Last night the African National Congress elected Jacob Zuma as its President during its 52nd national conference. Reactions to these developments have been deafening, ranging from rage to raukus laughter to jubilation.
So now, reality. What is reality? Reality is that JZ, as he is known, is now the ruling party’s most senior leader, its captain, the big dawg, you know. He rules, so to speak. He will rule from Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg, while President Thabo Mbeki will run the country from the Union Buildings in Pretoria. A good friend of mine has just asked me “how did it get to this?” “Democracy” I said. Which is what it is.
THE PAST
JZ has always had groundswell support, especially in his stronghold KwaZulu Natal. People have always trusted him, they looked up to him as a leader of the ANC, and most of all, respected him. Thus he came into the race with a huge following already.
DEMOCRACY
Mzansi had been in a struggle for democracy for many years, years before the even the National Party took to over power in the 1940s. Injustices had been going on for ages before that, hence the formation of the ANC in January 1912. The underpinning force of democracy is that majority rules. Period. What most people want is what goes, regardless. In a democracy it’s not necessarily what is right, but what those who cast their votes want.
FOOLS
One of the things I have heard from many people is that people who have chosen to follow JZ are foolish, that the man himself is such, owing probably to the fact that he has no formal education because his rural Nkandla parents were so poor. This is the same man who can now speak fluent, self-taught English, was elected Chief of Intelligence of the ANC in 1987, was partly responsible for the CODESA negotiation process, and is credited with bringing the IFP to the negotiation table during the violence of the early 1990s. It would seem, according to this logic, that 2329 ANC voters are also foolish, with 1505 being intelligent (those who voted for Thabo Mbeki). Mbeki himself, by extention, must be foolish for appointing this fool to the second highest office in the country in June 1999.
MORE FOOLS
In June 1999 Trevor Manuel, a guy with no formal economics qualification (he was a civil engineer) took over the reigns at the national treasury. Immediately there was an outcry, critics pointing out these “shortcomings”. Over the years the man has done a very good job in his ministry, and has become the darling of the same critics. Bill Clinton, we all know his shortcomings, well, you know what I mean…he led one of the US’s most successful economic periods during his time.
JUSTIFIABLE PARANOIA?
Are JZ’s critics justified in their paranoia? Are we really going to see the economy fall apart? Will women be even more vilified (Mzansi hates its women – we rape them, beat them up, maim them, deprive them of love, keep them suppressed in every way)? This is already happening in Mzansi, it’s not a futuristic projection. Will gay people’s rights be revoked via Constitutional amendments? Others have said we will become a communist country, or that socialist policies will be pushed harder. Is this at all possible? If so, are these bad things, to concentrate more on poor people?
IN FUTURE
Who knows what a Zuma administration will look like. I bet you not even Zuma himself knows. The ANC rules in government, which means ANC policies are most likely to become law if passed by the ANC itself. That JZ or Mbeki is heading the party should not matter when it comes to this. Or should it? Is JZ so powerful as to change ANC, or indeed the country’s policies all by himself? I don’t know.
THE FAR FUTURE
So what of the whole NPA/ corruption charges thing? Is JZ already on his way down? Well he has survived two post-apartheid court trials already. A third could really bring him down. In such a case, who would take over after him? The most obvious in line is his new Deputy Mr Kgalema Motlanthe. What about the country’s reputation, would it be negative if he was to be charged and convicted while being ANC president? Possibly. But life would not end there. Many previous prominent ANC members have been convicted for financial wrongdoing by the new justice system, the likes of Rev. Alan Boesak come to mind, Tony Yengeni, Shabir Shaik, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela etc. Even SABC CEO Dali Mpofu has been sniffed in 1992 for suspicion of fraud against his organisation the ANC. Others include John Block, and Linda Mti who lost their jobs due to fraud cases against them.
Despite all this, we are still here. The sky didn't fall on us, and this so-called "Zunami" didn't sweep anyone away. Not yet anyway.
19 December 2007
18 December 2007
THE POLOKWANE FACTOR
Polokwane is abuzz with activity this week as shop owners, B&B managers, hoteliers and others, constantly run about trying to take advantage of the ANC conference happening there.
I was meant to be in Polokwane over the weekend myself. Nothing connected to the conference of course, but personal functions. It didn’t happen for various reasons. I got worried as the days drew closer though, about traffic and so on.
It seems a lot is happening at the conference, with voting delayed for about 3 hours when there was a computer problem. That has been solved. Voting continues.
Over the past few weeks I have had countless conversations, as I’m sure you have too, with people about this ANC conference. In particular we speak about issues relating to the new leadership that is proposed for the ANC, including the possibility of President Thabo Mbeki being replaced by his Deputy Jacob Zuma as party president. I’ve heard comments such as:
“Zuma is not an intellectual.”
“I’m worried if Zuma wins, that is the end for Mzansi”
“How can you ask me which side I am on when you know that JZ is our leader?”
“We cannot have a corrupt man in power”
“Thabo is also corrupt. This truth will come out eventually”
And others. I guess this is what one would call grassroots comments. It seems natural to me that each time we have a potential change of leadership a lot of words are exchanged between concerned parties, some pleasant, most probably not. I personally expect it. What I do not expect are adults who behave as children at such points in time, going at each other relentlessly and viciously. Last week I told a friend of mine about the big arms cache at the OR Tambo airport, and joked that I hoped it wasn’t meant for shipping to Polokwane. We have gone through the whole violence thing and going back would be catastrophic.
So we wait.
I was meant to be in Polokwane over the weekend myself. Nothing connected to the conference of course, but personal functions. It didn’t happen for various reasons. I got worried as the days drew closer though, about traffic and so on.
It seems a lot is happening at the conference, with voting delayed for about 3 hours when there was a computer problem. That has been solved. Voting continues.
Over the past few weeks I have had countless conversations, as I’m sure you have too, with people about this ANC conference. In particular we speak about issues relating to the new leadership that is proposed for the ANC, including the possibility of President Thabo Mbeki being replaced by his Deputy Jacob Zuma as party president. I’ve heard comments such as:
“Zuma is not an intellectual.”
“I’m worried if Zuma wins, that is the end for Mzansi”
“How can you ask me which side I am on when you know that JZ is our leader?”
“We cannot have a corrupt man in power”
“Thabo is also corrupt. This truth will come out eventually”
And others. I guess this is what one would call grassroots comments. It seems natural to me that each time we have a potential change of leadership a lot of words are exchanged between concerned parties, some pleasant, most probably not. I personally expect it. What I do not expect are adults who behave as children at such points in time, going at each other relentlessly and viciously. Last week I told a friend of mine about the big arms cache at the OR Tambo airport, and joked that I hoped it wasn’t meant for shipping to Polokwane. We have gone through the whole violence thing and going back would be catastrophic.
