Reconfiguring the Distorted…

When we last spoke I had wings where there were once shoulders; wings borne out of taking flight, soaring, and surfing the winds of itinerancy. My life has been fluid, like water, ebbing and flowing according to the calling of my heart. I obeyed and approached the fires that refined my passions. I have pricked my ears to listen, and I have prised my eyes open; I have been alert in order not to miss the divine appointments, and I have been abundantly rewarded, spirit and soul, with treasures that can never find expression here.

My ears have translated the sounds of all which call me from a place of passion, courage, hope and faith, without which all of this seems illusionary. The very palpable nature of the voices I hear root these otherwise ephemeral experiences. I have heard them. I have seen that which defies logic, that which goes beyond ones and zeros of this world; beyond rational. I have seen magic woven in my everyday existence. I have embraced what my eyes have seen without any doubt, and I have been abundantly nurtured.

My voice now strives to be heard, and I am called to the divine appointment of being an educator, a teacher, and an interlocutor. I heard and saw the calling with my third eye and ear – pricked, prised, sensitive, sensible and most sensuous. I am called to clear my throat chakra and speak in response to my passion. NOW. Poetry—the fluids that quench deserted thoughts; the echo that resounds generations past; the source of unbreakable resolve in my life—is calling me. It spoke through the heroic voice of former South African poet laureate Mazisi Kunene:

I possess a thousand thundering voices

With which I call you from the place of the sinking sun.

I call you form the shaking of branches

Where they dance with the tail of the wind.

You are the endless abundance

Singing with the lips of all generations.

You are like a trunk lush with branches in the lake

Whom the feller of woods felled in vain,

But sprouts with new buds in summer.

When it is loaded with fruit he comes again

And eats to saturation desiring to end its seasons;

But again and again the branches shoot forth with new seasons.

I am in a place of lack, of demoralisation, of defeat, and of hunger and thirst. I am in a place where those who speak to us from the place of the sinking sun are rapidly forgotten. The sun is sinking and setting upon us. We need its light. We need its warmth, its guidance, and its reassurance. I eat to saturation from the abundance left as our legacy.  With that abundance nurturing me as a teacher, educator, and interlocutor, I have accepted the calling and divine appointment to be possessed by those thousand thundering voices that I have heard, seen, and will now speak of.

My work in its entirety in is conversation with the endless abundance which sing with the lips of all generations: Keorapetse Kgositsile, Ilva McKay, Mongane Serote, Mazisi Kunene, Dennis Brutus, Barbara Masekela, Mandla Langa, James Matthew, and many others whose voices echo the politics of Solomon Mahlangu, Bantu Biko, Moses Kotane, Duma Nokwe. This is our history which has not found its rightful place in the post-94 curriculum, and which I have accepted the calling to take to the youth in ways whose nature can only be anointed. The forces of a truth whose time has come cannot be stopped.

I travelled the breadth of the United State of America unearthing and collecting—exhuming—to bring home, the work of our exiled fathers and mothers; the stench of their sweat and the haunting darkness of their blood which they spilled for us to take and respond to in our lifetimes. These voices call us and they must possess us. I am honoured to have had the opportunity to access these resources which I have now brought home, and urged to bring to you. This is a bountiful and anointed abundance, not a reckless one.

Without the clarity of our history we cannot have clarity of vision. However, we can never be defeated as a people, for like a trunk lush with branches in the lake, we will sprout with new buds in summer. No matter how big the sledgehammer it cannot orbit the sky. Our promise of abundance is surely coming. I am now putting forth this message. I want to teach poetry from exile to all youth who are willing to receive it. I call those in care of youth to share this with them; to invite me to share with them their beautiful history which will surely have them thinking differently about themselves. I call all educators and NGO directors to employ my services. For free; by divine appointment.

I am a PhD candidate in Literary Studies at the University of Cape Town, and have, in my ownership and potentially larger ownership of my people, endless books out-of-print and rare, footage of interviews I have conducted with prominent South African and American writers, multi-media resources, and 5 solid years of teaching experience from the University of Witswatersrand and UCT. I am the change I want to see in our teaching curriculums, and the time for it is NOW. Invite me for a chat on uhurumahlodi@gmail.com I await all of your response.

