South Africa feels alive with excitement

Green Point Stadium

As a further celebration of what South Africa is able to offer in terms of possibilties, in this Africa Month, the country seems to be a constant state of excitment with our sporting codes standing up and making us proud! And we have good reason to – but it goes so much further than just sport, because almost every single industry is involved in ensuring that our events are a world class success!

Beautiful Cape Town

This weekend we host the Super 14 final; in just a couple of weeks we host the FIFA Confederations Cup; we have just successfully hosted the Indian Premier League after only being given three weeks of preparation time; and of course 2010 will be forever remembered as the year of the first African FIFA World Cup football tournament.

Africa Day: Celebrate it with hard work

African Union

May is Africa Month; so declared to celebrate the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity on 25 May 1963, although, this organisation was disbanded by former President Thabo Mbeki in 2002, and then reformed as the African Union. The saying goes, ‘a rose by any name would still smell as sweet‘. Or would it? Does this organisation really have to power to change the destiny of this continent and it’s people?

The leaders of tomorrow?

Being an African, and a part of a new generation of South Africans, I am forced to look north towards the rest of the continent, and wonder if it will ever rise out of the misery and sadness that keeps it from really being a part of the world community.

But at the same time I have this terrible problem of being an optimist by nature; I have this faith that this is Africa’s century. A time to be nurtured from within. Really making a go for it!

aKING – Against all odds

aKING - chart toppers!

aKING remains one of our favourite Rock bands, and that’s even though we have only had the pleasure of listening to their first album Dutch Courage, over, and over, and over, and over again. But that is set to change… Here is the press release I received this morning!

Following the runaway success of their first full length album “Dutch Courage”, aKING present “Against all Odds”, their next delivery of chart-topping power tunes.

Good Water Music

Petr Spatina the Glass Harpist

I just came across an amazing street performer (who I have always enjoyed supporting) who makes the most beautiful music with what he calls a “glass harp”. That’s glasses filled with varying levels of water…

Czech musician Petr Spantina has been a street musician for some 20-years, having played in Germany, Austria, Hungary and Greece on the streets, at exhibitions, and on some film sound tracks. That and corporate work – its what you do as a street entertainer once you are good enough. And Petr certainly is.

Celebrating Africa Month

May - celebrating Africa Month

The month of May was declared Africa Month, to further promote Africa Day (25 May) which commemorates the establishment of the Organization of African Unity. Still quite an interesting concept when you consider how much conflict we have to read about around the continent, but then it did take the EU decades, and a couple of wars, to get its story together – whether you agree with its formation or not, it has created an economic powerhouse.

Here, at the bottom end of Africa, there will be a celebration too, hosted by The Cape Cultural Collective & The District Six Museum featuring poetry, dance, music and art from the continent. Below is the invitation I received for the event this Friday (22 May) at the District Six Museum (25A Buitenkant Street, Cape Town).

Tonik’s SAMA for Best Instrumental

Tonik

I recently came across a very interesting visual & musical collaboration that really caught my attention, not only because one of the members names shot out at me, but because the group TONIK won a 2009 South African Music Award for Best Instrumental Album on debut with Visitors Book!

Ronan Skillen on percussion

Ronan Skillen was my radar last year as a member of the invigorating new jazz ensemble Babu, and so seeing his name as part TONIK, made me delve deeper into what the group is all about – and I was very pleasantly surprised!

Tonik is a trio of artists that together feature piano, keyboard, rhodes, wurlitzer, accordion accompanied by tabla, didgeridoo, percussion and a hybrid drum-kit with motion graphic design and live VJ to demonstrate a wide variety of sounds, sights and rhythms that collectively create a sublime audio & visual experience.

Miriam Makeba 1966 interview

Mama Africa Miriam Makeba

Last year in November, South Africa, and the world, was deeply saddened by the passing of one of our greatest diva’s, Zenzile Miriam Makeba. She had just finished performing at a benefit concert in the town of Caserta in southern Italy for anti-mafia author Roberto Saviano (Gomorrah) when she collapsed, and died at a local hospital.

She was an amazing woman. With an amazing voice.

Just Jinjers Milk n Honies acoustic

Just Jinjer

Just Jinjer is one of South Africa’s most exciting exports. Having entertained audiences in this country and set-up solid fan bases in every city, the group continues in the same vein by making waves overseas since their relocation to the United States where they were signed by Curb Records, Inc from Nashville in 2008.

Everyone who has heard ‘What He Means‘ cannot but be blown away by the beauty of lyrics that have real meaning, and that tug at the heart-strings in a track that begs for Peace, Love, More Tolerance, Faith, Hope, Trust in the same name of God. (The video is a bit dodge – but it gives a backstage perspective…)

Dirty Skirts Rolling Like Thunder video

The Dirty Skirts

Its a beautiful Friday in Cape Town, a great way to start off the weekend! So, while I was surfing around checking out what was all going on in the music scene this weekend, I found a copy of the newly released Dirty Skirts music video, Rolling Like Thunder.

The Dirty Skirts are going to be playing in Johannesburg at the SA Beerfest, and then at Mercury Live next Friday – the venue where they first appeared as a headline act at the gig that they dubbed “As an Act of Love the Bunnies Drew Blood that Night”.

Trail-blazing contemporary African culture converges in Cape Town

Press Release

So who is Brenda Fassie?

A multimedia celebration of pop legend Brenda Fassie, an after-dark street procession, artworks on wheels, a transient botanical garden, nearly a thousand 1-minute videos, an exhibition of sex scenes from pan-African literature, an impromptu banquet: these are just some of the projects to see and experience at the CAPE 09 biennale exhibition of contemporary African culture.

The biennale opens in unusual venues and outdoor sites throughout Cape Town on May 2, 2009. For its two-month long duration, public spaces and outdoor sites include the Cape Town Station, the city centre, Langa and Khayelitsha, which will host the visions and voices of some of South Africa, Africa and the world’s most exciting artists. From the comic to the controversial, from the quirky to the extreme, CAPE 09 will challenge conventional forms and staid ideas of contemporary art.