So we wait.
06 December 2007
How we can all discover ourselves in health
Yesterday I had such a good chuckle to myself while I was driving. Listening to the radio I heard an advert come on, and the CEO of Discovery Health Mr Adrian Gore was saying how easy it is for people to dismiss health insurance as an expensive cost they don’t actually need, when they are prepared to pay so much more for luxuries. He then hinted that Discovery has 2 million members, which I thought was quite a lot.
Just for my own amusement I then took out my calculator and multiplied half a million people by R1 600, which may be a reasonable monthly premium that the average Discovery member pays on their medical aid. Of course the real figure is much higher, but R1 600 was enough for my purpose. Guess what? My calculator returned this message “too large value entered”. Gees! Like, how much money IS this? Bringing out a more powerful calculator – which probably has more brain power than the idiot who captained the Titanic – I got a number back that read 800 000 000. Eight hundred million rand per month in revenues. At least. The company made R1.1 billion operating profit in its latest financial year, up 34% from the previous one.
Make what you will of these numbers, but that is a fair reflection of how much Discovery makes in monthly revenues. I have no clue how Discovery, or for that matter, any other medical aid scheme make their money. I assume they invest most of what we submit to them via debit orders every month, since only a small percentage of us claim back in hospital, sick, or operation fees etc. These schemes, interestingly referred to as such, basically “administer” money on your behalf, in case you need it. And you obviously can’t claim all of it back. The only time they can lose money is either through fraud or if they make very bad investment decisions, like putting your money through a pyramid scheme for example. It sounds to me like a financially awesome business to be in.
Here’s a quick suggestion for Discovery and other high-end medical aid providers. There are 47 million people living in Mzansi. Given that Discovery is the biggest of the lot, bigger than five or more of the next ones below it combined, you can do the sums and see how many don’t have medical aid. Like the Post Office Bank and the Mzansi initiative that were launched to bank the underbanked, medical aid schemes need to strive to give access to at least some of their essential services to those who really need them most; poor people. These folks need doctors’ fees, maternity support, medicines for their health, ARVs in some cases, etc. They are not asking “subsidised” gym membership or access to the latest movie showing at the cinema.
Imagine spreading just R20 million of R1.1 billion worth of health care among 30 million people, even 20 million individuals. Imagine that.
Just for my own amusement I then took out my calculator and multiplied half a million people by R1 600, which may be a reasonable monthly premium that the average Discovery member pays on their medical aid. Of course the real figure is much higher, but R1 600 was enough for my purpose. Guess what? My calculator returned this message “too large value entered”. Gees! Like, how much money IS this? Bringing out a more powerful calculator – which probably has more brain power than the idiot who captained the Titanic – I got a number back that read 800 000 000. Eight hundred million rand per month in revenues. At least. The company made R1.1 billion operating profit in its latest financial year, up 34% from the previous one.
Make what you will of these numbers, but that is a fair reflection of how much Discovery makes in monthly revenues. I have no clue how Discovery, or for that matter, any other medical aid scheme make their money. I assume they invest most of what we submit to them via debit orders every month, since only a small percentage of us claim back in hospital, sick, or operation fees etc. These schemes, interestingly referred to as such, basically “administer” money on your behalf, in case you need it. And you obviously can’t claim all of it back. The only time they can lose money is either through fraud or if they make very bad investment decisions, like putting your money through a pyramid scheme for example. It sounds to me like a financially awesome business to be in.
Here’s a quick suggestion for Discovery and other high-end medical aid providers. There are 47 million people living in Mzansi. Given that Discovery is the biggest of the lot, bigger than five or more of the next ones below it combined, you can do the sums and see how many don’t have medical aid. Like the Post Office Bank and the Mzansi initiative that were launched to bank the underbanked, medical aid schemes need to strive to give access to at least some of their essential services to those who really need them most; poor people. These folks need doctors’ fees, maternity support, medicines for their health, ARVs in some cases, etc. They are not asking “subsidised” gym membership or access to the latest movie showing at the cinema.
Imagine spreading just R20 million of R1.1 billion worth of health care among 30 million people, even 20 million individuals. Imagine that.
28 October 2007
DSTV: so much more of less
Three years ago a friend of mine who works for Multichoice’s DSTV division phoned and asked me why I was not a DSTV subscriber. I simply told her that I did not have much time for DSTV, that I was busy with interviews, and writing hundreds of articles for my then-employer. Watching perpetual television was not in my schedule at the time. The other reason was that I didn’t see much in the offering to suit my viewing tastes. Later on I reversed my decision, realising that the people I lived with could enjoy some of the entertainment offered by some of the DSTV channels, very few of which I knew anyway. With time I’ve also been able to enjoy some of the offerings on DSTV, channels like The History Channel, ESPN, MM1 and MM2, Discovery, Disney and others, rank highly on my to-do-list. I love the fact that I can watch sports like Formula One live on SuperSport.About two months ago I wrote an email to the head of DSTV programming enquiring about something. The gist of my query related to an apparent lack of my type of programming on DSTV. One of my favourite channels on the satellite service channel is Series, which, as many of you know, plays series like dramas and soapies. Old and new, you’ll find “classics” like Baywatch alongside The A-Team, Melrose Place, Knight Rider, Home Improvement, Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond. I explained to the DSTV lady that as much as I enjoy some of these, I didn’t feel complete as an African in Africa, without reruns of programmes like Martin, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times, The Wayans Brothers, Living Single…it was a long list. I get the Grammys and the Oscars, but I don’t get the Soul Trains and the NAACP Image Awards or the BET Hip Hop Awards. While other “cultures” are represented with several DMX music channels, I can’t find any kwaito channel on DMX, any gospel, especially African gospel, and there is no 90s R&B on there!
Guess what? Two months later, and counting, I still have not received ANY form of reply whatsoever from this powerful person at DSTV. This after paying a stipend of over R500 to these folks in Randburg, north of Jozi. Apart from being peeved right inside my nostril hairs at being ignored, I realised then that DSTV is not here for me. It’s just here for DSTV and a few other people who don’t necessarily like the same things as I do.
So when ICASA announced that four satellite broadcasting licenses had been issued to Telkom Media, On Digital Media (ODM), e.tv's sister firm, E-Sat, and Walking on Water (a company devoted to pro-Christian programming), I jumped for joy. It felt like the day Cell C and Virgin Mobile came along, or the dream I had of an announcement that Telkom was about to get three more players in its fields. All these new companies have promised a combined total of over 100 channels between all of them. Fantastic news. ODM even says they’ll adopt a pay-as-you-watch system where you only pay for the channels you actually watch. More wonderful news. And none of them will charge over R350 per month! Amazing!
