About rebel music
become fluid and easy. In 1976 at this time, this place was a death hub. In 2021, at the same time, it’s a place where creativity is bursting at the seams.”
Two weeks before that workshop, Sakumzi Qumana of the band Johnny Cradle decamped to the countryside to film a live-streamed show for his new project, Q. He was accompanied by bassist Khanyisile Kubheka and trumpeter Lwanda Gogwana, both of whom added dynamism to the already potent funk of his rootsfied productions. Q presented songs from his debut album under his new name, titled Everything Here Is True, together with some songs from a yetto-be-announced project.
“For someone that doesn’t do music about romance and intimate feelings about relationships all these years, I went and did an entire album about love,” he says in a film, also forthcoming, meant to accompany the project.
These “intimate feelings” — the feelings of having love lost, of having lost close ones, of finding love and embracing it — are explored on songs like Ndifile, a mid-tempo chord festival with an infectious bounce, in which he assures his lover: “You know I’ve been with many a girl, but none like you/ I’ve been around and curved many a turns, straight back to you”; and on Fire Burn for Love, in which he expresses a longing for better days, declaring: “There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do for love.”
We don’t normally think of love songs as protest music, but that’s exactly what love is: an act of protest. Be it romantic love, standing alone and unrequited, distant and resistant in a corner; love for oneself, upright and militant in its stance, centring itself; or love for community, embracing, comforting and delightful in its approach — love is a principled act that requires both steadfast grounding and a radical selflessness that is out of step with the norm.
Among the unreleased songs Q performed was one titled Gangsta Regime. It’s militant as all hell. It shatters the ceiling and bends the ground. It marches on foot and rearranges elemental sounds. It is roots reggae played by a hip-hop head with a predilection for 90s rap classics, particularly of the gangstarap variety.
This is chant-down-babylon, burn-the-fuckin-house-down music. “Thina sithi hayibo!” is the refrain, repeated as protest against the ridiculous conditions Africans throughout the continent have to endure daily. “Looting since ’94, it’s time that we comment/ sithi hayibo!” goes one of the lyrics. No second guessing in whose direction those warning shots are being fired.
Q is fiery on the song. He’s unapologetic as he charges at onlookers and marches with the marchers: “We know that they are fronting/ they will do anything for what they’re wanting/ they claim the people are the ruler, but they run ting/ [...]/ killing people daily, you don’t care.”
Gangsta Regime is one-gun, onebullet, rebel music. The bassline rumbles at a righteously low frequency, and the reggae beat gallops perfectly in its digital stride, guarded by fiery, apocalyptic-sounding horns — a sign and a reflection of the times — and infused with the phattest vintage Moog sounds around.
Existence, especially as a black or brown person, a person without institutional power, is protest, as Pulane pointed out earlier. Protest doesn’t always have to be mournful, but it almost always has to be radical, and radically inclusive.
Toyi-toyi is protest. Love is protest. Getting your whistle out to re-energise revellers mid-groove is protest. Protest music and protest culture is part and parcel of being black, and of being human.
It matters not what texture or format the protest takes on. So an artist like Nozuko Mapoma, known professionally as Zu, of Zuko Collective, can make a song like The People to signal solidarity with the Fallists (“We’ve got to fight for the right to be Brown and Beautiful/ only because we’ve forgotten that united we’re so powerful”), and also make an amapiano song like Camagu in solidarity with lovers of groove and nice times on the dancefloor. Both songs are valid.
While Durban was burning, and as taxi drivers were on a murder spree in Cape Town, The Brother Moves
On were in Jozi finalising their latest release, You Think You Know Me. The outfit reworked a Mongezi Feza classic, You Ain’t Gonna Know Me Because You Think You Know Me, to echo every Mzansi citizen’s thoughts and fears over the past 18 months or so of different lockdown levels; of an uncaring government with its pompous branches of governance; of heartless ministers who are nonresponsive to the needs of citizens while siphoning millions of sector funds meant for the poor — in a fuckin’ pandemic, nogal!; and of a rampant, unceasing grief that has already taken away lifetimes from us, collectively.
A Mthunzi Mvubu arrangement, You Think You Know Me is a gatvol soliloquy against all of the bullshit. Siya Mthembu, unapologetic, riffs the toughest lyrical mantras this side of black and beautiful. The weight of the words multiplies when he spits: “Eish, I hate Covid yazi?/ Social distancing/ PPE tendering/ yoh, lento iziphethe.” The whole song is a full of “fuck you’s” to the state, the proverbial throwing of shit against oppressive policies, and a literal dig at the ridiculing and disarming sense of defeat from it all.
Calltime is about 3pm for the Friday show at Soweto Theatre. I arrive to find all the musicians doing final run-throughs on stage before showtime, listed as 6.30pm on the programme.
The hip Morris Isaacson kids form a wall of sound at the back, their different-timbred voices rapturing across the hallways and acting as directions to the main auditorium.
Basithathaphi isibindi esingaka, soku that’ iafrika, bayenze eyabo is the song they’re singing. It is vibrant and celebratory in that way that outwardly betrays the intention behind its lyrics. The cut is arranged to the music of bra Herbie Tsoaeli’s Asiyibambeni Sonke from the African Time album.
The combos communicate and generations cava each other.
The show begins promptly at 7pm. “Ladies and gentlemen, manene namanenekazi, welcome to the first of three days of the celebration of Youth Day. Tonight, we have a presentation entitled Umzabalazo Music, presented to you by Iphupho L’ka Biko and the Morris Isaacson Centre for Music,” booms Mthembu’s voice from the speakers.
The red curtains rise to reveal Iphupho’s founder and composer Nhlanhla Ngqaqu burning imphepho while the 12-piece band and 30-member choir patiently await, their silhouettes immersed in indigo blue. As soon as that is done, vocalist Koketso Poho’s gravelly voice issues a resounding war cry, wholly reminiscent of the 2015 and 2016 years.
“Jiyo, jiyo, jiyo mama jiyo, jiyo ihlangene, jiyo jiyo.”
The response is equally spirited; the energy levels are at their peak even before a single note is struck on the instruments. One cannot help but think of koli-ea-malla, songs sung during the funeral wake; and lipina tsa litsamaea-naha, songs sung by mineworkers during distant sojourns on the road.
A teardrop is imminent.
The music is rendered so perfectly, so elegantly and so freely. Poems are recited; ukusina turns into toyitoyi, breakdancing and into pantsula; ululations ricochet down the theatre’s hallow hallways; soprano Miseka Gaqa’s ancestral riddles open up portals; Moses Molelekwa gets a shoutout in the form of song — it’s a celebration!
The socially distanced audience’s assured responses are the pandemicera giveaway that seals the joy.
Nhlanlha’s words from earlier in the week neatly sum up the purpose of the performance: “There’s a particular impact that ingoma [has] in our lives in terms of spirituality; in terms of when you’re in good times and in bad times. That’s another side to this workshop: To show these kids how important song is in life.”
Protest music is spirit music, is a spiritual experience.