DIVAS IN THE MAKING
You may not have heard of them yet, but these Cape Flats women are on the rise, writes
AS one travels along the N2 towards the Cape Flats, the wind accelerates, the dust begins to dance in spiral swirls, and the soft contours of the city mutate into rough-edged topography. This is where I am meeting afro-soul, jazz and blues singer extraordinaire Nhoza Sitsholwana, and Gugulethu’s “femtastic” rapper Kanyi Mavi. Both will be performing at the Gugulethu Festival in September, Sitsholwana with her band Black South Easter and Mavi with Kwaai, a cross-cultural hip-hop collaboration.
At first, they couldn’t appear less alike: the gospel-trained songstress with a voice like Swarovski crystal, and the hip-hop activist poet whose lyrics are simultaneously her loudspeaker and weaponry. Twentyeight-year-old Sitsholwana is all curves and corkscrew curls; 31year-old Mavi is slender and statuesque. The former conforms to the more traditional image of the diva; the latter epitomises the hardcore, slightly subversive edginess of contemporary hip-hop culture.
Beautiful, bright, spirited and deeply spiritual, they have been nourished, however, by similar roots: Sitsholwana was born and raised in a village in the Eastern Cape; Gugulethu-based Mavi raps in Xhosa, about love, loss, conflicts of clan and the clash between rural and urban worlds. When they perform, they reach that ineffable place between bliss and pain, articulating the hopes and frustrations of a new generation of streetsavvy, “loudly proudly” ghetto divas.
“We have to sleep with one eye open, but there is a wonderful community spirit here,” says Sitsholwana with an incandescent smile, gesturing towards the sprawl of Langa township, where she lives with her young son.
Sitsholwana’s home was recently damaged in one of the fires that regularly raze township shacks, particularly in winter. To add insult to inferno, in the aftermath her home was ransacked by tsotsis.
But she remains unfazed: “Here, we always make a plan.”
This is a side of Sitsholwana that most of her fans will never glimpse: the street-smart ghetto mom, sifting through scorched rubble, con- structing a makeshift lath roof as a temporary shelter and hanging blankets, soggy from the ill-timed rain, out to dry.
Contrast this with Sitsholwana’s glamorous public persona. She’s been mentored by the likes of Simphiwe Dana and Judith Sephuma. As lead vocalist with the multiracial Cape fusion group Black South Easter, she’s successfully crossed ethno-cultural bridges, performing to enraptured audiences at blues and rock festivals throughout Southern Africa.
But the mother city is hardly renowned for its financial nurturing of musicians. Even as a celebrated soloist, Sitsholwana is lucky to get paid when she headlines as a guest artist at city gigs. Often she can barely afford the taxi fare back to Langa. And her own community has yet to see or hear her perform. Despite the fact that she’s also a songwriter and Samro-member, without the muscle of the major recording companies to call her tune, she hasn’t got much chance of getting airtime.
Paradoxically, it’s more cost-effective for Sitsholwana and her band to record their songs in neighbouring Mozambique than to hire a Cape Town studio.
“I would love nothing more than to perform here, in Langa,” she says, pointing to a neighbourhood tavern, squeezed between a patchwork of shacks. “I’m determined, somehow, to make it happen, despite the lack of infrastructure and resources.”
It wasn’t supposed to be such a struggle, especially decades after township musicians turned apartheid’s ghettoes into boisterous cultural sites of resistance and song. The older voices provided the emotional melody to apartheid wounds, mitigating the pain with harmonies of hope. The younger ones would bask in the afterglow of a free country that values its artists on every level.
Today, a new generation of ghetto divas has indeed emerged. But for many of them, the soundtrack is achingly familiar: they are still singing for their supper, literally.
“There is such a wealth of artistic talent here, particularly in Cape Town. Yet despite political liberation, the city remains divided on many levels,” says Mavi, who is one of the few South African female artists making her mark in the testosterone-dominated hip-hop movement.
Mavi has performed extensively, including in Sweden with Kwaai, the world-renowned collaboration between Swedish and South African rap artists. She’s been hailed by US hip-hop legend Lauryn Hill, who was one the headline acts at the 2012 Cape Town International Jazz Festival. The multiple Grammy-winner made a surprise appearance at Mavi’s 2012 album launch, performing a freestyle rap with her. But despite the success of the launch, Mavi still struggled to promote the album and even secure gigs.
“The only time that we are inundated with work is during Women’s Month. But the empowerment of our gender is about so much more than a few weeks of celebration and awareness-raising.”
Mavi’s debut album was called Intombi Zifikile (Women Have Arrived) in homage to Mavi’s grandmother, who single-handedly raised 11 children, nine of whom were girls.
“I am in awe of my grandmother’s struggles and accomplishments that she achieved before liberation and long before the digital age,” says Mavi. “Thanks to women like her and our cultural heroes, my generation and gender now have the opportunity to say what we want, loudly, boldly, honestly, and to make our voices heard. But we need the right support in our corner, respecting our individuality and identity, without trying to mould and exploit us.”
She adds: “It’s essential for us, especially as women and musicians, to organise ourselves, for our future security. It’s almost as though we have to make it outside South Africa before we get the adequate recognition back home.”
Sitsholwana nods: “Don’t get us wrong. We’re not asking for sympathy. Success demands discipline, commitment, sacrifice, soul; in short everything of yourself as a musician. And when that music really gets inside your head, you’d rather go broke than give it up.” LS
The Gugulethu Festival is on September 19 at the Gugulethu Sports Complex