on Ha ha ha HIFA!! and autumn rain…

So.. yes, on paper, this year’s HIFA line up of music shows was set to be a big yawn and as such, I really expected the opening to bomb out like the horrid finger down your throat opening show of 2010. Would seem someone, somewhere has lost the HIFA plot over the years… or is it… lost their marbles? Crazy!

The opening show, aptly titled ‘Trea$ure’, proved to be bold, brave, gripping and direct – hugely lacking of metaphor… an in your face powerful and too HONEST depiction of the whole diamond brouhaha gripping Zimbabwe.

So this year is Anti-Cheapskate year for yours truly… (don’t ask..). This translated into a generous bunch of 5 tickets for the week at HIFA:

1. Trea$ure, 2. The True African Vibe Concert ft. Chiwoniso Maraire & Victor Kunonga, 3. Stand-up Comedy show Laughrica by Daliso Chaponda, 4. Umoja, 5. Moke ft. Chiwoniso

The True African Vibe Concert

Brilliant show but sadly due to HIFA standards, only managed to draw four songs each from Chiwoniso and Victor. The end left me feeling like a kid sucking on chunk of ice that was once a freezit (popsicle). Chiwoniso was elegant and forceful through all four songs. The proverbial ‘dancing queen in a skimpy skirt’ that accompanies most live shows in Zim was present… albeit doing wonderful justice to traditional Zim dance. Talk of Jikinya, Muchongoyo and a hint of the suggestive Jerusarema.. and oh yes… she did suggest..

Victor was cool too… his ‘dancing queen’ was dressed in a modern interpretation of the traditional and her grand entrance onto the stage had her doing a mesmerising jig; a mixture of belly dancing, Maasai jumping dance… and something that a dance laymen could mistake for a rapid stomach in-chest out/chest in-stomach out ‘Eugene Khoza style of exercise’ flowing to the beat of the music. Victor had his CDs on sale after the show and this proved my most favourite part of the show.. he was selling the CDs for a song.. I bought his latest album, Handinete for $10 whilst some loony music shop in Westgate retails it for $25 (their excuse is that it was made outside of Zim yada-yada.. blah blah blah – geez! Who’s fleecing who here?)

Laughrica…

Enter Daliso Chaponda, Malawi’s entrant to the stand up comedy world.. and yeah.. I did say Malawi. Quite a mouth rests on this charming gentleman’s countenance… Gentleman for only a while. He unflinchingly took FULL advantage of the age restriction tag his show carried, shooed out all kids under 15 years in the last ten minutes of the show where he went buck wild and Full Monty on the almost full house.

Daliso’s act left no sacred cows, him included. He fearlessly ventured into race relations, politics and religion. One important lesson I learnt from Daliso’s act was a reinforcement of the safety requirements when one attends such shows.. stay clear of the front row. Hapless chaps and beaus unwittingly became part of the act while I just giggled in the safety, comfort and darkness of a seventh row seat in the theatre at Avondale.

Umoja

Magical was the one adjective I used to describe this show when it came to an end. Thanks to frolicking around town looking for a cash machine that actually had cash.. I was 5min late for this show and true to the festival nature, this HIFA show kicked off on time like all others – very unAfrican.. tsk tsk tsk… *shaking head from side to side* – no respect for culture. Ahem! Despite the fact that due to my tardiness I got a crappy seat, the show itself more than made up for sweaty armpits of the cameraman I had to sit next to.

Umoja presented a kaleidoscope of song and dance, a celebration of the diversity of humanity. Not even ZESA (Zim Electricity Sometimes Available.. opps! Sorry.. Zim Electricity Supply Authority – it’s now too cliché to be funny) could dampen the atmosphere created by the spirited youths of Umoja. A power cut way into the show only led to the loss of light and sound of the electrical instruments, the dance on stage continued under.. wait for it.. cell phone lights.. incredulous I know.. but that’s exactly what happened for the several minutes it took to switch over to back up generator power… the journey continued.

The patrons of Umoja gave surprise guest performances. Ray Phiri and Eric Wanaina proved why they have become household names in Africa and appointed Umoja patrons. Eric performed Twende Twende, a song in Swahili and Shona that he recorded with Oliver Mutukudzi, beautiful piece of music which he performed with some rather rabid energy. Ray Phiri was just a marvel to watch, age has done nothing to erase his silly stage antics. I left Avondale believing that Umoja deserved to be the closing act on the Main stage in Harare Gardens. That was before I encountered some zany Dutch okes collectively known as Moke.

 

and now Moke, ft. Chiwoniso

 

This was one band I hadn’t bothered to research on YouTube. This was the festival’s closing act and if Moke bombed out, I knew I’d find consolation in Chiwoniso and of course the fireworks display. Both never fail to entertain. I have never liked rock music much, except for the occasional U2 song and a couple of other like sounding bands. Moke made me a believer (sad). Their rhythm was enchanting, pure rich rock chords. The sound was so loud I could feel the ground vibrating into my feet and the electrifying feeling reaching all the way up to my hands which were swaying in the air, lacking only a lit cigarette lighter (nasty habit smoking is).

Icing on the cake was Chiwoniso who did a rock rendition of Wandirasa. I expected a toning down to mbira beats, but boy was I wrong. Not since Trinity’s Nditore had I heard a rock song done in Shona.. Chiwoniso sang Moke’s songs in Shona with a resounding passion that almost made the language and rhythm seem natural to each other. If any artists want to know how to do a cross-genre collaboration, they just need to watch Moke and Chiwoniso to learn how it’s done – don’t forget an elaborate fireworks display to accompany that. Impressive!

