vase (estimated at R800  000 and R1.2  million), a vibrant floral still life from the Harding collection.

The auction takes place on Tuesday, 17 September at 7pm.

35th Bienal de São Paulo comes to Africa 

The 35th Bienal de São Paulo Choreographies of the Impossible is making history by landing in Luanda, Angola, from 20  September to 8  December. This is the first time the biennial has crossed the Atlantic, bringing a powerful cultural exchange between Brazil and Angola, thanks to the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo and Instituto Guimarães Rosa, with support from Brasafrica and Banco BIR.

Curated by Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes and Manuel Borja-Villel, the exhibition features eight artists whose works explore themes of identity, memory and transformation.

Artists such as Aline Motta, Carlos Bunga and Raquel Lima blend mediums like film, photography and performance. This is an opportunity to see art that bridges continents and histories.

Choreographies of the Impossible invites viewers to reimagine possibilities within impossibilities and celebrates the cultural ties between Brazil and Angola.

Memories, like words, can often be unstable purveyors of truth, as African American writer Kiese Laymon has argued. So, in a reach for certainty, I often look at old images of my mother and her sisters to recalibrate my memories of Emangweni.

My maternal aunt, who in isiZulu is quite literally my “younger mother”, is photographed in her Sunday best as a young girl. No doubt the white satin dress she poses in is a prized possession from a boutique called Brokenshaws on the main road in Estcourt called Harding Street.

This portrait of a young black girl playing at womanhood is an image I have replicated in my own photographs as a young child. Hands on my hip, lips pursed and an exacting gaze right back into the lens. This image is a kind of semiotic inheritance passed down from my “younger mother” onto me and perhaps onto our lineages to come.

This kind of image was also reflected back to me when I encountered Lebogang Tlhako’s work in the Reflections: On Black Girlhood exhibition at Market Photo Workshop.

Tlhako’s images arrest me with their sense of familiarity. In one of her inkjet prints on cotton stands a young girl returning the gaze of the camera: The young girl confidently stands with thick white-rimmed sunglasses, gold earrings with a matching purse and a bow on her dress’s clavicle.

This piece formed part of the Sibadala Sibancane collection, which is a linguistic play in isiZulu of being “old while young”. The series of photography explored in this collection spoke to the paradoxical nature of children in South Africa, often engaging in role-playing games and mimicking adulthood through activities such as playing house and dress-up.

However, this playful imitation reflects a deeper societal trend, where young individuals are compelled to adopt adult roles and responsibilities at an early age due to living circumstances. 

These images are in conversation with the work of Haneem Christian, Ruth Motau, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi and Motlhoki Nono under Danielle Bowler’s curatorial configuration of black girlhood. Bowler invites us into ephemeral depictions of young black girls with this exhibition.

This is a world of the “ordinary extraordinary”, as she writes in her curatorial missive, where black girls straddle inequality, shame, critique and yet, insistent joy and self-authorship. This exhibition is comprised of reflections on black girlhood from five contemporary South African artists across multiple generations.

The exhibition is an invitation from the general assumptions of black girlhood into the granular and specific, with themes of memory, biography, performance, the body, community, care and “being in public”, through creative practices of waywardness.

Reflections: On Black Girlhood is Bowler’s artistic response to the Sighting Black Girlhood course, a hybrid course taught across the universities of Johannesburg and Pennsylvania, which quite literally explored what it was to sight, cite and site black girlhood across South Africa, the USA and the Caribbean.

As with any artistic millennial worth their salt, Bowler is a talented multi-hyphenate. Having worked as an arts editor and journalist, musician and theatre maker, Bowler brought a wealth of expertise to her first curatorial endeavour.

“When I first entered [into the space], I was having a lot of conversations with different curators, and they were telling me how important writing is curatorially and that having that skill was a critical skill I was bringing to the practice already,” reflects Bowler over a Zoom call.

“I think that specifically being an arts writer is a discipline in which you are constantly thinking about some of the same things that you are thinking about curatorially … when I read that curating was about opening up a set of questions and not trying to establish a definitive set of closed answers, it really opened up a way of thinking about what this may offer me as another practice.”