Come 2008 around about this time all these new players would have launched their menus to us all. Maybe by that day I would have had a response from this big honcho at DSTV. Or maybe I would have switched suppliers and gone for one of the new players, by which event her response will be totally meaningless to me.
21 October 2007
RIP Lucky
Amid all the Rugby World Cup euphoria, South Africans woke up to the terrible news about the killing of reggae musician Lucky Dube. Dube, 43, was shot and killed instantly when he was hijacked by a gang of men near Bassonia, south of Jozi. Why anyone would kill Dube, right in front of his kids, is still baffling. Hijackers have been given license to take our cars away from us, but taking our lives is totally unnecessary. Widespread condemnation and fear has been heard throughout the land from this very sad event. I just hope rumours of an "inside job" are not true.
Dube was a true patriot, a national hero who rose from certain ashes as a farm boy raised by a single mother, to become one of the world’s most celebrated reggae artists. His achievements include earning over 20 international music awards and being the only SA musician to have signed a recording deal with the famous Motown Records label. He performed to thousands of fans at a time all over the world including Ghana, Jamaica, Australia and the US. The city of Dallas in Texas has even given him honorary citizenship.
For one known for massive reggae hits like “Slave”, “Prisoner”, “Together as one”, “Think about the children” and “Feel irie”, Lucky Dube actually started out as a mbaqanga arist, recording with his cousin Richard Siluma, the famous Richie S. In fact he recorded 6 Zulu albums and one Afrikaans before his very first English recording Rastas Never Die in 1984.
Dube was an avid fan of horses and owned a few on his KwaZulu Natal farm. Rest in peace Lucky Philip Dube. May your children and the rest of your extended family find inner peace as well.
16 October 2007
Get out of your car, get into a taxi!
A while back, about 4 years ago, I was lucky enough to hitch a ride to the Australian Formula One Grand Prix. It was an awesome experience, one that I will always cherish. One of the major reasons I had a good time is that I was able to get to the racing circuit, some 10km distance from my hotel, easily, to and fro. Australia has a good tram system which for the purposes of the F1 GP, had exclusive entry and exit stations to ferry people around who are going to the circuit exclusively. It would pick us up about 200 metres from the hotel and drop us off about 20 metres from the circuit. Much like the recent Olympics in Greece.Do we have a tram system? No, Jozi and other towns had trams back in the day, but not anymore. So how are we going to transport people who have come here to watch the FIFA World Cup in 2010 without any hiccups? Show them to the nearest taxi rank perhaps? I hear “Gautrain Gautrain” but what about those living in Polokwane, in Cape Town, P.E, in Durban? Buses maybe? On a short visit to Amsterdam in 2005 I used trams again, getting around was easy, even the last tram I took at about 10pm was still running and on time. Our public transport system seriously needs an overhaul.
This is why I don’t understand the new craze of local and provincial government to stop the public from buying new cars. Those of us who are of darker hue and/or frizzled natural hair will know that from the very first day you start working, your goal is to buy your own car and get out of the taxi system. The government should know this. Yet in Gauteng the craze is to get the public to use public transport more by creating, out of the existing “fast lanes” on the freeway, a dedicated lane to motorists who carry three or more passengers in their vehicles. Three or more. That’s a taxi. If you are used to travel alone you’ll suddenly have to invite a few others to join you everyday so you can give them a lift to and from work. This experiment was carried out last year on Africa’s busiest freeway, the N1 between Jozi and Pretoria, and it caused a lot of anguish to those who travel solo. Is the government itself trying to sabotage the good work done by the Department of Trade and Industry via the MIDP in encouraging lower vehicle costs and thus affordability for those who have never owned cars before?
It gets worse. Lately traffic lights have appeared on busy on and offramps near the freeways. What clear logic is there in these? I honestly can’t see how a traffic light that stops you on the onramp as you are about to join the freeway, can help ease traffic congestion. Maybe I’m just a foolish motorist.
Worse still, a few toll gates have been proposed on popular freeways around Gauteng. These include places like offramps near New Road in Midrand, the offramp near Buccleuch etc. In fact, what is being proposed is something like this, according to the South African National Roads Agency’s (SANRAL) advertisements over the past weekend:
The N1 between the Golden Highway South and the Allandale interchange in Midrand would have 10 tollgates, five on each side of the freeway.
The section of the N1 from the New Road interchange in Midrand to the Lynnwood road interchange in Pretoria will take about 7 tollgates.
The N12 would have a total of nine tollgates. The part of the road stretching between Gillooly’s there by EastGate Mall and the border between Gauteng and Mpumalanga would have five tollgates.
The section of the N12 from the Diepkloof interchange in Soweto to the Reading interchange in Alberton would have a total of 4 tollgates.
The N3 between the Buccleuch interchange in northern Johannesburg and Heidelberg road, southeast of the city, could have 8 tolls, four on each side of the road.
The N4 would have two toll plazas.
Therefore if you work in Pretoria and live in the south, you could find yourself paying over 8 times in toll fees. And that is just going ONE WAY! The system will use prepaid cards that you buy so you don’t have to stop all the time to slide a credit card or pay cash.
The public, that is you and I, have a chance to comment on these proposed developments before the closing date of the 14th November 2007. I suggest we do.
27 September 2007
Transformation? Yeah right!
I’m not sure what “transformation” is in the context of the new Mzansi, but I know one thing for sure; we are all here to practise self-preservation to the best of our ability!
What in the heck am I on about on this wet, cold, Thursday morning? Well think about it. Why did you go to school, willingly or otherwise? Why do you have a job? You obviously want to earn money so you can buy food, clothes, rent or buy a home, drive a car, entertain yourself etc. In other words you want to live.
Therefore making changes in your life is always for your own benefit, not someone else’s. Thus it always amazes me when people complain about the slow pace of transformation in the workplace. I had an interesting conversation with a friend a few days ago. He was telling me about the company he works for, a multinational whose head office is in the UK. He says the company is losing a lot of its black staff, especially at managerial level, because it refuses to transform. He says the company has been hiring a lot of young white staff who have no experience in their jobs. Some of them have been put in charge of these black managers and the managers have to constantly show them how the work is done. He says he and his black colleagues have had enough and are leading an “exodus” out of that evil white hole.
After our conversation I understood the position of the white company. Yes I feel sad for my friend’s feelings and frustrations, and I realise his story is but one of many others that corporate Mzansi faces every day (remember the boy from Investec a few months ago?). On the other hand white people, like every other people, are here for themselves. They are not interested in helping anyone else advance at their own expense. Who would do that anyway? Mandela? Mother Theresa? Not all of us are that big-hearted.