To heal, reconstruct, redefine, and reassert our greatness…

When I was in Oakland, California last year in October, I accepted the invitation to teach young students of the Oakland Art School. I was initially concerned by the age group as my teaching experience is with young adults of 19 years old or older. However they were very receptive and responsive, fascinated by the histories and relationships of and between black South Africa and black America. This inspired me to engage with the youth from my own country, and open up channels for them to learn the extent of the struggle which our mothers and fathers found themselves embroiled in.

Debrief After A Literary Pilgrimage

How do I start a gratitude piece for all the bountiful harvest that I have partaken in? That is the question that has been pushing me closer and closer to debriefing from a truly magnificent and perfect-in-every-form-ten-week-whirlwind of an American rendezvous. Well, as the trip fully and without any compromise demonstrated to me, perhaps I should start by thanking myself for the sheer tenacity, determination, courage, faith, and pure passion that has driven me to be still and hear, and be fully awake to see the signs as they presented themselves to me; to have trusted my perception instead of doubt it; to have shunned any inkling of doubt or fear; and to have honoured my own voice that has consequentially led me to my own truth.

I feel validated in my beliefs, gratified by my journey, closer to my relentless vision, and inspired to be extraordinary. I have seen in clear daylight the intensity of my own power; the unparalleled spark of possibility lying, dormant, seeking engagement with those driven by pure intentions to be creators in their own worlds; the spontaneous combustion between possibility and determination, initiative and faith, knowledge of self and passion; and the sheer magic that can be woven and witnessed in one whose higher self is in direct alignment with self. I am now possessed by a thousand thundering voices that speak with me, and through me. Where I once had shoulders I now have wings…

I am now more certain that ever that we are one with all living entities; the earth and its magnificent solar systems (this is no joke; the full moons and mercury in retrograde had me in full grips, begging for ‘normality’), the animals, plants, and human beings all form a cosmic and holistic part of who we are. I only exist because of all those living things. And there is no living without the dead—the persistent balance and harmony of life—so I have tasted the sweetest connections of them all; being awake in more worlds than this physical one; hearing, seeing, and feeling the intensity of the moment; but most importantly, trusting the moment and taking notes that I consequently use as a blueprint of my vision and dreams. Let no one succeed in convincing you your physical body is all you are!

I have grown spiritually, emotionally, mentally, intellectually, and cosmically on the literary pilgrimage I took from Amsterdam to New York, to Washington DC, to Chicago, to San Francisco/Oakland/Berkeley, to Los Angeles; following and being followed by the footstep of a sage whose guiding hand, embrace, and mentorship—felt, heard and seen without his physicality—has led me to treasures of my own soul, of the larger cosmic world of our people, of the South African literary landscape, and of the broader black diaspora. The magnitude of the alchemy on this trip is to be fully experienced in the forthcoming months of writing this dissertation, this book, and producing this documentary. I have grown creatively too. I am decidedly embroiled in the cosmic world of the arts, where being a writer has so seamlessly and without any fear or favour led me to being a filmmaker: an art form that I have enormous respect for.

I trust myself more than ever. I am not the chosen one, but I chose myself to be the one for this task. Perhaps I should rephrase and say InI (I and eye—third eye perception and reception. I’ve explained this in detail here https://uhurumahlodi.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/ini-self-n-divine-self/ ) chose myself; perceived of self as capable, and received the ordained calling as my own. As the wisdom of the elders does state clearly, we exist in duality, like any product of nature and life—the yin and the yan, the body and the life force, the physical and the metaphysical—must be in unison. My life force and metaphysical self, the other ‘I’ in InI, are now lounging languidly with my physical self, at one, in perfect harmony, pregnant with larger-than-my-physical-body possibilities. My voice is stronger than ten weeks ago, and my resolve is only perfectly demonstrated by the image of being possessed by a thousand thundering voices. I move because I am moved…

What follows is a continuation of a photo essay that started here

The Golden Years

I travelled to Washington DC to interview poet, legendary jazz critic and literary historian A.B. Spellman, who was warm and happy to walk down memory lane with me

Karen Spellman was an active member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which Keorapetse Kgositsile joined seamlessly when he arrived in the States

I went to meet my mentor, Professor James Miller, at the George Washington University. He was the first person who ever introduced the term ‘Black Atlantic’ to me at Wits in my Honours year, and I have been dreaming about conducting research in this field since he ran a fascinating course mapping the similarities in black South African and black American cultures in the 20th century

Fall/Autumn is pumpkin season and America has quite a family of them I tell you. All shapes, colours, textures, sizes, and flavours…

…but what do you do with so much pumpkins? Well, they have all kinds of pumpkin yumminess like pumpkin chai tea/coffee, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin pie, pumpkin waffles, etc. Pumpkin chai tea with hot milk really moved me to tears

Of course while I was in town I thought I’d pop in and have tea with my girl Mitchelle, but the security guards had something else on their minds. They’ve since been fired 🙂

Maybe something major was happening at Mitchelle’s house! I mean snipers on top of her house?? Really??

