There used to be this small guy in a Cape Town bar called Marvel. The small guy could always be found behind big decks, playing big songs. The songs were even bigger because they were sandwiched between a cool European electro soundscape all week. The slim and clever sounds of duelling heart monitors that constituted electro music mid 2000 had established a beachhead on Long Street, the “Las Vegas strip” of the Western Cape, minus the gambling and neon lights but pretty much everything else. Within that glitch beat heaven one commando was quietly starting a return to the Real.
In fact when I saw the name on the Marvel weekly listing I was sure this was the Electro King with a name like Kenzhero. I imagined some weirdly pale half Asian/half American guy with Harajuku hair who probably had an Akira poster on his living room wall overlooking his home studio. He probably wouldn’t say much and drink a weird concoction as he played electroed the shit out of Marvel. The (as I eventually found out) black dj was a disappointment in terms of how stereotypical I was becoming; But it was plain crazy reconciling the reality of a Motown, Blue Note, Rhino, Hip hop, deep soul, funk playing Dj... eish yo... to the name on the list. Actually, even after seeing him several times it still didn’t click that uKenny was who he was... so there isn’t a specific moment when I remember actually meeting this musical giant in a laid back afroed DJ’s body.
In the original Marvel, with the orange and yellow light panels glowing warm over a long black leatherette couch running along one wall all the way to the back room, it was hard to miss the only black on the decks that Dj Kenzhero was. In paleface heaven that Cape Town tended to be after sundown early in the millennium you sort of acknowledged the other darkies... after you found out they came from Limpopo not Lubumbashi. Hello Xenophobia! Nice to meet you. It was easy to imagine Kenzhero - My Hero was some sort of improbable import from England or New York, he didn’t say much, but he looked you in the eye and gave you the peace sign (or a headphone crowned nod) when you waved at him from across the room. The other thing which made Kenzhero was when he had you on your feet feeling exactly as your parents did when they heard the same exact old-skool track (and dancing in a style your children will come to ridicule you for) he never gave you a withering look when you stumbled up to him to give him a sloppy high five in abject gratitude. That was Dj Kenzhero.
So life did its thing, and I was starved of a nice and small live Kenzhero set for a hot minute until by chance in 2007 I attended what I think was (and I could be wrong) a precursor to Party People at 44 Stanley on a weekend escape from Cape Town. My then boss, Kgomotso, took me there and I find none other then Kenzhero and several other escapees from Cape Town (before it became an full blown exodus actually) in a cool place playing real music. That was the moment I started thinking maybe I can do Joburg after all... but that’s another tale for another time. So then skipping through the insanely memorable ?est Luv decks lecture to the year 2011 Long Street, Zula Sound Bar I attend my first official Party People...finally. Ratex were raw and live and Mr Koolout himself Ryko was neck deep in it... I had to step out for a minute to breathe. When I got back it was Kenzhero, on one deck, with a laptop... I am damn sure I made a comment about that (and the amount of Lauren Hill he was playing that night). The one deck thing just didn’t look right... but it still sounded right and more importantly felt just like home. The musical home I discovered many years ago at Marvel... most importantly I was with some of the people that made Marvel feel like home. This was my first official Party People.
