No doubt Jozi, The Golden Apple, is one rich city in more ways then one. The streets drip with stories galore that could make you sound like a kleva recounting them elsewhere. Take last Friday (12 Dec) in Newtown, two ladies waiting in line for a ?uestlove gig were on some, “...the Wyclef gig last night was just aite.” Like, OK are we in some big city in the states? Nah, Jozi papi!
Underground the digging is still going on, though not for that kinda gold this time. What’s got the huge metallic earthworms busy is all that wealth that Gauteng is trying to channel rapidly from the airport to the hotels and shops. This wealth is tourist dollars carried via credit card, traveller’s check and cold hard cash... which is always preferable. Egoli’s wealth is especially in its fauna, you get Thami, in advertising, rocking sneaks so rare their species is classified. Don Juan, producer, so talented, his talent remains unclassified. Kenzhero, a turntabalist so hypnotic I saw the piped piper taking notes in a dark corner... the list goes on.
A dude called Kgomotso, so industrious he had kats ignoring tear gas at a ?uestlove dj set that he organised. Ntsika, a Dj working on his first hiphop album, this dude is just so the infamous “third way” so central to Chinese culture... don’t call it the path of least resistance more the resistance of least paths... you know Confucius could trip off that too. Nothing is impossible the way Ntsika looked at things. Hang on though, everyone sounds super heroish or something, there are “normal people” there as well, ones who’s “super powers” are easier to aspire to... but that’s another story...
Yup, our boy Zeus, making it go double hard like nyanaya tips in winter. Kwela Thebza, and a Mahotela Queens sample. WHAT!? yeaaa man, Blues Room was serving up some next level shit with the chef so busy his shoes couldn't keep up!
Yeah Don Juan, shoeless, but still running up and down making sure things were on point. But that’s like a hard workin dude, YO. Never heard of him until I interviewed Orakel, then heard he’s about to make cross border power moves, and was like Oh OK, but like who's this...? So tonight I know exactly who this is, and Ouch, he hits hard like that, right in the ear hole straight to your hearts, mind and your feet.
Yeah yeah, we all knoe about it, or we should. The callings of greatness in the form of doing your own thing... my only Asian hero went out and cut from a different cloth - Doe. It might just be a t-shirt to you... but you miss the point and maybe it isn't for you, like no harm done.
So like they out it “…we're inspired by everything around us. we believe nothing is original, and everything is original.”
And yo, true greatness doesn’t discriminate… so go hook your self up.
I was already excited when the Jozi trip was cooked up some weeks back. I knew it would be on some other other. Like hell yeah, JHBizzle is not disappointing... just yet... Like I got a room across from Wyclef's guitarist. 101 no doubt, don't know who told them that's my steeze. And the first thing to happen was a ridiculous bill of about 800 Rand for raiding the mini bar modestly in honour of meeting up again with Sandi from my Cape Town days... never mind that one bottle some clever clogs filled with water after draining the good stuff, biyatch. Sandi was on hand to haller at the reception on some, "I am calling from the Prince of Botswana's room, bring a replacement Jamison NOW!" It never came... guess the "Prince of Botswana" ain't shit at the Melrose Arch, like if Wyclef is in some other room in the same hotel, who the fuck is a Prince of Botswana...? Damn right. That's Jozzizzle baby.
Zeus... not the Greek concoction, more the Tswana boy, officially known as Game Bantsi. Cute but weak photograph for what is yet another Motswana who basically places the country on the map... but on his own hip hop terms. Polite, talented, officially part of Botswana's hip hop history, and yes if we need to go there, rocker of note. Pity about the kitchen koncept, should have had it Fresh(ly baked) Not hating just fine tuning it.
Basically, I love how these two musicians from Mali looked when I first heard about them... and actually I didn’t hear about them, I commissioned a photo shoot and saw the photographs when they came in. I nearly fell over. They looked like something I would like to erroneously call afro-kitsch. First thing I said is, “They look like a couple of dictators!”... then I found out they wore those pimped out shades because they were blind. I didn’t flinch, I insisted with the dictator angle. You see, the photos were simply glorious! The couple was photographed in a colonial style wooden panelled room, with bronze light fittings and a huge wooden conference table. Our illustrious singing pair wore their national dress, Malian robes and they were just killer. The metal, almost bronze in colour, shades hauled straight from the 70’s just completed the look. Smiles from ear to ear were the coupé de grace to the assault on my unprepared senses. Much like their music when I finally got to hear it, I googled and was rewarded with their own website www.amadou-mariam.com To this day I have never actually managed to find that album anywhere... sold out.
Today I caught a glimpse of their new album artwork, That golden guitar being wielded by Amadou and all that bling on Mariam... and they still look killer, all that style they carry off with a discreet and effortless charm, like their thousand year old smiles. What I judged to be the funkiest, most gifted vocalists I have never fully heard, drive me insane with the beauty of their album covers and concepts, and the two or three tracks I have heard online.
Like one of those things we just have to have, because all our friends have one; or you saw a killer version; or what the hell, any one can do this thing, I had to jump on in. A lot less confusing then loosing my virginity (is it in yet?) and a lot more fun, my first Blog. Along the way it will become what it is... shameless self promotion, witty repartee (darn right!) shrewd observation and possibly gloating, ranting, celebrating and other yap, yap, yap. Let’s do this.
Underground the digging is still going on, though not for that kinda gold this time. What’s got the huge metallic earthworms busy is all that wealth that Gauteng is trying to channel rapidly from the airport to the hotels and shops. This wealth is tourist dollars carried via credit card, traveller’s check and cold hard cash... which is always preferable. Egoli’s wealth is especially in its fauna, you get Thami, in advertising, rocking sneaks so rare their species is classified. Don Juan, producer, so talented, his talent remains unclassified. Kenzhero, a turntabalist so hypnotic I saw the piped piper taking notes in a dark corner... the list goes on. 