The area between Capitol Hill and Lincoln Memorial gave way to an area of feeling deep in my heart. I was filled with all kinds of conflicting emotions from disgust to triumph

I really really love how artists engage with the city, especially at the Washington Square in New York. It is a beautiful square with all kinds of artists, and they are well-respected if the tipping is anything to go by

The student becomes the teacher. The interviewee becomes the interviewer

On my last night in NYC I managed to score tickets to a Talib Kweli performance. What an amazing experience to hear him, feel him, and be entertained by him in his native New York…

Kweli is a lyricist extraordinaire, and I was pleased that the sound at the legendary Blue Notes did justice to his flow

I have been to quite a lot of jazz performances and festivals, but never have I seen a trumpeter display such barbaric devotion to his instrument – breaking all the rules

I arrived in Chicago on the 20th September, and the next day I prepped to dance away at this dream line up. The special guest was Kanye West, and I have to admit that I absolutely enjoyed his performance despite my better judgement of the man

In Chicago I managed to link up with my brother Ignatius from Polokwane. It was great to speak Sepedi in Chicago and crack ourselves over the mundane and magical

Sterling Plumpp – the man who made almost everything worthwhile. He led me in the right direction and guided me gently into the very dense jungle that is the political and cultural life of Keorapetse Kgositsile. I am forever indebted to him

During this interview with Keorapetse Kgositsile’s daughter, Ipeleng Aneb Kgositsile, we were visited by fireflies, hummingbirds, and butterflies. It was beyond magical. In that hot Oakland weather I was suffering (with pleasure) from chills

The way I loved the bay area – San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley – was truly special. It will forever remain my dream destination and crush address

Don’t even ask! Okay, I’ll tell you. I went into a shop, looked around, and next thing I know there was an impromptu photoshoot and wine #hides

The beauty of the bay area. It reminded me of Cape Town with all its beautiful hills and mountains, winelands, botanical gardens, and laid back culture

I missed this documentary to celebrate 20 years of Illmatic the album, and as I was minding my own business buying books I came across this poster and immediately heeded the calling

Ipeleng Aneb Kgositsile

We caught Fourplay at the legendary Yoshi’s Jazz Bar in Oakland; one of the most reputable jazz bars in the world. The owner, Yoshi, is a Japanese beauty of soul and spirit whom I’ve been fortunate enough to spend an intense afternoon with.

The saxophonist and trombonist are from Oakland School of Arts, a public school where I have had the pleasure of teaching a literature lesson on Kgositsile. 51 Oakland, an NGO ran by Jason Hoffman and Yoshi, helps with putting arts and music back in public schools. These are the results of their work. These public school learners are playing with a legendary Latino band

I felt the power of this NGO’s work. This youngster from a public school displayed so much skill on the trombone, and all the applause certainly gave him positive self esteem and motivation

My lens caught this wonderful child

Universe please conspire!! I need to live here, even if it is for a two year fellowship, or even better, getting a post at the Berkeley campus of the University of California…

This is the NGO in discussion, 51 Oakland, and one of the co-founders Jason Hoffman. I met Jason through Ipeleng, and he was jsut so generous and kind enough to host me at his house during my stay in the bay area. There was something magical in our interaction, which has led me to my own treasures

I helped out at the event where the students were playing; selling T-shirts and garnering support for the organisation. This has moved me to decidedly be more involved in the caring for others and making a difference in the less fortunate’s lives. A challenge I take on keenly

NOW

I am a full stop

I stop when I’m full

Pregnant for birth

Brimming at the rim

Empty as fulfilling

Pulse of life thriving

The end and beginning

Full stop stops the fool

Who feels with eyes

And listens with fingers

Dis-ordained heart

In the wrong place

Feeling but denying

The cycle, the moment

The now that is endless

Living in the fullness

Of the full stop

Perpetually changing

The exact sameness

Immersed in nature

Bounty without taste

Is pleasure without feeling

Numbed by consistence

Sleepful awekeness

Motion, motion, motion

Cyclic—lucid, eluding

Eyes unperceptive

Enlightened third eye

Witness generation

Crystal clear

Hands up

Whose crystals are for sale?