 

In so far as Moke was the HIFA closing act, pyrotechnics and all, the night belonged to Busi Ncube and Ivan Mazuze on the Coca Cola Green, just across the main stage in the Mayor’s Garden. Her act got off to a cranky start, dead microphones, and a sound check done in front of a waiting audience. Eventually the show kicked off sometime before 11pm.. it took almost half an hour for the crowd to warm up to Busi however, once she reached cruise speed, there was no stopping her.. all the seated passengers discarded the chairs and tables which had earlier formed neat rows across the sprawling green. Ivan bellowed out loud from his sax and added some magic to the show. I had planned to leave the Green at 11:30H, I eventually sprawled out at 02:10 after Busi had left and some un-small looking DJs took over the night.

HIFA 2011 did come with the traditional ‘end-of-the-rainy-season-beginning-of-winter-rains mavhura chando‘ but the show went on. In comparison to other years.. wasn’t the best selection of artists and shows.. but hey.. being Zimbabwean, we all made a plan and had fun with what was there. 2012.. we’ll be waiting.. bring it on!!

on Lira, caterers and happy-go-lucky-artists

It was a Jazz under the Stars Evening at Borrowdale Race Course, perfect setting – expansive green fields, perfect for unpacking those buff cheese and cucumber sandwiches from picnic baskets – white picket fences (well, almost), cool breeze of a late summer night and the slight chill of an African autumn evening. Quite idyllic…

Tickets, like the venue, were in two parts: VIP and Cattle Class (difference between the two being a whopping US$20). I didn’t dare go near the VIP tickets, not because of a light wallet but because I will always remain a sceptic of any VIP status proffered at any show in Zimbabwe, erm.. ok.. in Harare. Tales from my haunted friends who attended the Akon show in 2010 rush to mind, setting in motion uncontrollable bouts of giggling on my part – the Akon show’s VIP section at the National Sports Stadium (i.e. the US$100.00 part) was invaded by troopers from the rest of the field (some from as far as the US$10.00 ticket sections) to the melodious ring of the slogan Tapinda, Tapinda, Tapinda! (meaning we’ve entered, we’ve entered, we’ve entered! – In your face!! he he he.) Problem: the various sections had only been barricaded by strips of flimsy cloth material – in the organiser’s defence, there once was a time when Zimbabweans were civil enough to respect such boundaries.. even if the boundary was a chalk line in the ground.. it was respected – key word: WAS. Lucky enough, those same civil people from days gone by were the ones who came out to see Lira.. as the VIP section was demarcated by stretches of cloth which doubled as part of the deco.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I missed all the opening local acts as I was at an incredible 60^th birthday party in Mt. Pleasant. Anyway, I arrived just before midnight and Lira was belting out her second song for the evening… and belt out she did!

The stage décor was splendid. Lira was magnificent. She owned the stage, reached out to the audience and we all were lapping from the palm of her hand and trust me.. we all wanted more. The whole crowd was just la.. la la la la la la.. singing along to Feel Good. My partner in crime was hosting a West African friend and colleague from Italy who exclaimed at our ability to sing along to Ixesha or shall I say, tongue-click along. When asked what it meant.. all I could was do was blink and continue clicking to the song. Later attempts at redemption failed by a long shot as I tried in vain to translate the rest of the song’s lyrics – all I got was guffawing in return.

Lira was so enchanting that the VIP class decided to sing along while standing on their chairs and block the view from Cattle Class (Yes. we were packed like cattle in a pen but there was ample room to move around – thank goodness not every Hararian was willing to part with a thunderous US$30.00 for a seat, opps! sorry.. standing place in Cattle Class). If it were in another place, beverage debris would have been transformed into air missiles, pelting those standing on chairs, prompting them to sit down. What amazed me was that, the Cattle Class Citizens, instead of launching missiles, they just rushed to the side walls were ‘almost giant’ screens were beaming images from the stage. Interesting breed of show goers…

Enough with the flowers.. now the brickbats…

For someone with a strong stage presence like Lira.. the stage was a little bit small made worse by the poor sound. Those at the back, me included, could not decipher what she was saying when she addressed the audience – the screams from the front had us believe at least she was talking wild good sense. Interestingly, the sound from Victor Kunonga who came to play immediately after Lira was impeccable – maybe because the place was now more than half empty? Donno.

The combination of two marquees to create the venue wasn’t the brightest in my opinion. When the two met, the connection made a ‘V’ in the middle which served to demarcate the two audience sections but formed a very low ceiling which one could reach for while standing on a chair. Now imagine the restrictions on the height of the stage – those who could see the artists from the hips going up were lucky.

 

The marquees weren’t even necessary for an evening under the stars, except of course the threat of rain. However, if the stage was set on the field facing north and the crowd accommodated in the race course terraces. Six things were going to happen: 1. There would have been much more space for the cooler boxes that littered cattle class. 2. VIP would have been more comfortable sitting right in front of the stage just below the terraces (easier to secure and demarcate – perfect front row seats) 3. Both stage and crowd would be safe from the rain 4. No one would have had to contend with the ‘orrible wet sand that was put to form a floor in cattle class.. I didn’t check the VIP section. 5. The two projection screens would have been better placed on each side of the stage making better use of the visual aids. 6. Ticket prices would have been lower as there would have been much more space to accommodate more people than in the two joined-at-the-hip marquees.