Bowler’s scholarly and artistic practice configures itself in a relational dance where she is cognisant of the ethics of citation, located-ness and the deceptively simple act of seeing.

“I think I am always attracted to thinking with and thinking alongside,” she continues as she explains how she attended to questions of space, spacing and meaning-making in this exhibition.

Bowler’s theatre background helped to think through questions of staging and how every element of staging is an intentional statement about the artworks and their relationship and proximity to one another and how to animate this vast web of being. “There is a lot to think about, you’re thinking about the composition of the room and how that speaks to your thematics. You are thinking about colour and for a long time I was going through colour theory to understand what different colours represent.”

In her speech on the opening of the exhibition on 2 September, Bowler foregrounded the notion of feeling. Feeling, for Bowler, is a rigorous intellectual pursuit as she is currently busy with a PhD at the University of Johannesburg researching a “practice of feeling”.

“Something that I’ve been trying to think through in the PhD is what I’m calling ‘the practice of feeling’, and what does it mean to move via feeling, which you can substitute for feelings of empathy or empathy within that,” she offers in our interview. “As I said at the exhibition, every work was chosen because of feeling. As I looked at the works there was a specific act of being moved that determined my selections and that also determined the exhibition itself.”

I was overcome by a distinct feeling of unease on the opening night as I approached Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi’s newly commissioned and reimagined installation from her 2022 exhibition Chorus for Bowler’s exhibition.

A white spring floor reminiscent of a gymnasium sits at the edge of the room with a five-minute sound installation, which can be heard on the attached earphones. The instructions for this part of the exhibit read, “Please feel free to put on the headphones and stand, jump, walk, perform or just be on the spring floor while you listen.”

The reconfiguration of Nkosi’s gymnasium in this way was both enticing but also reviling as the menacing invitation to smile was heard on a loop through the earphones. The sound installation was made up of real excerpts from the commentators in US-born gymnast Gabby Douglas’s gymnastic competitions.

Douglas is a world-class gymnast who made history 12 years ago at the London Olympics as the first black gymnast ever to win the all-around gold — and four years later, winning the team gold in Rio as part of the final five.

“Smile, she looks so much better when she smiles,” plays on the earphones. This commentary, although directed at Douglas, is an unwelcome invitation most black femmes and girls have had to experience in their public lives.

Offering a smile can be a nebulous, fraught practice in a world riddled with misogyny and the consistent abandonment of black girls the world over. Despite my own dis-ease, the piece is, however, a curatorial success for Bowler as it invites meaning-making from each member of the audience, much like the nineteen other artworks on display.

This is quite a significant jump from the first iteration of this exhibition, which was held in Kingston, Jamaica at New Local Space. That group exhibition was titled Sighting Black Girlhood, featuring work by Camille Chedda, Tishana Fisher, Michaella Garrick, Sasha-Kay Nicole Hinds, Oneika Russell and Abigail Sweeney.

“In Lebogang Tlhako’s work I felt the connection between our two shows,” writes Chedda over email.

“In Jamaica we went about our project by first learning from our subject/muse and presenting them how they needed to be seen — as monuments, as being healed, or simply at rest.

“The young girl in Lebogang’s photo collages emulates her mother’s style and pose; she inserts herself into a space that has changed over time. We here created images and objects about these young women after absorbing their stories.”

It is clear that both Bowler and Chedda were able to tap into a global experience through highlighting the hyper-local in their presentations of black girlhood.

Through her tender practice of empathy, Bowler is able to sing “a black girl’s song”, as Ntozake Shange reminds us in her previously unpublished works. As the light bounces off each piece into a kind of reflection, Bowler reminds us to reflect on the inner worlds that shape the intimate lives of black girls here and across time and space.

Reflections: On Black Girlhood is showing until 31 October at the Market Photo Workshop.  

It was through poet, writer, and intellectual James Matthews that I got to know Gladys Thomas, his close friend and co-author of their seminal anthology Cry Rage (1972), which was banned by the apartheid government. Spending time at their homes in Silvertown (James) and Gladys (Ocean View), the weight of South Africa’s past bore home.

Both lived in areas established for “coloureds” by the Group Areas Act of 1950. The cruel irony of Ocean View (it has no view of any ocean) or Silvertown (it takes real effort to shine in the shadow of Table Mountain that both overlooks and over-looks the Cape Flats) was not lost on them.