Lacking clarity while conscious

Handing your treasures to swine

To be trampled

You’re not a tramp

You’re the ink on the stamp

That officiates your worth

The broken seal of light

The forgotten window seal

In the gutted bedroom

Of your bludgeoned soul

Keorapetse Kgositsile is a living legend and literary giant.
Did you know this song is based on his poem ‘Red Song’?
I am privileged to have/be chosen to record his legacy
I am awakened daily to the impact he has made here in the U.S.
His name energises people and make them open their hearts
The journey he has walked has culminated in the NOW
Past, present, and future all cyclic and coming together
I humbly bask in his wisdom and gyrate in the gyre

Harlem Code

On Wednesday I received this auspicious invite to attend a jazz session, and although I was feeling rather tired and PMS-ed out I decided this is not an invite you turn down. So indeed I went to Harlem to witness this very special moment which gave me a feeling of being in a shebeen in Sophiatown, South Africa, right in the middle of the sonorous 50s; except it wasn’t young and boisterous journalists and photographers that populated the spot, but rather retired African American war veterans—stylish, very “Bra Timing from Phomolong”, and filled with charm. This was the invite:

Hey Rafikiz,

Tomorrow night I am going to the best Jazz joint- after St. Nicks of course (RIP) in Harlem, and I hereby request your presence.

This spot is not for the faint hearted. It is a legion hall – A Colonel post. There will be no pampering. The average age is 60+. There will be no one to hit on or hit on you. The drinks are cheap (served airplane style) and there is no cover. Come here only if you love music (JAZZ) and tales of war by African Americans vets. There is an honour code and members live by it, so do not worry about shit you shouldn’t be worrying about.

Once you get there you go directly to the basement. It is a cash only bar, with a basic menu of the day, so if it is chicken, it is just chicken nothing else. I suspect tomorrow will be fish. Collard greens or Peas are on the house and always on the menu.

Hope to see you there if not don’t beat yourself.

PS: This is a place close to my heart so do not mass invite people. If you have plans with other young things but are not sure where to go, DO NOT GO HERE or I will forever hate you. This invite is only for you and your significant other. I am not trying to popularize this spot.  They don’t need it. 

This place is special. There is something about witnessing an older black generation born and raised in the city of New York, on the streets of Harlem—our older generation of black folks in South Africa have grown under the Draconian apartheid laws, and hence almost always have a conservative and strict disposition. Of course there are exceptions, like Bra Timing from Phomolong, who represents the self-made, stylish, and culture-conscious, jazz-loving brother/father who fancies himself the quite the ladies man—not in a Casanova kinda way, but more like he is loved by women for his gentle nature and behaviour his mom can be proud of. Last night I saw him, in numbers, in his old age, still emanating that unfading coolness. I wrote this piece while listening to the jazz ensemble, and titled it ‘Harlem Code’, after realising that black America and black South Africa have so many similarities, links and ties, as I have just outlined above.

Cold brass

Warm hands

Life force articulates

Streaming riffs—

Jazzman blows

Balloon face

Sounds histories

Complex mysteries

Human flows

Intersect, ebb

Into shared futures

Riffing bridges

Reuniting siblings

Ocean carrying song

Rivers, blood

Streams notable

On cold brass

Warm hands

Life force circulates

Strums the strings

And streams of the heart

Rumble in jungles

Of thoughts and feeling

Jazzman bops the ‘b’

Flat minor

Major ensemble

Across borders

Cold brass

Warm hearts as one

The images displayed above are both from Sophiatown in the 1950s, whilst the opening image is a portrait of a young painter in Harlem – but they can very easily interchange. The cultures of both places are impeccably similar, as has been observed by most who have been residents of both ‘hoods’. Keorapetse Kgositsile points to this in one of his poems where he seamlessly transposes a tsotsi from the streets of Sophiatown to Lennox Avenue in Harlem. He can, with much ease, step from one continent to another, guided by those exact shared histories, not without their own complexities. The similarities have opened up a whole new area of studies in academia, within which I have found an intellectual home… Take a look at this striking image. Wonderfully framed and captured in Harlem, it addressed the same issues I always write about re black aesthetics. Look at the dolls, then look at the girls, in their formative years that will shape their consciousness on what is beautiful and what is ugly. We can place this on the verandah of any South African/African home and would be resonant.

