Mbongeni Ngema: A Revolutionary Force in the Arts “When I grew up, all I wanted to be was a musician … I always wanted to be on stage performing for…
Bra Johnny Mekoa: Jazz Giant Bra Johnny was born John Ramakhobotla Mekoa on 11 April 1945. Mekoa was a man who had had the foot of the apartheid system at…
Abdullah Ibrahim: Music Maestro “In Africa, the music legacy is passed on through families …” “Our traditional music is very, very complex compared, for example, to western music. Many people…
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela: The Fearless Warrioress “In her particular life, we may see more clearly the violence wrought by colonialism and apartheid, the profound consequences of fraternal political movements to whom…
Zenzile Miriam Makeba: Mama Afrika “Honestly, I’m just a little old singer, I am not a politician, I’m not an economist or anything of the sort. I just wish that…
The Power of Telling Our Own Stories We are the stories we are told, and we are the stories we tell ourselves and the world. Your culture is your story.…
Papa: The Village Pope You’re waiting for your name, to be calledYour body is shaking with disbeliefCause you never, ever worked for it before Born from the masterA master of…
Johnny Clegg’s Final Journey I think we are moving into a kind of massive, global meltdown of national identities into sub-identities. The fracturing of societies on race, class, gender, and…
ATTACKING THE HEART OF APARTHEID: THE ANC’S MK SPECIAL OPERATIONS UNIT Yunus Carrim For over three decades, the remarkable story of Umkhonto we Sizwe’s Special Operations Unit has remained largely…
ARTISTS HAVE A MORAL RESPONSIBILITY We are trying to bring about a consciousness among our artists to be aware that they are cultural workers and that they really fall amongst…