Having James and Gladys read their poetry to my students in their homes that showcased the visual art of another luminary, Peter Clarke, is something I will never forget. What stood apart was the humility of these extraordinary human beings, in contrast to the grotesque displays of self-importance that have come to epitomise democratic South Africa. 

I thought I was the luckiest person when Roger, Benny and James asked me in early 2014 to revisit Age is a Beautiful Phase (2008) and edit a second edition. I admitted to them that I knew very little about poetry, was a nobody in terms of academic gravitas, and the only thing I had going for me was the lemon cake.

I suggested that the second edition could include photo­graphy and as a first, a translation of poems, one to Afrikaans, and one to Xhosa. Photographs of James by George Hallett, Rashid Lombard and Benny Gool were included.

I wanted the edition to span those difficult questions of life and death, remembering and forgetting, a language in which the medium of photography is accomplished. I imagined this book to speak of the now, James’s words anchoring the unwritable experience of being black.

The poems and the photographs draw the reader to fresh possibilities of understanding growing old, of meditations, reflections, growth and appreciation. The second
edition was not going to be a lyrical waxing about old age. James reminds us of the reckoning of a racial past, of the cost of pretense, and papering over fault lines, writing this poem, which he insisted be the prologue:

white man

seated in your luxurious pad

walls illuminate with the glory of

Nina Simone, Josh White, Miriam Makeba

you say you are my soul brother

paying homage to songs sung by

singers singing the bitter blues brought on

by gut-clawing, soul searing, castrating white laws

and you tell me you are my soul brother

when the hypocrisy of your pious double-talk

sharing my pain and plight sickens me

white man

get lost and screw yourself

you have long-gone lost your soul

The launch of the book at the Centre for Curating the Archive at the University of Cape Town in June 2014 was spectacular, with hundreds queuing to get their copies signed.

That so many were young people was equally endearing and encouraging, with James — in his tell-tale rakish black hat — exuding the grace, sense of humour and generosity that so many have come to know and appreciate. Announcing to all that the book proceeds would “fund his trip to Cuba”, James made that night unforgettable for many reasons.

I have come to lean on his instruction in 2014, especially at the lowest of times since: “Siona, wrap yourself in dreams.” By gifting me these words, he outlined the crucial work of the imagination in seeing life anew, and how desperately we need hope, love and kindness in the aftermath of trauma, loss and grief.

Thank you, James. And farewell.

• James Matthews, poet, 1929–2024.
• Prof Siona O’Connell is based in the University of Pretoria’s school of the arts and is a founding member of its Critical African Studies Project.

She has more than half a million followers on TikTok, where she released her latest song on 26 August, applauding the military regimes of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

The track praises the leaders who formed a defence pact, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), after seizing power in coups from 2020 to 2023.

“AES, the march towards freedom! AES, you are right!” go the song’s lyrics set to a catchy melody and featuring a photo montage of their leaders.

“I want my oil, I want my diamond, I want my gold,” she sings.

In another 2022 song dedicated to the Malian leader, the Ivorian diva — whom fans call Mama Africa — pays tribute to the Malian Armed Forces, Fama. “Fama, strength to you!” she sings in a smooth, joyful tone.

The juntas in the three insurgency-hit Sahel states have turned their backs on former colonial power France and sought support from Russia instead to battle jihadist violence.

They also have stormy relations with some of their neighbours, including Côte d’Ivoire, who are deemed to be too close to Paris.

In her song for Mali’s interim leader Colonel Assimi Goita, Kone celebrates Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

 Her career began in the 1970s with an appearance on Ivorian state television RTI, during which then star presenter Georges Tai Benson was struck by her “pure, limpid” voice and clear “enunciation”.

Rising from backup singer to soloist, Kone moved in the same circles as some of Africa’s greatest artists at the time.

In her heyday, she rubbed shoulders with the likes of South African legend Miriam Makeba — whom she regarded as her “role model” — Cameroon’s Manu Dibango, Congolese singer Tabu Ley Rochereau and Senegalese musicians Youssou N’Dour and Ismael Lo.

Her music draws on that of the Mandinka people, a West African ethnic group.