The run towards meaningful transformation will NOT be led by those who fear change. It will NOT be implemented by them that hold on greedily on to power. No. Transformation will be effected on the day we ALL realise that it is a necessary decision that will ultimately benefit everyone who lives and works in Mzansi. Without transformation we have millions of frustrated, angry black people who may one day act blindly in search of justice.
What in the heck am I on about on this wet, cold, Thursday morning? Well think about it. Why did you go to school, willingly or otherwise? Why do you have a job? You obviously want to earn money so you can buy food, clothes, rent or buy a home, drive a car, entertain yourself etc. In other words you want to live.
Therefore making changes in your life is always for your own benefit, not someone else’s. Thus it always amazes me when people complain about the slow pace of transformation in the workplace. I had an interesting conversation with a friend a few days ago. He was telling me about the company he works for, a multinational whose head office is in the UK. He says the company is losing a lot of its black staff, especially at managerial level, because it refuses to transform. He says the company has been hiring a lot of young white staff who have no experience in their jobs. Some of them have been put in charge of these black managers and the managers have to constantly show them how the work is done. He says he and his black colleagues have had enough and are leading an “exodus” out of that evil white hole.
After our conversation I understood the position of the white company. Yes I feel sad for my friend’s feelings and frustrations, and I realise his story is but one of many others that corporate Mzansi faces every day (remember the boy from Investec a few months ago?). On the other hand white people, like every other people, are here for themselves. They are not interested in helping anyone else advance at their own expense. Who would do that anyway? Mandela? Mother Theresa? Not all of us are that big-hearted.
The run towards meaningful transformation will NOT be led by those who fear change. It will NOT be implemented by them that hold on greedily on to power. No. Transformation will be effected on the day we ALL realise that it is a necessary decision that will ultimately benefit everyone who lives and works in Mzansi. Without transformation we have millions of frustrated, angry black people who may one day act blindly in search of justice.
14 September 2007
the REAL reed dance!
Reed dance
Every year in early September, Zulus and Swazis gather in their respective lands for a big festival called umkhosi womhlanga or reed dance. It’s a very important festival as it marks the start of spring, which is a new season for planting seeds and is generally seen as one symbolising a fresh new beginning.
Thousands descend upon kwaNongoma in the northern KwaZulu Natal province where the Zulu king’s main palace is located. In essence you could say Nongoma then is the capital of the Zulu nation. I’ve been to a couple of these festivals and it is truly a remarkable spectacle from an outsider’s point of view; the dancing, the singing, the chanting, the traditional garb, all the bright colours, smiling faces, lots of laughter, food and drink. And of course the long reeds themselves. Maidens of virgin status take part in the dance as they are deemed “pure and innocent” in thought. Virginity in the old days was cherished, in many global societies, not just Zulu culture. It symbolised clean youth, a simple way of life. It told society that you or your child was a “good” person, a person of excellent family morals whose humanly desires could never overcome her resolve to remain a virgin until marriage.
What began to happen is that because most of the land’s young girls were in attendance, the residing monarch would spot one while the festival went on and resume a courtship, or at least attempt to. Of course she could always refuse the king, but that was not at all encouraged as kings of the time were exceptionally quick to punish anyone who they thought went against the rule of the land, which was essentially the word of the king. This practice also saved the king time as he always knew the maidens were virgins and that they were available. Older maidens called amaqhikiza, who were spoken for, could not take part in the reed dance. The king could also take as many wives as he wanted.
An important point to make about the reed dance is that no young girl is forced to partake. Yes families do put pressure on them to because it means they can prove to the world their virginity, but they are not forced. In fact, from what I have gathered, many certainly desire to attend, just in case the king spots them while they dance and makes them his wife number so and so. Being royalty cannot be bought by any amount of money and for these girls the festival holds a good chance to becoming royalty. Actually, the king’s own daughters take part as well.
Lately though the mainstream media has been at the forefront of criticising the reed dance, saying it is a backward tradition, one that degrades women and makes a mockery of the “one-man one-woman” romance idea. I do believe our Westernisation and vast cultural ignorance has played a huge part in such criticism, that we severely lack understanding and tolerance for other people’s customs as a nation. One only has to think back to last year on the SPCA and Tony Yengeni’s little storm in a teacup regarding his slaughtering of a bull to thank his ancestors. Had this ritual taken place in a homeland or a township people would have come from far and wide to celebrate with him, instead of throwing stones without trying to appreciate his custom.
Every year in early September, Zulus and Swazis gather in their respective lands for a big festival called umkhosi womhlanga or reed dance. It’s a very important festival as it marks the start of spring, which is a new season for planting seeds and is generally seen as one symbolising a fresh new beginning.
Thousands descend upon kwaNongoma in the northern KwaZulu Natal province where the Zulu king’s main palace is located. In essence you could say Nongoma then is the capital of the Zulu nation. I’ve been to a couple of these festivals and it is truly a remarkable spectacle from an outsider’s point of view; the dancing, the singing, the chanting, the traditional garb, all the bright colours, smiling faces, lots of laughter, food and drink. And of course the long reeds themselves. Maidens of virgin status take part in the dance as they are deemed “pure and innocent” in thought. Virginity in the old days was cherished, in many global societies, not just Zulu culture. It symbolised clean youth, a simple way of life. It told society that you or your child was a “good” person, a person of excellent family morals whose humanly desires could never overcome her resolve to remain a virgin until marriage.
What began to happen is that because most of the land’s young girls were in attendance, the residing monarch would spot one while the festival went on and resume a courtship, or at least attempt to. Of course she could always refuse the king, but that was not at all encouraged as kings of the time were exceptionally quick to punish anyone who they thought went against the rule of the land, which was essentially the word of the king. This practice also saved the king time as he always knew the maidens were virgins and that they were available. Older maidens called amaqhikiza, who were spoken for, could not take part in the reed dance. The king could also take as many wives as he wanted.
An important point to make about the reed dance is that no young girl is forced to partake. Yes families do put pressure on them to because it means they can prove to the world their virginity, but they are not forced. In fact, from what I have gathered, many certainly desire to attend, just in case the king spots them while they dance and makes them his wife number so and so. Being royalty cannot be bought by any amount of money and for these girls the festival holds a good chance to becoming royalty. Actually, the king’s own daughters take part as well.