Little black girls urgently need to see magic in the mirror. Magic and transcendence…

This is the song ‘Bra Timing From Phomolong’ that I make reference to in this post. It is particularly vehicular…

While watching the oldies last night getting down, singing beautiful songs reminiscent of Miriam Makeba and Billy Holiday, I penned this short little piece:

Old is young

gran is child

end is beggining

back points to forth

destination is departure

and death is birth.

Staying True to My Heart

Greetings from Amsterdam on this fantastic sunny day. I’m in a fabulous mood. First I must apologise for being so quiet over the last week. I have been brewing something exciting for the past three months, and last week it reached its execution period, where I had to wait until this morning to find out if the plan is green-lighted. So without wasting any time, here it goes: I’m going to be living in the United States for three months from the 1^st of August!! These are most fulfilling and exciting news to me and my work. It has been a trying time for me emotionally, so a quest into the unknown is the exact literal, literary and symbolic journey I need.

I can confidently and safely tell you now that my PhD research on South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile has been approved by my department of literature at the University of Cape Town to take the form of a literary biography. For my own creative exploration and indulgence, I am also shooting a documentary that will accompany the final book project. He lived in New York for 15 years between 1960 and 1975, and I am going to live in New York for 2 months from the 1^st August to chart his literary journey, interview his contemporaries—I’m looking for one particular Pharoah Sanders; universe please align—and talk to members of his family and friends in the 3^rd month.

This work is at the very centre of my heart, and anchors me day and night when all seems to be destabilised. Planning for this trip has been a most sacred journey as everything I have sought has been met with a resounding YES! everyone I have spoken to has been so open-minded as to see the value of this project, and even though I have never been to the U.S., I have seen New York, Chicago, San Francisco—places I will visit over the 3 months there—with my third eye. The kindness and generosity of my American interlocutors has left me feeling at ease about entering this new phase of my research and life journey.

I believe in more work and less talk, I believe in letting my work speak for itself, and I believe that plans for great work are like an intricate process of birth. I will only speak about the birth once the baby is strong, stealthy, and able to take their position in the world. So for now I’m content to share these plans with you. There are very exciting things and people I’m meeting with, but I would not want to talk about them before I have in fact met with them and engaged with their wonderful minds. Work first, then enjoyment of its fruits later. The power of the mind will now function to create something out of nothing, and this will find its time to be shared here.

As you might or might not know, whilst interviewing Kgositsile and his contemporaries—I’ve thus far interviewed Mongane Serote, Lefifi Tladi, Muxe Nkondo, Tsitsi Jaji, Stephane Roboolin—I have been shooting a documentary. This has been a true blessing in my life, and I’d like to thank my best friend Mafadi Mpuru who has been so generous as to donate a full professional television crew for these purposes. I will continue with the work of shooting a documentary in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and once again this is made possible by the generous spirit of a friend who owns an Amsterdam production rental company.

So those are my news. New York here I come in 15 days. I received my visa this morning, for a whopping 10 years!! The Americans are generous for such a paranoid country. Well good for me because this will be my first time there, but certainly not my last. This is my life work, and I will continue to invest my time here in (re)writing our beautiful literary history. If I don’t thank my husband for his gentleness and generosity then I will be doing a great injustice unto self first. Reinier has been, and continues to be a rock. All his connections are making this come true, and without him I would be found wanting. My family’s support has let me know: a pride of lions without a leader can be defeated by a limping buffalo (directly translated from Sepedi proverb).

I will say, last but not least, when you do what you love a world of possibilities opens up and the essential things of your heart’s desire become attainable. If your dreams do not scare you it means you have not fully explored your true potential and thrust. Nothing of value can come out of comfort; we must leave, as we have left our parents’ house, that which makes our growth graph stagnant, and pursue that which makes our hearts race, guided by faith, courage, hope, and passion. There is no greater fulfilment than to create something from nothing, to live with a clear vision that propels you forward in your everyday life. Productivity equals growth, and vision equals purpose. Without productivity, vision, and purpose, our growth is stifled…

Our very first meeting in 2012. I was not nervous. But I spoke a lot, which probably means I was nervous 🙂

Ntate Lefifi Tladi has been most inspiring to engage with. He was part of Medu Arts Ensemble in the 1980s in Botswana, together with Keorapetse Kgositsile, Thami Mnyele, and Dumile Feni. His house is a living and breathing music, literary, and visual arts library. He is a writer, musician, visual artist (he made a Sistine chapel-like ceiling in his house), and performer.