Kone mainly sings in the Dioula language but has replaced traditional instruments with the guitar, piano and brass.

“She deserves to be a diva,” said TV host Benson. “When she’s on stage, she’s majestic.”

 The walls of Kone’s Abidjan home exhibit her long-standing ties with heads of state — friendships that predate the wave of recent military coups.

Framed photos show the diva posing with former Ivorian presidents Felix Houphouet-Boigny and Henri Konan Bedie — both of whom she says supported her financially — as well as Laurent Gbagbo.

But Kone has since traded the suits and ties of politicians for the uniforms of military officers.

Niger leader General Abdourahamane Tiani in August met the artist in Niamey after she played several concerts in the capital.

A video she shared of Burkina Faso’s 36-year-old President Ibrahim Traore — whom she calls her “son” — greeting her with a kiss on the cheek hit a million views.

“They were all happy to meet me, I gave them my support,” the singer said.

“We all want to be independent,” she said, commending the leaders of the former French colonies.

“These are young boys who have had the courage to stand up and say loud and clear that they want to take their destiny into their own hands.”

“And I say bravo,” she added.

Since coming to power, the Nigerien, Burkinabe and Malian governments have made a priority of retaking control of their countries from separatists and jihadist forces.

Dozens of Burkinabe political dissidents, journalists, judges and human rights activists have been disappeared, detained or enrolled by force into the army to fight jihadist groups.

Meanwhile in Mali, the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have accused the army of abuses against civilians. — AFP

South Africa’s premier comedy and jazz series, Jokes & Jazz, returns to the University of KwaZulu-Natal 

(UKZN) Centre for Jazz and Popular Music on Tuesday, 10 September at 5.30pm. Hosted by award-winning comedian and UKZN graduate Kwanda Radebe, the evening promises sharp-witted humour and playful observations.

The line-up features high-energy performances from Mo Vawda, a Lotus FM host and UKZN lecturer, bringing a unique blend of humour and academic insight. Also on stage is international comedian Troy Tesla, the founder of Jokes & Jazz, who is known for his edgy, boundary-pushing humour.

Adding a musical touch, Khetho Makhanya from Pinetown will complement the comedic acts with his engaging voice. It promises an evening of laughter and music.

Snap up artworks at the Ways of Seeing auction

Strauss & Co presents “Ways of Seeing: South African and International Photography”, a groundbreaking auction dedicated exclusively to photography. This sale, set for Wednesday, 18 September at 7pm, brings together a remarkable selection of works from prominent collections, including The Gary Eisenberg Collection, The Linda Givon Collection, and The Photographic Archival and Preservation Association. 

The auction explores themes of personhood, subjectivity and community through diverse photographic practices.

Featured artists include international luminaries such as Bill Brandt, Sebastião Salgado, and Nan Goldin, alongside celebrated South African photographers such as David Goldblatt and Zanele Muholi.

This collection, highlighting the ethics of seeing and the interplay between viewer and subject, is on view at Strauss & Co’s Woodstock offices in Cape Town. The exhibition includes walkabouts and discussions. 

Realness Institute announces Salia 2024 Participants

Realness Institute presents the six African film professionals selected for the third edition of the Southern Africa-Locarno Industry Academy (Salia), a prestigious programme aimed at nurturing talent in the continent’s film and television industry. Taking place during Fame Week Africa from 1 to 7 September  in Cape Town, SALIA is a collaboration between Realness Institute, Locarno Film Festival, and The Story Board Collective.

The programme supports young professionals in sales, distribution, exhibition, and festival programming. Led by Elias Ribeiro, director of Realness Institute, participants will engage in networking opportunities, masterclasses, and panel discussions with global experts.

This year’s cohort includes Awoua Keita Epse Diallo (Côte d’Ivoire), Bethlehem Tesfu Estifanos (Ethiopia), Duwayne Murphy (South Africa), Mphumelelo Mnisi (eSwatini), Rehima Awol Ibrahim (Ethiopia), and Tshiamo Malatji (South Africa).

“I’ve always loved the genre of crime comedy,” says its writer and director Ari Kruger during an interview with the Mail & Guardian. “So it was a huge honour to be the first production company to be commissioned by Amazon to make a feature. I am eternally grateful that they green-lit this crazy project and that it now exists in the world.”