Now come to the part of the caterers and the happy-go-lucky-artists.. lol… having arrived late for the show, there was no parking space in sight. Two ingenious cowboys, having seen our dilemma, beckoned us to follow them and offered the most prime and secure parking one could lay his or her hands on that night. As we could hear Lira already performing her first song, we followed in haste, they quickly opened a gate (locked it behind us – they had keys which meant legit and secure in our books), we had plenty parking spots to choose from, we parked, locked the car and waited for the catch. It didn’t take long to come… we were to buy our tickets to enter the show from them. Mmm.. I was suspicious… Partner in crime + visitor from Rome both seemed not to have no problem with it (though it seemed dude-friend from Italy didn’t exactly realise what was going on – the guys looked legit).

The sound of Lira’s song coming to an end hastened us to promise to pay up once ‘successfully’ inside. We got handed 3 tickets.. erm to wear round our necks.. luckily, they had no cords. The one pictured above boldly declared my partner in crime to be part of the catering crew, the other two said we were artists.. lol.. and like all artists and crew, we made our way into the show through the backstage with a fore bearing entourage. We got in, laughed and screamed, Tapinda, Tapinda, Tapinda! Now was the crunch time, we had to pay up. To make the deal sweet, the two cowboys had discounted the ticket prices from $30 to $20 each when offering to chaperone us in. Partner in crime thought long and hard (all in the space of 5 seconds) and shoved a $50 note to cover the three of us. He claimed a $10 discount for us having to return our ‘tickets’ for use by the next happy-go-lucky artists to emerge from backstage. Deal was sealed.

Overally, Lira’s show was fantastic, braai stands flamed away with steaks and vors, drinks flowed (though not too freely most times– too few serving points). For the logistics, I’d give a five out of ten (rounded off from a 4¹/₂) but overall, Lira boosted the general rating all by herself to a nine out of ten. It would be great to have Lira be the headline artist for one HIFA (Harare International Festival of the Arts) to come. Ixesha!! – still don’t know what it means…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

of Jezebels, a professor and gym weights…

Now that I’ve sort of decided to resort to review work for the next few months.. more of my twisted opinions than anything else.. I’ve noticed almost all reviews focus exclusively on new works.. I’ve decided otherwise.. most brilliant stuff falls thru the cracks and go unappreciated.

I’ll gladly review a play, movie or event but when it comes to music, I’m not easily inclined to give my props away easily. Enter Professor Langa and his album University of Kalawa Jazmee released three months back from this post. Now, put the word ‘University’ in the title of your music album and ghastly images rush to my head. My modest definition of a university can be summed up as follows: ‘a place where one defines one’s own big-bang-theory and later tries making money out of it by selling it to the world’.

Erm.. I can almost hear you ask… yes.. Professor is his real name, not his title and yes, he does look and sound familiar. He’s the same guy of the T’Zozo & Professor fame; part of the pioneers of the Durban kwaito scene who churned out classics like Woz’ eDurban, Amantombazane
and
Vuma.

The story of the Kalawa Jazmee Records is one blog entry on its own. Suffice just to say that Kalawa is a family and it’s evident in all the artist’s music, even in the videos.

I first bumped into Professor on Alaska’s run away raucous hit, Fokol. His superb opening to the song made his almost gruff voice unforgettable. So unforgettable, that he is easily plucked out from the crowd in Sprikiri’s Current. It was about time Professor stood up and offered a solo effort.

University of Kalawa Jazmee was crowned Metro FM’s Best Kwaito Album for 2010 and to add a cherry on top, it had the radio station’s Song of the year for the hit Jezebel. The album has a mature contemporary kwaito feel with a delicious fusion of house elements. It works both for, a laid back Sunday afternoon listening and as a hot and scintillating party/club pack.

Naturally standing out from the album is Jezebel, a groovy tale of a woman who goes around messing around with many of Professor’s famous friends… eeew… erm.. er…Witch!! Jimaphi features Oskido and makes up the first half of the Jezebel video – the video just says it all!! Just a few days ago, I heard a PowerFM Radio DJ declare that the days of Jezebel are good and gone.. the new hit.. for 2011… still from Professor.. Imoto short for imot’etshontshimali . True this is a hit. If you don’t trust me.. ask Bonang from SABC 1′s Live. They had Professor putting on a dazzling live performance of the ‘car that steals the money’ just three days short of this post going live.

News reports from Durban indicate that this song was played to some fever pitch during the funerals of some armed robbers who were gunned down by South African Police. This prompted Professor to come to the defence of the song saying he wasn’t singing about a heist get away car (Imot’etshontshimali) – the reason he gave was a bit silly for me to repeat here.. least to say.. kwaito artists should REALLY consider investing in good PR people.. good being a euphemism for.. erm.. cough! intelligent.

My personal count puts the hits on this album at eight… out of the 12 tracks. The one that really hits my core is I swear featuring Demor. I’ve had this on a loop for more than two weeks.. eish!!

True to Kalawa Jazmee tradition, Professor’s album features many guest artist, including Oskido on Jimaphi (wicked track – has me going ga ga..), Speedy (former Bongo Muffin) on Lento, Tira on Ungangi Didisi, Oskido & Picat (from Alaska) on Toyi toyi and Characta (Professor’s sibling, also featured on Oskido’s I Believe- talk about keeping it in the family) on Imoto and Baby.

This album is a gem, simple lyrics vibrant and fresh beats.. what more can one ask for in an album? Leave just to say, in the words of one guy named Leslie, commenting on the album, ‘wanna school in kalawa jazmee varsity…professor nthute ke tshwane le wena plz plz..am serious.. sign me up’. Kwaito has finally left the township. Nuff said.

on broken ribs and a hilariously BIG Announcement…

Thanks to technology taking a dump on me, the update on the 17^th‘s Big Announcement got swallowed by a Trojan horse Cryptic.GW and got eagerly lapped up by a Trojan horse Downloader.Agent2.AHBW (I suppose I can blame the FBI right? Easier to say than CIO…) It all went… hook, line and sinker… kaput!! So, I’ve had to re-enter the foray as a remodeler..