Lately though the mainstream media has been at the forefront of criticising the reed dance, saying it is a backward tradition, one that degrades women and makes a mockery of the “one-man one-woman” romance idea. I do believe our Westernisation and vast cultural ignorance has played a huge part in such criticism, that we severely lack understanding and tolerance for other people’s customs as a nation. One only has to think back to last year on the SPCA and Tony Yengeni’s little storm in a teacup regarding his slaughtering of a bull to thank his ancestors. Had this ritual taken place in a homeland or a township people would have come from far and wide to celebrate with him, instead of throwing stones without trying to appreciate his custom.
03 September 2007
the President's legacy
What a boring couple of weeks we’ve had in the Republic of Circus, also known as South Africa. I’m sure you were wondering where the commentary on these happenings is. Well, here it is:
My thought is that anyone who disobeys orders in a work environment, time and time again, deserves to be shafted. There is no way I could tolerate working with someone who does not listen to his / her colleagues, regardless of their position, goes off and does their own thing at will, and is seen not to be “one of us”. This is more so if that person has been given warnings over and over again. Therefore for the President to fire the former Deputy Health Minister in the manner that he did is totally normal and acceptable, even in corporate SA. We cannot sit in a boardroom meeting and decide on issues, then one of us goes off and says the opposite to the public. What kind of message would our organisation be sending out there? The only other thing though, is that although the executive cabinet is appointed by the President, my imagination says Deputies should answer to their Ministers, and not to the President directly? That you have to ask the President of the country, a very busy man who sleeps only 3 hours a day, to sign your form for an official overseas trip seems a bit trivial. We have over 40 Ministers and their Deputies. Do they all have to ask for permission each time they go to work? I don’t know how these things work, but it all sounds like primary-school to me.
So then why so much noise about the sacking? Two reasons really: first, the President has not had awesome press ever since the HIV/AIDS thing broke out a few years ago. The minister of health has also not had good press at all, and she would have, had she deviated from the policies set by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma when she was head of the country’s health system under Dr Nelson Mandela. Mandela himself in fact, should have done much more to curb the scourge of AIDS as he was in charge when the epidemic went from bad to worse. One of the reasons the old man did not do much during his tenure is that he was already looking out the door into pensionhood, meaning the incumbent Thabo Mbeki was already taking over the resigns even as the old man was still in executive power. Fact is, Mbeki has been President of SA for the past 10 years or so, with two more years to go. So fortunately the AIDS and ARV problem did not land with a beetroot salad from Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (forgive me, I couldn’t resist). However, she did and still does have a little power to help the situation, rather than perpetuate it. That she and the President are not seen, I repeat, not seen, to be helping is the first reason people got mad at the sacking of Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.
Secondly, the President’s firing of Mr Jacob Zuma from cabinet is still one of society’s most divisive and most topical issues, particularly as regards to the manner in which JZs files have been “handled” by the chief. Thus when this whole Madlala-Routledge saga happened, people got flashbacks of the Zuma affair and began to see the President in an even darker light than they had before. Funny that, because, even though Mandela was seen as the savior, he was never taken seriously as a working President, that is, one that is in office grafting like a worker bee, making sure things are getting done. Mbeki we saw as this worker bee, which is why when he officially took over the country applauded in unison, saying “now we’ll get to work, the honeymoon is over”.
Alas, the work did not happen fast enough in people’s eyes. Instead we got scandal after scandal, – high crime; corruption in government; email hoax sagas; the JZ affair; the slapping of Winnie Mandela at the stadium; Khutsong; HIV/AIDS; Bulelani Ngcuka and the Scorpions; the banning of political commentators from SABC; the Deputy President’s R700 000 flight to Dubai; the President’s third term utterances; our “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; the Selebi-Agliotti fume – and the list goes on.
Last Friday in the President’s weekly online essay http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2007/text/at34.txt, he praised the contribution made by the Minister of Health and others. No doubt the Minister has made a contribution. However, we must, as the ordinary public, ask, “has she done well in her job? Or at least, done enough?”
He goes on to say the media in particular, has been peddling lies. Serious accusations, given that the media, specifically the Sunday Times, broke the story of the Minister’s alleged kleptomaniac past and drinking binges. Now here’s another question to that effect; if these allegations are truly a lie, surely suing the paper would bring out the truth in a public court case? Is someone afraid of what may come out during such court proceedings?
Does the Minister of Health enjoy a few dops of the hot stuff? Probably. She may even do so with her boss since he is a brandy connoisseur himself. So what? A lot of people do. Does it negatively affect the way in which she does her job? Now THAT my friend, would be the crux of the story, nothing else.
Should it also be true that the Minister stole jewellery and other goods in Botswana and got a jail sentence there, why not just admit it? A number of ANC officials have been to jail before, it’s not a new event. Admit it, tell the country what happened, say you are sorry, say the Minister served her time and is now a reformed and rehabilitated member of normal society. Simple.
My thought is that anyone who disobeys orders in a work environment, time and time again, deserves to be shafted. There is no way I could tolerate working with someone who does not listen to his / her colleagues, regardless of their position, goes off and does their own thing at will, and is seen not to be “one of us”. This is more so if that person has been given warnings over and over again. Therefore for the President to fire the former Deputy Health Minister in the manner that he did is totally normal and acceptable, even in corporate SA. We cannot sit in a boardroom meeting and decide on issues, then one of us goes off and says the opposite to the public. What kind of message would our organisation be sending out there? The only other thing though, is that although the executive cabinet is appointed by the President, my imagination says Deputies should answer to their Ministers, and not to the President directly? That you have to ask the President of the country, a very busy man who sleeps only 3 hours a day, to sign your form for an official overseas trip seems a bit trivial. We have over 40 Ministers and their Deputies. Do they all have to ask for permission each time they go to work? I don’t know how these things work, but it all sounds like primary-school to me.
So then why so much noise about the sacking? Two reasons really: first, the President has not had awesome press ever since the HIV/AIDS thing broke out a few years ago. The minister of health has also not had good press at all, and she would have, had she deviated from the policies set by Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma when she was head of the country’s health system under Dr Nelson Mandela. Mandela himself in fact, should have done much more to curb the scourge of AIDS as he was in charge when the epidemic went from bad to worse. One of the reasons the old man did not do much during his tenure is that he was already looking out the door into pensionhood, meaning the incumbent Thabo Mbeki was already taking over the resigns even as the old man was still in executive power. Fact is, Mbeki has been President of SA for the past 10 years or so, with two more years to go. So fortunately the AIDS and ARV problem did not land with a beetroot salad from Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (forgive me, I couldn’t resist). However, she did and still does have a little power to help the situation, rather than perpetuate it. That she and the President are not seen, I repeat, not seen, to be helping is the first reason people got mad at the sacking of Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.