Crime comedies such as Guy Ritchie’s Snatch, the Coen Brothers’ films, and recent Australian films, have had a big influence on his tone and style for this project, adds Kruger.

“I similarly have had a fascination with the South African underworld, which is a treasure trove of absurd stories, larger-than-life characters, and clumsy hits gone wrong,” he says. “I felt like there was an opportunity to explore the danger of our underworld through a more comedic lens and hopefully offer audiences something fun and fresh.” 

Shot over six weeks last year between June and July, The Shakedown not only offers great visual craftsmanship but is a dangerously funny flick. The film centres on a medical aid broker, Justin (Carl Beukes), who gets mixed up in the Cape Town underworld after his mistress threatens to reveal the secret of their affair.

Like his role in 2010’s comedy Jozi, Beukes’s easy abilities to portray a zippy character is great to see on screen. In The Shakedown, we follow Justin on a series of hilarious misadventures trying to maintain his golden boy reputation.

In the opening scene, for instance, plans are hatched to chop up a body to get rid of evidence. To fix his mishaps Justin seeks street solutions from his small-time gangster brother Dovi (Emmanuel Castis).

Casting the two lead brothers was difficult but fruitful, Kruger tells me. “For Justin, I needed a leading man who could do comedy as well as bring likeability to an unlikable character. It was a huge win when Carl auditioned and an even bigger one when I discovered that Carl and Emmanuel were old friends.

“They had a natural chemistry which they brought to the screen which was everything, and more than I hoped it would be.”

To help his brother, Dovi summons his inane henchmen duo, Clinton and Mickey, to carry out the “shakedown”. A case of mistaken identity and barking up the wrong gangster family tree, their plan offers viewers a thrill and comedic experience.

Kruger says he had previously shot a short film called Waiting for Goldman, which features the same characters, Mickey and Clinton.

“David Isaacs played Clinton, so I invited him back to play the role. When the original actor of Mickey became unavailable, I offered the role to rapper Jack Parow, who I knew from having directed some of his music videos and also knew him to be funny.” The role of Justin’s wife Natalie is played by Julia Anastasopoulos. In this film, Anastasopoulos shows an acting range different from her popular characters Suzelle and Tali.

“I cast Julia in the role of Justin’s wife Natalie because she’s not only my wife but one of the best comedic actresses in the country.”

The cast of South Africa’s top comedic talents includes Kurt Schoonraad and newcomer Berenice Barbier who plays the mistress, Marika.

Kruger co-wrote this film with long-time friend and creative partner Daniel Zimbler. Their lenses and pens certainly offer viewers a thrill of idiotic gangsters, gambling rabbis, frustrated wives and Boer mafiosi.

Co-founded by Kruger and Anastasopoulos, the award-winning production company Sketchbook Studios has created fun-filled content such as the SuzelleDIY and Tali’s Diary series. Though last year’s storms in Cape Town were the biggest challenge during shooting, Kruger and the crew remained flexible and committed to the project. “Making episodic TV is much harder than making a feature,” he explains. “The preparation that our previous work has given me put me in a much stronger position to tackle my first feature film.”

Due to the film being commissioned by a global streamer, Kruger adds it came with more financial support compared to their previous projects, which made the process wonderfully seamless.

“I’ve never had to shoot so much action before, which meant finding the time to have prep with the actors to try and get the beats right.”

The intriguing script and high-quality cinematography have given The Shakedown both local and global appeal. 

Amazon Prime Video launched its local service in Africa in August 2022. Though boasting a sizable collection of South African films, Prime Video’s strategy for developing original local stories is rather vague.

Many filmmakers and viewers were surprised when in January this year the streamer suddenly announced it would be cutting funds for the African and Middle Eastern market, barely two years into its expansion.

Despite these issues, Kruger welcomes the opportunities streaming platforms have given the local film and TV industry.

“There’s never been a better time in South Africa to be making films and TV. The streamers have opened up the doors to South African filmmakers to make their work with bigger budgets as well as offer access to a global stage.

“There is also more openness with audiences globally to watch content coming out of unexpected territories and I believe South Africa has a unique offering in our stories, characters, and tone to compete on an international level.”