I’m writing this (erm.. cough!) sorry, re-writing this..on the eve of the The Big Announcement’s penultimate show in the eastern highlands city of Mutare. I attended the Harare show and boy did I get blown off my seat! Now that could mean either of two things.. Either I got amazed by the show or I left the 7Arts Theatre with bum blisters heading for the emergency room.. let find out…

Ok, so being the educated bloke I am, I bought my ticket in advance from the Book Café from a lady who had a causal smile which seemed to wryly say ‘you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into’. One glance at the ticket confirmed this.. I did not know what I was getting myself into. The ticket warned that admission was for one chete (only) in case I had clever ideas to smuggle in another. Another bold warning clearly stated that the ticket could not be and should not be used as chump change in kombis. Geez!! I was laughing already… a good eight hours before the show.. mmm…

So, Daté couldn’t make it to this gig.. I had to rope in the only other person who I knew would understand the concept of stand-up comedy without asking stupid questions i.e. before consulting google.. my A.G.D. partner in crime. Let’s call him ADG-No.1. We trolled along to Avondale, on time this time, to the BIG theatre there. We got to the box office.. tickets were still on sale, ADG-No.1 whipped out his ten bucks, got his ticket and waltzed in before me.. so why did I bl*&%y burn fuel for a good 15km to get a ticket that I could, (yes operative word is could) have just grabbed by the theatre’s box office a few minutes before the show?? Blink! Blink! (bwai bwai). Anyway, I digress..

The show kicked off with Carl introducing himself and giving a bit of an autobiography.. erm.. I don’t think we were meant to laugh coz all that he said, nerves and dodgy cordless microphone aside, was true.. he did live through it all, including a rabid up close and personal experience with Her Majesty’s Government Home Office officials.

Things got better 30 minutes into the show.. dodgy microphone ditched, reverted to traditional and better sounding long cord mic. Nerves took a beating, probably from the high powered refuel from a red freezit that came complete with a real life human vendor attached to the end, bearing all sorts of market stall gifts, maputi and Crystal Candy mints.. all the works.. in exchange for some form of coin currency of course.

Now, in showbiz, two hours is a long time.. filling a show with content to last that long requires skill and creativity.. heck, even movie makers know how to stop just after 90 minutes.. the human brain is so fickle. So in my mind, to fill the time, Carl had to repeatedly pull the same Houdini act to cover the whole 120 minutes. This then brings me to the unique concept that Carl Joshua Ncube introduced to the act of stand-up comedy.. erm.. what’s-its-name… graphics interface something something.. bottom line.. he had a huge screen behind him that had clips integrated into the show’s script. Well, it’d be something to expect from one with such a colourful background.. or it is backgrounds??.. yep, plural, backgrounds.. graphics design, drawing, painting (if you can draw you can paint right?), cartoonist (the moving and speaking type – yeah, like on TV ), medical (he knows how to wear a stethoscope), historian (he pulled some gems straight from the 80′s and 90′s) and activist.. umm.. yeah! On that one…

A nostalgic journey into the entertainment of zim-past ensued.. the voltrons (amazing how the WHOLE auditorium sang along to cartoons shown by ZBC-TV in the late 80′s and early 90′s… I even surprised myself as I also sang along… word for word.. and I knew the exact words to the Bata Shoe Company Christmas advert – all three stanzas! Damn! If only I had applied such memory skills to the quadratic equation in high school).

Shortly to come, was the reason no one should ever sit in the front row at a stand-up comedy show.. or a magic show.. a volunteer was called up.. to demonstrate how to do the childhood Sweetie-Sweetie-Go-Start, Fish-Fish and Deli-in-the-Dish. Mortifying.. how everyone sang along with glee – the mad part was yet to come.. all these games + Raka-Raka translated onto a Play Station console, Carl with joystick to match.. From all this madness I was left itching for the Ukozi, a sleek zim-made ride that will leave the Bat-mobile green with envy.. and mold.. coz, sadly, it will only land around 2080 – half the audience will not survive that long, pity..

Finally came time for the announcement.. he he he.. Carl Joshua Ncube went down one knee.. looked his girlfriend straight in the eye… opened his mouth… desperately sought to be made an honest man.. well.. we all know how that fairy tale ends.. and they lived happily ever after. The End.

The Big Announcement in Harare was one hilarious gig that far exceeded expectations, the Bulawayo show rocked so much that the stage couldn’t stand it and decided to open up and swallow Carl alive.. and whole. One thing is for sure.. the Mutare show is far from being a swan song from Carl Joshua Ncube. Bring on the sophomore years!

Attached is a recording of a conversation I had with AGD-No.1 (207kb) on his views of The Big Announcement.. the venue of this recording is going to be the topic of some crimson red blog entry to come.. Happy Holidays!

 

of the Beaujolais Nouveau and the pending big announcement …

It is four days shy of a year since this blog smelt an iota of ink from my desk. Let’s just focus on the positive, I’ve found my ink.. let us just be happy and leave it at that.

It took an event hosted by the ambassadeur français (see… I did pick up some bit of culture while I was gone – wasn’t just bumming off) to bring me back to this almost cobwebbed site. The Beaujolais Nouveau [BOE-zjoh-lay nuvo] or if you really want to get technical with the speaching thing… [boʒɔlɛ nuvo]; a French wine festival yada yada.. Sadly, this is not the place to learn about it; I wasn’t that good a teacher anyway, so if you’re really up to it, try here.