Prof. Muxe Nkondo lifted the veil off this whole research. He is a literary scholar par excellence, and helped me reveal the core intentions of this study. I am forever indebted to him.

Ntate Mongane Serote is a living literary legend. He is also the CEO of both Jo’burg theatre and Freedom Park. He was Keorapetse Kgositsile’s student of Creative Writing in the U.S. in the early 1970s, and they lived together like gypsies, travelling to jazz concerts all over the country (U.S.)

This man is full of humility and brilliance. Dynamites do indeed come in small packages…

Bury Me at The Marketplace

I am inspired by travelling narratives, by moving stories, and by forms that take root from a place of communal sharing than individual enjoyment. I am a student in the literatures, and have found that novels and other books constantly require retraction from community—in that you would have to go sit lonesome on a bench or in your room quietly to read—perhaps making this a core reason why most people, in my country (?), don’t read. In most of our cultures, the art of storytelling is communal, inclusive, and accessible.

I am inspired by narratives that boast their own dialects, that burst with local intonations, and by stories that move with the rhythms of their music. The English literature departments in postcolonial Africa are a point of contention—the term ‘English’ points not only to a language, but to a culture and geographical space. Most of my people would not take easily to a novel that opens with a scene on the banks of the Thames River… This is why my academic research thus far has solely focused on literatures that speak of our own landscapes, cultures, languages, and traditions.

I am moved by the idea of travelling narratives, of newly packaged forms and styles that are accessible to all that traverse its landscapes. Literature has mostly been an elitist art form, perhaps the most inclusive and aristocratic, mostly enjoyed in closed halls of high brow entertainment. I am excited by the notion of breaking down those barriers and setting stories free; liberating narratives to reach spaces previously unthought-of. I find worth in depleting the traditional literary form; tradition is a dying hallmark of culture. Culture is fluid and malleable in the 21^st century.

I am happy to reveal that I am officially shooting a documentary on South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile’s lifework. I am not satisfied with investing energy and time with researching his work and sealing it in libraries of the ivory tower. His story is one that must be released from the exact traditions which he sought to be liberated from. His story must be packaged to move in unsuspected places. It must be, like his very life, a travelling narrative. It must move to the rhythms of his Setswana, his jazz, his mbaqanga, and dance freely to the baseline of Johnny Dyani the maestro (they collaborated in 1977 at FESTAC, Nigeria).

Narratives of our own people should be liberated from the high pillars of air-conditioned libraries; stories must be accessible and inclusive, as opposed to Exclusive (Books) to all whose character and cultures it speaks of; literary forms must find their ways into taxis, street corners, chisa nyamas, parties, and general meeting points. Storytelling is dependent on an audience, and on a communal appreciation from various positioned listeners. Let us fervently take up the challenge to evolve our various art forms for the benefit of those whom they are intended to speak, mostly of, but also to.

Everything is Everything

I had the rare pleasure of spending this morning with the poet laureate of South Africa Keorapetse Kgositsile, to conduct interviews with him as part of my PhD research methodology, at the Department of Arts and Culture in Pretoria, where he is the advisor for the minister. Kgositsile is full of humility and understanding. Both these qualities make it possible for us to work together. I have to constantly pinch myself and rouse myself to full consciousness of who I’m conversing with when I talk to him. But it doesn’t take long to remember that I’m in the company of greatness because every now and then he will talk about spending time with Pharoah and Thembi listening to Coltrane; and it’ll suddenly hit me that this man played a monumental role in the civil rights movement and Black Arts Movement, and also co-founded the African Literature Association in 1974.

All of this is neatly shrouded in his humility as he helps me trace the historical movements of people, artefacts, music, texts, belief systems, instruments, and linguistic patterns transnationally between African states and black America. In my quest to build a digital archive and write a solid and water-tight thesis on this sage of our times I often need him to tell as many facts as possible; which means at times I have to push him to drop names: Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brookes, Ntemi Piliso, Archie Shepp, Miriam Makeba, Jonas Gwangwa, Nina Simone, The Last Poets, Max Stanford, Pharoah Sanders, Max Roach; the list is impressive and goes on and on. He’s lived with them all and shared various discourses and inspirations with them.

