What a fun-filled weekend of entertainment galore around Johannesburg!

Discussions, exhibitions and music galore take centre stage around the City of Gold, and CITYLIFE/ARTS was there and here we take you through the tour of fun.

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

This past weekend fun lovers had a good problem. Johannesburg hosted a galore of entertainment including two music festivals taking place at different venues in different parts of the city, as well as a discussion on the issue of photography. All these activities took place in the context of telling the South African story that is as complex as the twists and the characters inhabiting such narratives.

As it were, fun lovers must have had the difficulty of choosing which events to attend around the city, and honestly speaking, all the events were thoughtfully curated, further deepening the complication of which events to attend and which ones to exclude and why.

I found myself being one of those people who found it difficult to choose, a pleasant problem really, definitely better than a situation where options to choose are few or non-existent.

But eventually a decision had to be reached after much contemplation and thinking. I made my choice. First I decided to go and attend a discussion on photography and its future that was at Umhlabathi in Newtown on Helen Joseph Street. Umhlabathi, a collective of photographers based in the city and its surrounds, is a place that is increasingly becoming a prominent space in highlighting and profiling the state and status of photography, particularly when it comes to black photographers and their contribution to story-telling using images.

The Umhlabathi Collective does this through hosting regular exhibitions in the gallery section of the building, with the rest of the building made available to the photographers by the City of Johannesburg’s Department of Arts, Culture and Heritage. Today the building is home a number of photographers who have their studios in the building.

On Saturday, there was this discussion on photography, featuring photographers to discuss photography and its place in contemporary South Africa, as well as its future. This discussion took place against the backdrop of veteran photographer Len Kumalo’s exhibition titled The Collective Effort, hosted by the Len Kumalo Foundation in collaboration with Umhlabathi. The Len Kumalo Foundation is driven by Bra Len’s visual art lecturer daughter and curator Nonkululeko Kumalo who teaches at the Vaal University of Technology.

I arrived there at12.20, and waited for the discussion to commence, but unfortunately had to leave at 1.45pm before the discussion had started, heading to Fete De La Musique concert happening next door at Junction Avenue in Newtown also.  The Newtown venue being one of three other places that hosted this festival,l the other two being Parkwood in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, and at Victoria Yards in the East of the city. But I did not leave Umhlabathi before I had quite an insightful and fruitful brief conversation  with Nonkululeko, regarding the future of photography, particularly black photographers working at various newspapers, especially those that have either been retrenched or retired from a media industry that today has been reconfigured and decimated by the advent of digital technology, and honestly speaking, is still struggling to adjust and still be financial viable enough to keep people employed.

Nonkuluko in that brief discussion shared her experience so far of scouring spaces, including various newsrooms’ photographic archives, tracing her father’s photographic archives. The journey is fraught with complications, she shared.

But on a lighter note, she also revealed that there was a level of co-operation in the photographic ecological system.

“Because through the Len Kumalo Foundation, we are trying to work with as many photographers as possible, to trace their archives so that we can organise exhibitions, photographers in the main are quite excited and willing to collaborate,” she told CITYLIFE/ARTS.

However, there are difficulties and mountains still to be climbed.  For example, the sector is still fragmented when it comes to putting together exhibitions, with each photographer trying to do their own thing, with of course the issue of limited resources becoming a big issue, something that Nonkululeko is trying to mitigate through the Len Kumalo Foundation.

I wished I had time to listen to what the photographers themselves were going to say, but unfortunately had to move on. But before I moved to the next assignment Nonkululeko told me a heart breaking story of one well know retired newspaper photographer, known to have some of the best photographic archives that he mined when he was working for a daily newspaper. The story that is preventing him from sharing his archives with the public through exhibitions and earn a living at the same time is that his archives are currently locked in a long dragging dispute with his ex-wife.

“He says that those archives are now part of a court process, and could not even give me permission to try and negotiate with his ex-wife to see if we can at least exhibit the works while the court process is in motion,”Nokululeko shared one example of the difficulties she experiences in her quest to exhibit news photographers works. 

Just like Bra Len this generation of South African photographers have been involved in telling the South Africa story, during apartheid, some having started working as far back as the 1960s, as well as post-apartheid South Africa.  Unfortunately a good number of them cannot today lay claim to those photographs as the negatives are with the media houses that they worked for. A few however have their negati8ves with them, gathering dust in their homes. It was indeed an illuminating conversation, but I had to move on.