Back at the ranch, having engineered an invite, accompanied by a great friend who we shall call Daté, for the purposes of this prose, I decided to be fashionably late to the event, kept Daté waiting, after having asked her to scratch a date (I could silently hear her cursing in the rain “and I shaved my legs for this!”). Who in Zimbabwe gets to an event on time? Apparently everyone does except me and Daté. To prove this.. thirty minutes after the event kicked off, Daté and I waltzed into the former-only-five-star-and-we-still-want-to-pretend-we-are hotel in town and we were greeted by bare tables with a few plates bearing remnants of what I figured was french cheese and crumbs that looked like they belonged to a dead and processed animal, later revealed as remains of cold meats dragged to Harare all the way from France. One thing though was flowing mightier than the great Orinoco.. copious amounts of Beaujolais Nouveau. It gushed from what seemed like a bottomless crushed gamy grape fountain… this then led to the evening’s next best thing.. a performance by Carl Joshua Ncube (you say it in full, just like you would: ‘A Pimp Named Slickback’ – no relation though).

Carl slithered onto the stage like a grand maître des ceremonies, everyone fell silent, expectant of a big announcement (pun soooo intended). Sadly none came as he immediately announced that he was the night’s entertainment. Interestingly enough, that intro alone was funny in itself and already, the whole room was enchanted by Carl’s subtle but prodding insights into everyday Zimbabwean life.

The humour churned out by Carl was refreshingly local and full of satire cleverly embedded, one would gaff off without realising that he’s pointing to something so close to home.. not even next door, but something standing stark naked in one’s living room. He slyly and so-straight-in-your-face played the race card while opening his act, a tight rope walk in a place like Harare where we still aren’t exactly each other’s neighbour’s keepers. Carl pulled it off with dramatic side splitting effect and am not sure though, if he did manage to convince any caucasians in the room to try out a kombi ride round the city.. on a 50c ticket.

Now the temptation is huge to compare Carl with what we already know, for example the stupendous Trevor Noah or eccentric Eugene Khoza. As a freshman on the scene, I’d say Carl introduces a new dimension to Stand Up Comedy 101 that just begs one to stop, listen, laugh, gasp, laugh again and not want to look at the next guy’s act as his was good enough on it’s own.

I have great expectations in Carl Joshua Ncube’s sophomore year if the Beaujolais night was any measure of future performances, breaking a single rib didn’t do justice to his act, I sadly had to lose a whole ribcage to laughter, which ironically is meant to be the best medicine.. not body basher. Now whether it was now the boeee.. boezzhh.. oh bugger! the boezjoh- hic! – lay.. nuvo.. hic!!.. helping me laugh or not.. it’s left to be seen when Carl makes his Big Announcement (which he promises is a pioneer act in this town) at a theatre in Avondale, during the second week of the main festive-season month of 2010. Am already off to the market to buy my ticket! oh yeah! and one for Daté too – I promise I won’t be late..

On District 9 and the inevitable 10…

The festive season always makes me a movie buff of some sort and my ‘Barry Ronge-Wananbe-Movie Review Skills’ inevitably kick in. I watched District 9 recently and it was movie that left me not too sure on my judgement of it. One of the few times I’m stuck for words and this is neither due to it’s pow wow or lack thereof.

Now, I’m not going to regurgitate the various opinions of other movie buffs (well at least not much) but instead just settle on the intrigue that hit me in the face when I ‘endured’ the movie right to the end. Endured, yes, but not in the worst of terms. The intrigue started from the reactions I got immediately after updating my facebook status to “watching District 9…” just a few minutes before rolling the movie at 21:00H. By 23:00H, 34 comments had been stamped below the status updates which were to include a second update, one hour into the movie, which read “am not gonna eat prawns after District 9.. or any other seafood..” (Well, not that I’d ever eaten any or will ever try them out, I prefer to be allergic to the stuff – but then again, never say never). Now, for background to the movie, google it, wiki it, bing it or whatever online search engine it. Bottom line is, it’s an alien movie, set in Joburg, South Africa. A sort of Will Smith’s Men In Black meets kasi kulcha (township culture).

The fun began 17 minutes into the movie when a cousin in Canada rated the movie an 8/10 and a friend in Tanzania immediately rebuffed the rating by stamping her foot down and branding it with a 1/10 rating. Her exact words were, “the worst movie I watched this year!!.” I knew I was in for a good ride on this movie.

My first reaction to the ‘Alien in Joburg’ plot made me point a finger at the producers for trying to take a jab at the many alien nationals in South Africa (with the pun being so intended). Nah! I chose to look for other angles. “Such an interpretation would be so cliché”, I thought. And besides, don’t you really need to be intelligent with your movie to really hit an Oscar? Well… not all the time.

The reactions kept rolling in. I told my friend in Arusha that I was finding District 9 to be ‘disgustingly hilarious’. Disgusting it really is. Aliens are such filthy unkempt creatures. All that yuck and goo was literally out of this world. Hilarious, yes. Who would fail to fall in love with Wikus van der Merwe… he he he… now that’s one of the more honest contemporary Afrikaner stereotype representations I’ve seen on screen of late.