Secondly, the President’s firing of Mr Jacob Zuma from cabinet is still one of society’s most divisive and most topical issues, particularly as regards to the manner in which JZs files have been “handled” by the chief. Thus when this whole Madlala-Routledge saga happened, people got flashbacks of the Zuma affair and began to see the President in an even darker light than they had before. Funny that, because, even though Mandela was seen as the savior, he was never taken seriously as a working President, that is, one that is in office grafting like a worker bee, making sure things are getting done. Mbeki we saw as this worker bee, which is why when he officially took over the country applauded in unison, saying “now we’ll get to work, the honeymoon is over”.
Alas, the work did not happen fast enough in people’s eyes. Instead we got scandal after scandal, – high crime; corruption in government; email hoax sagas; the JZ affair; the slapping of Winnie Mandela at the stadium; Khutsong; HIV/AIDS; Bulelani Ngcuka and the Scorpions; the banning of political commentators from SABC; the Deputy President’s R700 000 flight to Dubai; the President’s third term utterances; our “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe; the Selebi-Agliotti fume – and the list goes on.
Last Friday in the President’s weekly online essay http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2007/text/at34.txt, he praised the contribution made by the Minister of Health and others. No doubt the Minister has made a contribution. However, we must, as the ordinary public, ask, “has she done well in her job? Or at least, done enough?”
He goes on to say the media in particular, has been peddling lies. Serious accusations, given that the media, specifically the Sunday Times, broke the story of the Minister’s alleged kleptomaniac past and drinking binges. Now here’s another question to that effect; if these allegations are truly a lie, surely suing the paper would bring out the truth in a public court case? Is someone afraid of what may come out during such court proceedings?
Does the Minister of Health enjoy a few dops of the hot stuff? Probably. She may even do so with her boss since he is a brandy connoisseur himself. So what? A lot of people do. Does it negatively affect the way in which she does her job? Now THAT my friend, would be the crux of the story, nothing else.
Should it also be true that the Minister stole jewellery and other goods in Botswana and got a jail sentence there, why not just admit it? A number of ANC officials have been to jail before, it’s not a new event. Admit it, tell the country what happened, say you are sorry, say the Minister served her time and is now a reformed and rehabilitated member of normal society. Simple.
It must be disconcerting to the President that he may well leave a legacy that is mostly devoid of praise for the good work he has done, that all his earnest efforts will be entirely drowned by the issues I tabled above. That he is a great orator, reader, intellectual and visionary has not translated satisfaction among the general population.
Is it too late to change this perception? I certainly think not.
06 August 2007
The 90s: R&B’s golden decade
I woke up this Friday thinking “damn, what a great time for music the 1990s were!” Of course a different generation will disagree, saying there were nasties like “gangsta rap”, too much sampling, kwaito and a whole lot of other nags. Who cares! Every generation goes through this. My mother used to be disgusted by my loud R Kelly “12 Play” cassette, yes taped straight from an original into the old TDK tapes we all owned. I was quite fond of the 60 (minute) ones because even though they carried less music than the 90 (minute), they lasted much longer.
Anyway, I was on a point here. My mother’s generation, and I realise she may be the same age as some of you reading this, grew up on Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka, The Manhattan Brothers, the Beatles and James Brown among others. But their parents, my grandparents, thought that music was vile to the t-junction! Most of that generation grew up without recorded music.
Now as far as the 1990s, ah what a period in our music! Especially the R&B side. Do you remember serenading or being serenaded to the heartwrenching sound of Shai back in 1993, “If I ever fall in love…”? or JoDeCi, the rough yet smooth quartet with tracks like “Forever My Lady”? How about the high-pitched teens from Hi-Five (“I can’t wait another minute”, “Never should have let you go”). Or Mariah Carey with the sad “Love takes time” and “Without you”. We had just come out of the Billy Ocean/ Rick Astley era of the love hit song and were being introduced to the golden period of R&B via such legends as Keith Sweat – Make it last forever – which was a tribute really to the genius of the 1980s new-jack-swing trio Guy. I could go on until the end of the Internet, but I’d rather leave it to you to think back and smile at the memories these and hundreds of other tracks might bring to you. Better yet, sift through your collection and just play them:
1. Tony! Toni! Tone! – Anniversary
2. Soul 4 Real – Candy Rain, I don’t know, Thinking of you
3. Atlantic Star – Masterpiece
4. II D Extreme – Up on the roof
5. SWV – Weak, You always on my mind
6. Silk – Freak me, Girl u for me, Lose control
7. Tevin – Tell me what you want me to do, Brown eyed girl,
8. H-Town – Knochin da boots
9. Exceed – Freaky way (Mzansi R&B at its best)
10. MC Hammer – Have you seen her (can’t lie, you sang along to it too!)
11. R Kelly – Bump n grind, For you
12. En Vogue – Giving him something he can feel
13. Portrait - Here’s a kiss, I can call you
14. UNV – So in love with you
15. All 4 One – So in love, I swear, These arms
16. Classic Example – I do care
17. Intro – Come inside, Don’t leave me
18. IV Example – I’d rather be alone
19. After 7 – Damn thing called love, ‘Til you do me right
20. En Vogue – Don’t let go
21. Xscape – Understanding,
22. Aaliyah – At your best (you are love)
23. BlackStreet – Joy, Before I let you go
24. Boyz II Men – Please don’t go, In the still of the night, Water runs dry
25. Kut Klose – Get up on it, Surrender
26. Mary J Blige – I never wanna live without you, I love you
27. …
Anyway, I was on a point here. My mother’s generation, and I realise she may be the same age as some of you reading this, grew up on Miriam Makeba, Dorothy Masuka, The Manhattan Brothers, the Beatles and James Brown among others. But their parents, my grandparents, thought that music was vile to the t-junction! Most of that generation grew up without recorded music.