At Junction Shopping Centre, I found the concert on and there were two stages. As one would expect at such events, I bumped on a few familiar faces there, including well known photographer Gail, who was busy snapping images, and designer turned digital marketer at one of the big five banks in the country, Sphiwe Giba, who was there to have fun. After listening and watching the act I found performing on stage, I had to hit the road again, and this time, through Mandela Bridge, heading to Constitution Hill, where Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival was on.

It was at 2.15 when I arrived there, and headed to one of the two stages, the one in front of the Constitutional Court where young musical talent and DJs were already on stage before the big guys took over later in the day going to the wee hours.

Here there were two stages, the one in front of the Constitutional Court, and the other one at Number Four, the former notorious prison that during the years gone-by, incarcerated prisoners there, both common criminals and political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, among others. Now it has been turned into a vibrant Makers’ Market, launched a few months ago where the country’s creatives sell their hand made craft objects. I found the market quite vibrant, and the designs are quite inspirational, representing the whole continent’s creativity when it comes to hand made products, such as fashion, necklaces and other products of beauty.

For example, from Uganda, I found Margaret on her stall selling hair products, with the ingredients imported all the way from her home country to South Africa. Her products are made of Shea butter.

Also at the Maker’s Market I found all the way from Pretoria, a lady artist, selling beautifully crafted, hand-made necklaces and earings that when I was there attracted quite a number of eyes. Here also there was a stage for DJs who played quite cool sounds. It is also here where you found a mosaic of African food menu from which to choose your dish. Again, the African continent was well represented as far as the culinary skills and diversity are concerned.

But because I had come early to watch especially young musical acts, this being Youth Month, I was disappointed when I missed the performance of a group of artists unearthed by Nando’s from across the breath and length of the country, in its musical talent search. Besides this search for musical talent, Nando’s is also of one of the longest sponsors  of Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival.

I missed the young musicians, who according to Kirsty Niehaus, Nando’s marketing manager (Creativity Portfolio), performed a new song that they had co-created in the Flame Studios specifically for the festival. Flame Studios is also housed within the Constitution Hill precinct. “You have just missed them as they performed as curtain raisers for the main acts. They have just finished their sterling performance as curtain raisers for the established artists,”Niehaus said. It felt like rubbing salt into a wound, for I had gone there early, specifically to watch the young acts, such as those guys. Apparently between my gallivanting between the Maker’s Market and the two stages, that was the young artists performed.

However I stayed long enough to watch Lyndow Radebe, Kitchen Mess, Sweeter Brown, Gyre, Ranger, Thando Nje, Mam’Thug and Sol Phenduka.

However do not be turned off by these apparently telling names, these guys are actually talented and play and perform decent music.

For example, Mam’Thug, actually got the crowd grooving with a Phu’zekhemissi remix of his famous song Imbizo, and so even though the name would suggest that she is a DJs likely to play music such as hip hop, that was not the case. Sol Phenduka, despite what appeared to be an issue with the sound, as he appeared to be frustrated with the sound, actually got the crowd waked up. Apparently he can actually not only DJ but produce music as well.

“He actually has released a new song, and yes he is a producer for sure.” A young barman in the VIP section told me, when I expressed my reservations about whether he could pull it as a DJ. That was before he went on stage. The point is Sol Phenduka is well known for his often hilarious and punchy lines on the popular podcast, Podcast &Chill with MacG, and often not so talented people in the entertainment industry leverage their brands by extending into becoming DJs overnight, often becoming a disaster. But with Sol Phenduka, despite the sound issue, he certainly has something to offer music fans as a DJ and producer. He is also a co-breakfast radio host on Kaya FM with Dineo Ranaka.

In fact I decided to call it quits at 6pm after Sol Phenduka’s set, having been there for four hours. You can blame that on my lack of the kind of energy I had in my youth, during the kwaito days in the early 90s, when I would stick around till 2am at kwaito bashes. I am pretty sure though that those that stuck around till 2am when Kwesta would have gone on stage, to wrap up this year’s Basha Uhuru Freedom Festival, must have enjoyed fully what Johannesburg offered this weekend by way of entertainment. What an artistically captivating weekend in Johannesburg.