Now the volleys began. Another friend in London just snapped, “You prawn!”Now, I tried very hard to be offended but all I could do was just roll on the floor in laughter, having read deeper and way beyond the surface in his outburst. He obviously was taking a swipe at the ‘legal alien’ status I always assume after crossing the Limpopo River, a fact many South Limpopians hate so much. This then led to a hilarious almost-tirade as we reminisced on our college years. At some point in our history as a continent, being Zimbabwean meant having the best the continent had to offer, in terms of every thing. Yes, I literally really mean everything. It then came as no surprise that at some of the country’s private universities, there was a sizeable influx of alien students (he he he… couldn’t resist that one). Ok, international students, mostly from southern Africa. I recall three distinct nicknames (derogatory in nature, depending on country of origin) that floated around campus. I mentioned this to my UK buddy and this when it went downhill. Instead of continuing rolling on the floor, I was now digging holes into the floor in laughter. Prawns are alien to Zimbabwe (he he… there it is again) and the closest Zim thing he could equate them was to the glorious Lake Kariba kapenta fish. If that’s not a comic double tragedy then, well… the world doesn’t have a warped sense of humour like I have.

Anyway, back at the ranch. Nigerians as a people found in Joburg, are a prominent feature in the film. So prominent that the Nigerian government decided to ban the film from been screened in the West African country. Memories of our local censorship board came to mind… My imagination pictured grey haired gentle-grandpas shaking their heads in disgust at Sharon Stone’s Basic Instinct that led to a near hullaballoo in the monolithic Zim media of the 90′s. Of late (judging from my last two blog posts), I’ve been on a quest to try understand the trappings of my culture and how it relates and reacts to the onslaught of modernisation and neo-colonial existence. I just tried to imagine what the reaction would have been if the movie had Zimbabweans instead of Nigerians. The censorship board would not have much of a task as of yet. The movie was released in August 2009. With the state of Zim cinemas, it would probably be some time in early to mid 2010 before it hits the local screens, but of course, it would have hit the Zim video club shelves immediately after the DVD release date and I wonder if the censorship board does have any control on what currently comes into the usually informal DVD clubs racks. Anyway, that’s not the point, question is, would they have a problem with it just like the Nigerians did? If it were me, a Nigerian igwe, in the Zim context, at a personal level, would I be ticked off? Probably yes, but at a superficial level. It would just pinch my pride a bit and the rest would dissipate in humour. Art is art. Don’t we see similar stereotyping of eastern Europeans as the developed world’s poor cousins and worse, the Middle East as a hot bed of religious fundamentalism?

The Nigerian stereotype has always been with us, albeit, without the alien-flesh eating angle. Question then begs; should art or works of fiction be respectful or mindful of how they portray certain sections of the global society? I remember one of my first exploits as a writer wannabe was a piece I wrote when I was 11 years old. It was submitted to the National Allied Arts Institute for the Annual writing competition. I got a B+ equivalent for my entry and the line of the first comment was “I’m glad you chose the Chimanimani Mountains as the setting of your story”. Now this was an 11 year old’s crack at science fiction (it had space craft and explosions – remnants of watching too many Buck Rodgers films in the 80′s). So, was the Chimanimani community of eastern Zimbabwe entitled to come baying for the blood of an 11 year old simply because he wrote of unfathomable fictitious things happening in their community? Mmm.. I wonder.

So, as I strongly suspect and anticipate a sequel to District 9, will the Nigerian government allow the sequel to be screened if it then contains a bunch of unruly Zimbabwean migrant farm workers or Somali spaza shop traders instead of the “shown in bad light” Nigerians? Now what if it does win an Oscar award or two? And what do they make of the over US$100 million the film has earned to date, having been made off a US$30 million budget?

Anyway, back to facebook reactions. A few sympathised with my not wanting to eat prawns ever again, a newly trained lawyer friend in South Africa (East London) was shocked that I’d give up such delicacies from the sea. An offer to try out frogs as a replacement was laid on the table and another friend in New York then really put it in perspective. She hasn’t watched the movie yet, but from the trailers, she feels we should be packing our bags and getting ready for a planet evacuation to Mars “if the movie is to be believed”.

To date, I still roll at the antics of Wikus van der Merwe beautifully played by Sharlto Copley. The gun battle scenes were loud enough to make me love them, the helicopters swooping down onto the shanty town were classic, though they did look a bit odd shaped.

On any given day, I’d put District 9 way in front of other South African offerings, like Tsotsi and the one I was not inspired to see, Jerusarema. In my book, it earned a rounded off 7/10.

Am now *rubbing my hands* for the Oscars and the coming of District 10… maybe I could even script it and compare my version with the sequel. Now that’s a thought…

Of hungry dogs and fresh goat skins…

Lesson Five:
“All livestock and rural animal are bound to embarrass you in the rural public sooner or later, so always give them ‘the look’ and tell them their life is in your hands so they better not act funny…”

This noble teaching from the writings On Modernity and Age Old Traditions… came unpleasantly true for me after the first goat was dead and soon to be broth. Drama was brewing instead. Drama made from opportunity smacking hungry dog straight in the face. The city slicker in me made me quite green on the etiquette of goat murder. I volunteered to take care of the goat skin soon after it slithered off the meat bearing body. Anyway, it’s a goat skin. Who’s ever eaten goat skin? I mused… bah not an important by-product of the ritual… WRONG!

I carelessly tossed it onto the fence, next to the makeshift goat gallows where the limp body hung, hoping not to forget it after entering the homestead with the meat. And forget we all did. Alarm was raised by one of my uncles (mother’s cousins) when brutally shouted “Dehwe raenda nembwa mukwasha! Mhanya mukwasha!” (The dog has nicked the goat skin, run after it son-in-law!). This slowly led the cruel formulation of Lesson number six as my legs stirred in slow motion… wishing they had the steel and stamina of the Six Million Dollar Man… A question shot through my mind… why me? I’m not a mukwasha in this village. I have not married anyone in this village… I am not and have never been married. Period.

Lesson Six:

I am not my mother’s relative… tjo!!