As a hybrid genre, crime comedy combines the danger of the crime genre and the hilarity of comedy with some layers of dark humour. Viewers are captivated by the misfortunes of dim-witted criminals foolishly executing serious criminal acts often leading to comic results.

The Shakedown ticks all the boxes. It nestles between other local features such as The Umbrella Men, Paradise Stop, Big Nunu’s Little Heist and Skeem. Though highlighting universal themes such as infidelity within marriage, family relations and promoting healthy lifestyles, what sets The Shakedown apart are the Afrikaner mafia shades within a South African Jewish community.

“I think our South African-ness is our unique currency,” says Kruger. He adds that historically local audiences seem to have had an allergic reaction to seeing ourselves on screen, yet ironically, we also really want to see ourselves represented.

“I think it’s a delicate balance of how we present ourselves which doesn’t feel too close to home or cringe. I would hope that with The Shakedown, we’ve offered audiences an entertaining way to experience our nuances, humour, and unique characters while housed within the safety of genre.”

For international audiences, Kruger not only hopes the film will intrigue, delight, and surprise, but “that the narrative of the story sweeps them away and entertains like it would with any other international film”.

Rightfully, the very same baie dankie was often heard this past Saturday night at KykNET’s 2024 Silwerskerm Awards for Film and Television, which took place in Cape Town amid spectacle and glam.

The ‘Afrikaans Oscars’ celebrated the work of individuals behind and in front of the camera in 50 categories. Showmax’s comedy series Koek was one the night’s biggest winners.

Confirmed for a second season in 2025, Koek has been one of the 10 most streamed Afrikaans series on Showmax since its re-launch in February 2024. Of the six nominations, Koek won four awards: best actress (Cindy Swanepoel), best actor (Jacques Bessenger), best supporting actress (Sandra Prinsloo), and best supporting actor (Dawid Minnaar).

Wyfie — also a Showmax original — took home best newcomer for Mienke Ehlers, and best supporting actor in a telenovela or soap (Marguerite van Eeden). Comedy drama Som van Twee, starring Louw Venter and veteran James Borthwick, was the most-awarded film, bagging seven crystal cameras, including best direction to debut director Simone Pretorius.

Lifetime achievement award recipients included Binnelanders’ Hans Strydom, actress Denise Newman and TV producer Roberta Durrant.

The palette is deliberately restrained, largely red. This restraint is not merely an aesthetic choice but rather, it is integral to the conceptual framework Mazwana seeks to build upon. Various articulations of red, accompanied by small planes of black and even smaller patches of white, amplify and accentuate the emotional impact within the work.

Of this colour, art critic and novelist John Berger writes: “Red is not usually innocent.” He speaks of a red of eyelids shut tight, the heaviest red in the world. A red by which you swear to love forever. A red whose father is the knife. A red that is continuously asking for a body.

Mazwana offers that body which red seeks. She reimagines the female form through a free-flowing technique conflating the real and the imagined. The body as desired, as judged, as gazed upon and often fantasised. The body as an enigma and spectacle. The body is depicted with nuance, excavating an archive of feelings of sensory embodiment. The work delves into the physicality of the human form, particularly the woman’s body, while also reclaiming the body as a site of selfhood.

Mazwana is attentive to how the body functions, how muscles contract and relax, and how the limbs fold and release. The figures are not merely representations of identity or desire but are studies in the physicality of the body. The arching of a back, the bending of a limb — these are not just visual artistic choices but explorations of how the body functions.

She notes: “The exhibition is a study in the body’s capabilities —       the big emotions it holds, the subtle sensations it registers, the uncomfortable sensitivity, and the beautiful sensuality it embodies.

“The figures are unmistakably human, yet the emphasis is not on who they are but on what their bodies are doing — how they interact with the world around them and with their own internal experiences.”

In The Weight of Weariness, a mixed media work rendered on Fabriano paper, tiny humans (or perhaps splotches of blood) float inside a bubble. The interaction between the deep red of the background and the slightly paler version produces a discomforting sensation, at once repulsive and sensual.

The sense of the sensual courses through the entire portfolio. The sensual as erotic, the sensual as pleasure, “what could possibly be gobbled up” and devoured, perhaps after author Katherine Young, who writes beautifully about the sensual as a “phenomenology of pleasure”.