Now as far as the 1990s, ah what a period in our music! Especially the R&B side. Do you remember serenading or being serenaded to the heartwrenching sound of Shai back in 1993, “If I ever fall in love…”? or JoDeCi, the rough yet smooth quartet with tracks like “Forever My Lady”? How about the high-pitched teens from Hi-Five (“I can’t wait another minute”, “Never should have let you go”). Or Mariah Carey with the sad “Love takes time” and “Without you”. We had just come out of the Billy Ocean/ Rick Astley era of the love hit song and were being introduced to the golden period of R&B via such legends as Keith Sweat – Make it last forever – which was a tribute really to the genius of the 1980s new-jack-swing trio Guy. I could go on until the end of the Internet, but I’d rather leave it to you to think back and smile at the memories these and hundreds of other tracks might bring to you. Better yet, sift through your collection and just play them:
1. Tony! Toni! Tone! – Anniversary
2. Soul 4 Real – Candy Rain, I don’t know, Thinking of you
3. Atlantic Star – Masterpiece
4. II D Extreme – Up on the roof
5. SWV – Weak, You always on my mind
6. Silk – Freak me, Girl u for me, Lose control
7. Tevin – Tell me what you want me to do, Brown eyed girl,
8. H-Town – Knochin da boots
9. Exceed – Freaky way (Mzansi R&B at its best)
10. MC Hammer – Have you seen her (can’t lie, you sang along to it too!)
11. R Kelly – Bump n grind, For you
12. En Vogue – Giving him something he can feel
13. Portrait - Here’s a kiss, I can call you
14. UNV – So in love with you
15. All 4 One – So in love, I swear, These arms
16. Classic Example – I do care
17. Intro – Come inside, Don’t leave me
18. IV Example – I’d rather be alone
19. After 7 – Damn thing called love, ‘Til you do me right
20. En Vogue – Don’t let go
21. Xscape – Understanding,
22. Aaliyah – At your best (you are love)
23. BlackStreet – Joy, Before I let you go
24. Boyz II Men – Please don’t go, In the still of the night, Water runs dry
25. Kut Klose – Get up on it, Surrender
26. Mary J Blige – I never wanna live without you, I love you
27. …
24 July 2007
Media faces spotlight
Media - society’s conscience
Media generally sees itself as a watchdog in society, whether exposing uncouth celebrities or corrupt government officials or unethical white collar criminals, media always sees itself as the custodian of right and wrong. In any normal society poets and other artists are generally seen as the conscience of that society through the truth and honesty with which they portray that particular society. Writers as well, who are sometimes poets after hours.
Who edits what
As a mini-media practitioner myself, I was saddened to learn something of an injustice
happening within the media industry. The Sunday Times, Mzansi’s largest weekly, employs an editor to run the paper. His name is Mondli Makhanya and he used to be the editor of Mail & Guardian just before he took over at Sunday Times from Mathatha Tsedu, who has been doing an awesome job at City Press since taking over from Vusi Mona. Keep up now: Makhanya is at Sunday Times, Tsedu at City Press (now promoted to Editor-in-Chief) and Mona is no longer in mainstream media. All these men, are, well, men, and yes black. Back to that later.
Mzansi’s biggest newspapers
Now, in the corporate environment, logic says the biggest pays the best, which means Makhanya should theoretically be the highest paid editor in the land, right next to the guy that edits Daily Sun. Don’t forget now, Daily Sun sells around 500 000 copies DAILY, the same as what Sunday Times sells WEEKLY. That means over 10 million Daily Sun papers go through the masses every month, while about 2 million Sunday Times copies are read each month. These are VERY big numbers. Very very big.
Who earns what?
Makhanya then, gets the fattest cheque right? Nope. That goes to Peter Bruce. Peter who? Bruce. He edits Business Day. BD has a daily circulation of around 42 000, amounting to 840 000 monthly. What’s wrong with this picture? Clearly Makhanya should be asking “wait a minute, where’s my loot?”. Especially since Business Day and Sunday Times are owned by the same publishing company Johnncom. Do you smell a rat? I do. A guy like me who runs a tiny little blog in a blade of grass at FNB Stadium, that goes out to 760 people (up from 500 three weeks ago by the way), doesn’t expect to get paid R60 000 a month. But hell, if I were editing the Sunday Times I’d really ask some BIG questions like “hey, how come that guy next door whose paper is only 42% odd the size of mine, gets a bigger cheque than mine?” Does that make cents to you? Imagine President Mbeki demanding a yearly salary the size of Angela Merkel’s, Germany’s Chancellor (R2.5 million) or Shinzo Abe’s of Japan (R2.6 million). Doesn’t make sense.
Where the ladies at?
Did you notice though, that all the names I mentioned are men? Which woman edits a major newspaper eMzansi? Just two. Phylicia Oppelt of Daily Dispatch in East London and Ferial Haffajee, editor of the Mail & Guardian. Women run newsrooms all over the country, and of course they make excellent journalists. But often when it comes to promotions to the big league, their bosses, the publishers, look over their shoulders and often headhunt from outside, or worse, appoint juniors to those positions. Now can you imagine what these two said ladies are getting paid? It must surely be pathetic. Reminds me of that old joke that went: “God looked at my work and smiled. Then he looked at my pay slip and wept”.
The usual BEE rant
While it may be true that Mzansi’s major newspapers are headed by black men (Sunday Tribune, Sunday World, Sunday Sun, Sowetan, Sunday Times, City Press, Isolezwe, The Star), ownership is still either in white or foreign or both hands. None of the above-mentioned newspapers are majority-owned by black people. I excluded the Daily Sun because its editor is really its visionary owner/publisher, and not the black face he put “in charge”. So, what are YOU doing to help advance yourself and fellow women in the media field, if you are in the media? Are you falling for the stereotypical scenario of women always bringing each other down, or are you helping other sistas move up in the world? Catch a wake up man! I’ve painted you a picture here, take a close look at it!
Media generally sees itself as a watchdog in society, whether exposing uncouth celebrities or corrupt government officials or unethical white collar criminals, media always sees itself as the custodian of right and wrong. In any normal society poets and other artists are generally seen as the conscience of that society through the truth and honesty with which they portray that particular society. Writers as well, who are sometimes poets after hours.
Who edits what
As a mini-media practitioner myself, I was saddened to learn something of an injustice
happening within the media industry. The Sunday Times, Mzansi’s largest weekly, employs an editor to run the paper. His name is Mondli Makhanya and he used to be the editor of Mail & Guardian just before he took over at Sunday Times from Mathatha Tsedu, who has been doing an awesome job at City Press since taking over from Vusi Mona. Keep up now: Makhanya is at Sunday Times, Tsedu at City Press (now promoted to Editor-in-Chief) and Mona is no longer in mainstream media. All these men, are, well, men, and yes black. Back to that later.Mzansi’s biggest newspapers
Now, in the corporate environment, logic says the biggest pays the best, which means Makhanya should theoretically be the highest paid editor in the land, right next to the guy that edits Daily Sun. Don’t forget now, Daily Sun sells around 500 000 copies DAILY, the same as what Sunday Times sells WEEKLY. That means over 10 million Daily Sun papers go through the masses every month, while about 2 million Sunday Times copies are read each month. These are VERY big numbers. Very very big.
Who earns what?