Damn!! So I’m stuck with the sins of my father? (Well, to be fair… this usually also comes with his achievements and fame as well… but then again…) since I’m so blatantly being referred to as THE ‘mukwasha-in-charge‘. All the ceremonies were aimed at me. It then slowly sank in… I bear my father’s totem… he gave me my surname… umm.. so any person bearing a tag of my father’s totem will be considered in my father’s position in my mother’s homestead? Is that the rational? Well I don’t know where to turn to for ‘correct’ answers as most forms of contemporary Shona knowledge have been corrupted by religion… Christianity (with the devil of colonisation hiding somewhere inside it) and guerrilla politics and tactics used by liberation war politics.

Anyway… back at the ranch… A scrawny looking rural canine, whose photo I failed to capture as I was hot on its heels (or is it paws?), had snatched the precious goat fur from the fence and was trotting off to chew and lick on it. Drama! Two factors worked in my favour. The dog was thinner than a razor, thanks to years of turmoil in the country and the goat skin was still fresh, meaning heavy. Hence, all that the mingy mutt could do was trot. Had it managed to gain full speed, the conclusion to this post would probably carry a bitter but shy whisper to the effect that we would be re-gathering at my mother’s homestead to REPEAT the ceremony of killing a goat coz the previous goat’s skin cover was nicked by a probably rabid, scraggy excuse of a pet. Why? Well because the womenfolk beneficiaries of the ceremonies are meant to use the skin as a sitting mat and a ceremony where their mat is not produced is… umm.. eerr.. well.. incomplete. (However, a brief enquiry with mother – the woman who gave birth to me but apparently am not related to - revealed that way back when, the skin would have been used to make some bellows/mvuto.. mmm.. ingenious).

I heaved, puffed, and threw a stride that was soon to be the envy of fellow over weight soon to be middle-agers. I ran, with gusto I only ever knew in my teenage years on my high school athletics track. The math was easy, I being the better fed of the two mammals, I easily gained on the poor dog, it tried ineffective evasive action and I soon had the wet but now dusty goat skin in my hands, huge grin painting my face. My lungs were now in over drive, nostrils wishing they were larger. Only a huge glass of ice cold Mazowe Orange juice would allow my heaving body to ease and steady the saline flow giving an unwanted wet glow to my face. So I wondered what would be the rural equivalent of such an ice cold delight… mmm.. What indeed? Within minutes and amid shouts of praise and fits of laughter over my heroic deed, I was sat down in the kitchen and a piping hot cup of strong milky tea was thrust to my face. The heat from the cup beat the sweat off my face and floods more followed. All for that ice cold glass of orange crush. Sigh!

The day later slowly wore on and all proceedings went on smoothly, my father’s and brother-in-law’s cattle were accepted.

One thought just kept nagging me at the back of my mind. The sibling rivalry devil in me was aroused. If only my elder brother was on this continent, he would have been the ‘mukwasha-in-charge‘ and saved me all this sweat, blood and tears. I would have just been the Assistant ‘Mukwasha-in-Charge‘. I hate Africans in the diaspora!! Especially the one who was meant to kill the goat had he been around… But then again… sigh!! Where else was I going to learn all this about the people that claim me as part of their living heritage? Where else indeed? However, just a week after this… the long lost diaspora brother landed on the continent, coming to surprise the parents with an unannounced visit… All I could say was “Darn!! What in the world could I have possibly done to piss karma off? This boorish brother of mine should have come just a few days earlier and got on with his well deserved title.” So yeah… boorish!!

On modernity and age old traditions…

One of the off spins of colonisation was the condemnation of African traditions & rituals as rearward followed by other adjectives I dare not repeat. Being a beneficiary of today’s education, very little of it prepared me for the realities the Shona culture, ummm.. eerr.. yes.. my culture. A ceremony had to be done. My dad had to finish an aspect of his roora/lobola, he had to redo his mombe yahumai. The cow paid to my maternal grandmother for being my mother’s mother. Now this was forced upon him by my sister’s lobola. My brother-in-law could not pay his mombe yahumai for my mother because my dad’s had not been finalised yet – and by finalised they meant haina kumira or is it kutsika? literally meaning the cow did not stand/step on the ground. Goodness I sighed. It has to be a real live cow. And oh, accompanied by a goat because this had ‘taken time’. No one could understand my disbelief. Look. My old man got married way back in the 60s the year Nelson Mandela made his first bed at Robben Island after spending his first night there; the year Zimbabwe, Zambia & Malawi ceased to be one country and right about when the Beatles brought the Beatlemania infection to America. Almost 15 years before I was born and close to 50 years to date… Now don’t try to do any maths on my age… I am not giving it up. See… no grey hairs.

Lesson One: you cannot escape the obligations of culture through time, even if you think death will absolve the obligations.

I will not venture into the intricacies of the ceremonies, save to say it was one heck of an experience for me. Now this is me. Born Location – in the capital of Mashonaland West, at the city’s main hospital. Hardly set foot at a rural home after I became old enough to retain memories in my head. I only have three distinct memories of having spent the night in a rural setup. Day visits are countless and still preferred.

First as a sprouting teen at my aunt’s (mother’s sister) homestead right on the border with Mozambique – wonderful experience, they had solar and that meant hot water the shower… nice.

Second memory is deep in the bush of Midlands Province, at my brother’s in-laws. All I remember was it was our duty as vakwasha to bring a goat to its life’s end and more or less feed the homestead. My I think that was the first real animal I killed, apart from a chicken, the first of which decided to redecorate my the exterior of my mother’s house with the fluid from its jugular vein after I thought all life becomes still two seconds after decapitation. Wrong.

