Peak People: An inside look: SA Music shouldn't be 2nd best!

Thursday, May 10, 2007

SA Music shouldn't be 2nd best!

What happens when you are passionate about putting projects out into the public; have willing and able artists to create an awesome event; but can’t get sponsorship, because you’re not headlining an international act?

Some years ago we hosted a music event called Ubuntu Nights; an evening of music, colours and passion; hosted in an intimate setting, we wanted to bring the artist off the stage and into your life. To create an atmosphere where we would be able to instigate and propagate inter-racial collaborations, not only on the stage, but out in the audience too – where Cape Town society still needs it so badly.

We featured Amampondo & Freshlyground (left), a DJ/VJ keeping the groove alive before, during and after, and a pretty mixed jar of M&M’s in the audience – for our first event. It was an awesome success, leaving us glowing for days afterward.

It just the kind of event we were hoping for, with great feedback and lots of business cards, but after all the costs had been taken care of Len & I went home poorer. Hell, we did it, we loved it – and loved the great music that was made!

We’ve grown up a lot since then, and now we make sure that things happen! We’re passionate about getting artists like Amampondo (right - Mz, Brian May & Len @ 46664), Busi Mhlongo, Dozi who is like an Afrikaans Zulu, our wonderful friend Pops Mohamed, Shannon Mowday, Arno and both his groups SNG & New Porn, Chris Chameleon who has given us Monkey Punk and adult contemporay pop in English & Afrikaans, Gloria Bosman, and all the other awesome musicians that make our cultures so exciting, out into the market of other cultures.

That’s what it is – it’s a new integration, through the beats and sounds that make this country rock.

Fuse it together and life gets exciting; put a single stringed Uhade slap bang in the middle of an electric duo of modern strings; have north Africans sounds dancing to Zulu rhythms; the San performing the most ancient trance dance today; – isn’t that what life’s should be about? Mixing more, learning more, feeling more?

Last weekend, at a local in the area, we sighed into our seats for a nightcap and were astounded to be surrounded by people dancing to music that my mother danced to at that age (she’s still young and gorgeous! Love you mom!). I’m just worried we’re preconditioning another generation into thinking that American & British music is still the only belle of the ball, while there is so much funky stuff right at our fingertips now! (Amampondo left @ Green Point - 46664)

So, where we need to be now in the wonderful country of ours is to support our artists - they deserve it for making our lives here more understandable. South African musicians are representatives of who we are as a people.