We seem to celebrate mediocrity and this has carried over into much of what the mass media pushes as great music. To find great, classic music, one has to look beyond what is thrown at us and seek out the gems outside mainstream.
TKZee are legendary. When they came on the music / kwaito scene over 10 years ago, they truly changed how kwaito was perceived and created. Their past EPs and albums, from Phalafala and Shibobo to Halloween and Trinity, amongst others, hold a very special place in the hearts of many South Africans (and Africans). The three friends, and artists, Zwai Bala, Kabelo “Bouga Luv” Mabalane and Tokollo “Magesh” Tshabalala, finally reconnected after an eight year hiatus to release Coming Home. The first single for the album is Sdudla and the video is alright but they have definitely raised the bar...
For too long, hip hop that originates from outside the US has existed in the shadows, despite the opinion (mine) that a lot of the music that is true to the spirit of hip hop is from everywhere else. A couple of years ago, my brother-in-law started schooling me on UK hip hop and it resonated in a way that is different from what I continue to enjoy from the US. The first artist I got into was Roots Manuva and he continues to be one of my favourite, but I was also fortunate to randomly come across the work of Ben Chijioke, known to UK hip hop fans as Ty. In addition to the beauty of his...
a man on a bike hops over a fountain machine in full rev in mid-air he lands at the feet of those watching, to their delight doing the seemingly impossible in a courtyard outside a nightclub in the day time a b-boy defies the pull of the planet’s natural forces and hovers for a brief second as if suspended by the thinnest of wires before moulding himself into the ground’s crevices a deejay dances with 2 turntables he and the music are in intricate dialogue as his fingers manipulate word, rhythm, sound head half-cocked to the side balancing the headphones between ear and shoulder between...
It is a day that blurs into the rest - nameless, timeless, and vaguely familiar – except for one thing. I must have been about 13/14 years old. Young enough to still be naive about and frightened by the hormonal murmurings that seemed to manifest themselves more and more frequently each day but, at the same time, starting to understand what caused them – the opposite sex. There were pre-MTV days but still we devoured whatever music videos we could get our hands on. In Maseru, Lesotho, an American man based there used to have someone record videos in the US and send them down. He booked a...
A product of the conventional music business model, I have not always explored beyond what the ‘system’ pushes out. I am not proud of that and I have attempted to make up for it by submerging myself in the crevices of the Internet, where so much beautiful music resides. I visit music blogs & sites and interact with those in the know in spaces like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. These recent forays have unearthed – for me – some amazing gems, one of which Nigerian-German artist Nneka. I regrettably haven’t had the opportunity to hear her debut EP, The Uncomfortable Truth, or her album...