Here is this man, living in our midst. NOW! His second quality I admire is that he fully understands. Prof. Kgositsile will always make time to engage and have a robust conversation with me because he fully understands the value of the work I do. He is a living archive and yearns to share with our generation any kind of knowledge system that is culture-related. We have long conversations, 3 hours at a time, where he has to rely heavily on memory since we are tracing his life work from the 1950s. The dedication he has shown to being fully involved in my PhD is truly humbling to me, daughter of the Bahananwa. He understands that “everything is everything”, as he told me: that every component of our everyday lives contributes to a whole, and is as important as the whole itself. There is no one without the other.

When I see the joy and gratitude that it brings to this elder to have a young person dedicate their time to unearthing an archive through intense perusal of personal histories and trajectories, it validates within me and teaches me that our elders are human libraries. We have to engage them. We cannot learn everything from institutions. There is no body of work out there on our poet laureate (today we were correcting some of the information on his Wikipaedia page); it gives me great pleasure and purpose to trust myself with the duty and honour of preserving and writing history, of championing the artistic struggle for freedom, and of correcting the misconstrued perspective that our predecessors were not involved in any monumental innovation in known history.

I pray for strength…

Read more about Keorapetse Kgositsile here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keorapetse_Kgositsile

We are Creators Living in our Prime

You’ve often heard me say that we all possess the power and creativity to create. We are creators, all of us. We can create something out of nothing. Creativity knows no bounds. We all borrow from popular culture, from history, music, art, oral tradition, crafts, design, graffiti, film, sculpture, architecture, dance; these things all know no bounds and have no keepers once they enter the public sphere. They are not static but are continuously evolving and taking on new meanings. We all traverse space and time in our different context and imbue those structures and forms in our lives with new meanings.

Or so we should. If you entered our house this week you were sure to be met by these scenarios: there was jazz playing in the background, flowing simultaneously in the corners of our minds, rousing various sensations and urging us to create our respective arts. Reinier was writing script for a short film, and I was, and continuously am, researching and writing my thesis. You would probably scoff if we told you we were ‘working’ because you would find Reinier watching a National Geographics clip about Birds of Paradise, and me reading about how the Wu Tang Clan appropriates symbols, images, and messages of the East.

You see, it’s all about appropriation. Creativity that is. It knows no bounds. What you see with your eye, hear with your ear, taste with your tongue, touch with your fingers, and smell with your nose, all interpret into a creation. It is a continuous flow of ideas, smells, tastes, and feelings; it is a mating of sensations secreting creative juices that give birth to what we refer to as ‘fresh’ and ‘new’—creation is an offspring of inspiration. Be careful not to thwart your creativity.

I would be reading about Wu Tang Clan, which would lead me to playing their albums, and that would be a day’s job for me; researching and appropriating: the Wu Tang Clan appropriate ancient Chinese spiritual and art forms, and by reading about it, I may learn to appropriate the jazz from Harlem in the 1960s to make sense in a way that I desire for my thesis. And I would of course have to listen to that jazz whilst reading Keorapetse Kgositsile’s poetry. It’s a cultural and creative flow. Creativity knows no bounds. We have the power to channel it or limit it.

Which brings me to this final thought: the term ‘cultural appropriation’, as used in popular culture today, most famously for ridiculing Miley Cyrus’ stunts at the VMAs, presumes a kind of purity of well-enshrined, well-protected cultures around the world. It actually presumes that there is no point of conjuncture between cultures, neither is there an evolution in those cultures. It limits creativity, inspiration, and cultural flows as we have come to know them. Actually, the rejection of cultural appropriation is the denial of modernity and its attendant ease of air travel, plus popular culture. If everyone stayed where they are and never moved around, the cultures would never appropriate one another. There is nothing bemusing about Miley Cyrus twerking or Beyonce rocking the Pantsula dance as much as there is nothing bemusing about the English language and French language, amongst others, being spoken in Africa.

So if we are to take creativity serious, all of us, not only those who ‘work’ in creativity, we will channel it and let it in instead of limiting it and rejecting it. Creativity knows no bounds; it is in the noodles you cook in your kitchen, or your hairstyle (or at least I hope). Let us be open to this ‘cultural appropriation’ and strip it of its misnomer status. It is our creative inheritance and has no currency. It’s a free-for-all, up-for-grabs non-commodity, and it can only function to bring us closer as a global village. You are a creator! Create.