Third memory is that of my maternal grandma’s funeral. Loved the old woman. Eccentric and wise. Created an entire dynasty all by herself. This is the same homestead we were now gathered at, to perform the cow ceremonies.

Lesson Two: For as long as you are Shona in origin, you have a rural beckoning whose bell will ring someday. For sure.

The ceremonies were simple, Ma is Zezuru Shona from the east, and Pa is Zezuru Shona from the west. Simple stuff hey? Ha ha. Not so.

Lesson Three: Every modern man has their own interpretation of culture that almost always ensures that he gets the best out of the ceremony’s advantage is skewered in his favour. Sad.

Lucky for me, the cows were not meant for slaughter. This is only done after they produce offspring. So another round of ceremonies still awaits in a year or two to come.

Lesson Four: It ain’t over till its over. Even if the fat lady sings and grows a beard. No.

Now my murder skills were to be put to test. I know I’m a city slicker, can even now hold my own in Joburg (eerr.. ok not much in that town, but hey, I can now do Joburg by taxi (kombi/minibus), now that’s an achievement, trust me, it is).

I’ll spare you the gruesome details of how I did it, I’ll just say it. I killed the goat. There!

It did a number on my left shoe. It changed colour from brown to blood red. Not that the shoe had much of an option. It was either it or it bearing the weight of a man approaching middle age, chasing after a goat with a slit throat throbbing around the neighbourhood, doing its ‘last kicks of a dying horse’ jig. nah nah. Not an option.

What followed next was drama… Of hungry dogs and goat skin laid to dry… The Chase! Not funny.

Lesson Five All livestock and rural animal are bound to embarrass in the rural public sooner or later, so always give them ‘the look’ and tell them their life is in your hands so they better not act funny..

a night under the planets…

One.

There has always been talk of evenings under the stars, never before had it passed my ears that it could be nights under the planets, could that happen? What magic is contained beyond the earth’s realm? Astrology and astronomy have always been mythical, mysterious, misunderstood and bordering on the edge of condemnation as some colonial art form, but now, there it was, staring me right in the face, in a manner I’d never imagined, only dismissed in the movies and only read about in age old fantasies, romantic or otherwise.

One Hailey’s comet, two dramatic southern hemisphere solar eclipses and one rainy night lunar eclipse experienced in southern Matabeleland had left me emotionally unscathed, petrified though, “end of the world” rang my thoughts all the time, fizzled out in just moments… but not this time … my breath was to be taken away by a more simpler yet spectacular astrological happening.

A simple crescent moon graced the calm first night of December, “ah! A quarter moon for the first of the month. Neat!” I blurted out as I first slowly turned my neck towards the source of its silky rays. Only a few split seconds later did I have to relook as something was odd about the crescent moon, not your everyday lunar appearance. Not the usual textbook lunar cycle extract. My heart slightly warmed as I realised the moon’s bright intensity and realised that two bright stars had decided to accompany its journey across the sky that night, one on each side and one slightly higher than the other. Accompanied by a swift glance across the night sky, my brain clicked and engaged. “Too bright to be conventional stars”, I mused… “and too married to the moon to be anything regular… mmm…” emotions aroused. Though doubtful to be stars, star quality was written all over them… drawing a certain yearning from the heart… gently tugging at those heart strings, begging for intimate attachment.

The planets Venus and Jupiter had decided to turn out in their splendour, graciously flanking the moon on its journey above the earth’s sky… my heart gently sang to my soul and fondly yearned for another soul to emerge right next to mine… lines of Lyndon David Hall’s ‘Crescent Moon’ humming through my body to the slightly increased throbbing pace in my heart… “I need you like a candle light – crescent moon at midnight…” not quite midnight yet, only a few more chimes to go, but the timing right there was perfect, midnight would have to wait and hopefully bring dessert – imagine this, a warm African summer evening, slight night breeze soothing the heat weary face, water hungry throat, grain thirsty abdomen and swaying the greening winter grass to a rhythm only Africa can interpret.

No one emerged by my side, only a strong sense of nature and creation and the hand behind… I blocked the thoughts… choosing to dwell on more earthly decadent vanity… wafts of sweet chardonnay strongly engulfed my palate, stinging my nostrils as I took in the night  and the sight of the presence next to me… two hearts beating together… like a semiquaver… molto fortissimo…

Someone to fill the clogs was imminent… voice masked behind wireless cellular technology was all that was within grasp, despite the vivid physic my eyes saw besides me… half a mile of dimly lit city parkland was all that separated… yearnings growing stronger… prohibition flaring up… wanton desires raging within… raging at the height of restraint… wither to?

My ears collected the sweet whispers I couldn’t believe were aimed at me… sitting side by side, heads inclined towards the sky, gazing at the wonder of two planets competing for earth’s attention in the moon’s glory realm, the bubbles in the flutes slowly rising, reaching out for the rest of the stars… the words were subtle yet powerful, trudging straight to my inner self, plodding onwards, not stopping raising the temperature despite the passing breeze… I stole glances from the sky, feeding them to my side, a wry smile creeping up on my lips… yearning for the moments to keep revolving… wondering why what I had done to deserve such precious moments… surely these didn’t come from effortless want… a price must have been paid…

The chardonnay slowly crept into my blood and made its way into my head, heightening my senses, bringing to life the nimble fingers that stroked my face… each felt like a perfumed feather gently caressing a melody against my cheeks… I held on to the other fingers and squeezed them in appreciation as I lowered my gaze from the moon… to the end of the stairs of fire escape we had taken refuge in to ponder upon that night’s miraculous wonder up in the sky… if only I could reach up and float with the stars…

Two…