In her seminal text, The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, Audre Lorde disentangles women’s eroticism from its cultural misuse and calls for a realisation of the erotic as a source of power.

For Lorde, the erotic is located in desire, in creative force and the sensually beautiful. She notes: “There are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognised feeling.”

This power is evident Buoyant Reverie, an acrylic and oil painting in red and black in which a figure is depicted in an arched posture. The teardrop-like face turns towards the back of the bent body — the bent back is curved and relaxed. The hips and bum are gently turned outward and upward in a composed stance.

Here the viewer’s eye rests toward the small patch of textured mark-making distinct from the rest of the smoothness of the surface elsewhere. This is what the artist refers to as her “flaky blob” technique, a method in which she executes marks of a jittery, textural nature, evoking a visceral and layered quality.

She explains: “The ‘flaky blob’ technique emerged while I was in residency at Nirox Sculpture Park, where I was inspired by spider webs and other textures in the environment. I would see spiders crawling and this created an irrational fear.”

In response to this, Mazwana developed this mark-making method as a way to speak of the weird sensations she felt on her body.

She elaborates: “This technique is a deliberate exploration of the jittery feelings that crawl across the skin — the shivers, the tingles, the goosebumps that are as much a part of our bodily experience as breathing or moving.”

This method is depicted more obviously in the work Contemplations of the Flaky Leg, a fragmented and abstracted work with shadowy and spectral patches of paint hovering behind the foregrounded form.

The titles of the works too, function as a guidepost, revealing the artist’s internal inquiries and preoccupations. For instance, Folding Inwards evokes a desire for comfort and safety, states which can be read through the combination of rounded, curved forms alongside a stretch of flaky blob generously depicted on the left of the canvas.

Often Mazwana begins with preparatory drawings to make her paintings. Here too, red features in thin and unobstructed lines. From afar, it seems as if these scribbles are mere shapes and forms but considered closely, they become people.

In these studies, one finds a looseness of gesture, a kind of stream-of-consciousness free motion where human and non-human shapes contort and merge. This openness to play lends itself to experimentation, not only in technique but in the types of mediums that can be explored.

In What Her Body Does Mazwana debuts a selection of ceramic works, bridging the immediacy of drawing and painting against the slowness of hand-building with clay. She begins with raw clay, layering coils to build her forms that are weird, grotesque and strangely alluring.

These otherworldly figures possess a delicate grace. They are unsettling and mesmerising, filled with mystery and charm. Her experimentation with sculpture allows engagement with different materials but also permits a nuanced exploration of texture, structure and dimensionality.

Mazwana prioritises a visual language that makes it possible to see oneself through the other — and to see the other through oneself. The figures she renders begin with the artist thinking about her own body.

The genesis of I slowly shifts to become multiple Is. The figures are me and you. This is critical as it makes the work communal. This sense of co-mutuality reminds me yet again of Lorde for whom the erotic is deeply embedded with shared pursuits.

She notes: “The erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in providing the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person. The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.”

The kind of universality embodied in the figures emanates from her vision to make works that are deeply resonant. Malleable Sentiments: The Blobs Expressions, for instance, reflects on what Mazwana calls “the transformation of the amorphous shape of a vessel of emotion”.

To be amorphous is to lack a defined shape, formless, porous, fluid. This fluidity is communicated through a sense of rhythm and vitality, suggesting a state of liveliness and pliability. Perhaps this registers Mazwana’s own quest for pliability and seeing, seeking and defining herself as an artist and woman.

The identity of a woman is not one she shies away from. She locates her work through tradition of women and non-binary artists who approach painting conceptually, stating: “Painting has been a central part of my identity since my early twenties.”

This medium that has been part of her process for so long allows her to think through how she navigates life. And now, it is accompanied by a new thread through sculpture making.

What Her Body Does marks a significant moment in Mazwana’s journey, offering a portrayal of the body as a site of eroticism, desire and self-discovery. She reimagines the female form inviting viewers to reflect on their own emotional and phenomenological experiences. 

What Her Body Does is at the Kalashnikovv Gallery in Cape Town until 28 September.