Makhanya then, gets the fattest cheque right? Nope. That goes to Peter Bruce. Peter who? Bruce. He edits Business Day. BD has a daily circulation of around 42 000, amounting to 840 000 monthly. What’s wrong with this picture? Clearly Makhanya should be asking “wait a minute, where’s my loot?”. Especially since Business Day and Sunday Times are owned by the same publishing company Johnncom. Do you smell a rat? I do. A guy like me who runs a tiny little blog in a blade of grass at FNB Stadium, that goes out to 760 people (up from 500 three weeks ago by the way), doesn’t expect to get paid R60 000 a month. But hell, if I were editing the Sunday Times I’d really ask some BIG questions like “hey, how come that guy next door whose paper is only 42% odd the size of mine, gets a bigger cheque than mine?” Does that make cents to you? Imagine President Mbeki demanding a yearly salary the size of Angela Merkel’s, Germany’s Chancellor (R2.5 million) or Shinzo Abe’s of Japan (R2.6 million). Doesn’t make sense.
Where the ladies at?
Did you notice though, that all the names I mentioned are men? Which woman edits a major newspaper eMzansi? Just two. Phylicia Oppelt of Daily Dispatch in East London and Ferial Haffajee, editor of the Mail & Guardian. Women run newsrooms all over the country, and of course they make excellent journalists. But often when it comes to promotions to the big league, their bosses, the publishers, look over their shoulders and often headhunt from outside, or worse, appoint juniors to those positions. Now can you imagine what these two said ladies are getting paid? It must surely be pathetic. Reminds me of that old joke that went: “God looked at my work and smiled. Then he looked at my pay slip and wept”.
The usual BEE rant
While it may be true that Mzansi’s major newspapers are headed by black men (Sunday Tribune, Sunday World, Sunday Sun, Sowetan, Sunday Times, City Press, Isolezwe, The Star), ownership is still either in white or foreign or both hands. None of the above-mentioned newspapers are majority-owned by black people. I excluded the Daily Sun because its editor is really its visionary owner/publisher, and not the black face he put “in charge”. So, what are YOU doing to help advance yourself and fellow women in the media field, if you are in the media? Are you falling for the stereotypical scenario of women always bringing each other down, or are you helping other sistas move up in the world? Catch a wake up man! I’ve painted you a picture here, take a close look at it!
17 July 2007
Criminals, kaizers and catfights
Hail Kaizer the new chief?
Like a syringe needle through the bum of a baby, Kaizer Motaung the young has been piercing through defenseless defenses in the PSL since he finally got the nod to get off the bench last season. After a few seasons of planting his bumprints on reserve benches, coach Ernst Middendorp saw the value this young man could bring to the Chiefs team and started him often. His faith is now being paid back. Tenfold. Carlos Alberto Parreira is still not convinced as evidenced by the boy’s exclusion from the Bafana lineup that drew against Swaziland and won against Chad a few months ago. Not a problem. Eventually he will be a disciple as well, I do believe this. Meanwhile, jnr faces a bigger challenge in the form of old daddy. Why now? Well, international scouts are a sleepless bunch who scour every field possible looking for new talent to exploit. Kaizer will soon be getting calls asking for his son’s foot in trial. Will the grand master allow his prodigy son to be lost to SA football so soon after finding his own foot? Could he really stand in his way, or will he practise what Chiefs always preaches, that the team never stands in the way of a player who wants to leave? And who will play agent in that transaction? Does jnr even have a manager, or do daddy and big brother Bobby represent him in such matters? Another matter that could complicate things further is the return of Muhsin Ertugral, who is one of the coaches that kept the young star on the bench for so long. I have an inkling that one of the deal-breakers to him returning to Chiefs was a clause that stipulated that he has to play junior in the starting eleven, or at least give him a fair and serious look. No way is senior going to let his young one’s value depreciate over a season after the season he’s just had. No way.
Catfight off the ramps
So one the organisers of Cape Town Fashion Week were not too happy with Mrs Precious Motsepe’s company creating its own fashion week in partnership with Audi? I ask because she is stunning and interesting on the next cover of TRIBUTE magazine. Anywho, said organisers quickly told the philanthropic Motsepe, a trained medical practitioner, to stick to healing people’s bodies and not try to dress them up as well. Fashion designers are obviously chaffed with this development since it gives their work more exposure to the market. Sour grapes? Jealousy? Or is it just normal catfights on the catwalk?
Smooth criminalVaseline Blue Seal’s massive free public relations, thanks to one notorious Mr Ananias Mathe (remember him of slip persuasion), turned out to be phantom. The slippery substance, made from petroleum, on which we all grew up, was not enough to slip Mathe through C-MAX bars on his way to freedom. The answer then, as obvious as it was at the start of Minister Balfour’s enquiry, was that Err Mathe simply forfeited some of the cash he earned by robbing and killing, to some greedy prison officials in exchange for a few months’ freedom. By the way, I do apologise if his picture offends you!
Gero loses her voice
I laughed the other day listening to an ad from the Department of Public Service and Administration. The gist of the radio ad was that the minister, Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, was thankful that the strike we experienced a few weeks ago is over. She thanks all of those who helped out during the strike etc. Funny thing is, it is not actually the minister speaking on the voice over. How can the minister send a message of such importance, paying hundreds of thousands of rands to several radio stations, and not speak personally on it? Eish eish eish.
Heineken comes to partyI guess it helps to know people who know people sometimes. Following my non-party with Heineken at the Durban July, the Dutch brewer decided to flood my house with Heineken. At first I was afraid, I was petrified…ok. In the end it turns out they quite know what they are doing, those Heinie people in Holland. The stuff is very good to the tongue and it goes down quite well after a long day at the office. So now I’ve started dabbling in beer, more specifically Heineken.
Some BEE talk
The following terms have been approved and become popular in places heavily populated by black people:
- BEE phone = Nokia 9000 and N series cell phones (because BEE types are always seen to be clicking and chatting away on these at trendy spots)
- Tender car = Range Rover Sport (once you get a multi million-rand government tender it is said you immediately purchase one of these)
Five things I hate about dinner parties
- Small talk
- Smiling at people we don’t like
- Limited menu options
- B or C-class and has-been hired entertainers
- Self appointed ‘aunties’ who ask you to line up for them at the buffet table.
- Small talk
- Smiling at people we don’t like
- Limited menu options
- B or C-class and has-been hired entertainers
- Self appointed ‘aunties’ who ask you to line up for them at the buffet table.
13 July 2007
Mzansi! Oh we love you!
If you are old enough you’ll remember the “mielies” lady on television, with her bag of mielies balanced on her head, shouting all over the show for attention. Of course for those who grew up in the township or are still living there, she was no extraordinary sight; mielie and grass-broom ladies in the township are as common as hip young people who expose their underwear under baggy and saggy pants. Those ladies are in fact, a pointer to a country obsessed with enterprise. We sell any and everything, to any and everyone. People sell African soil to homesick expats living in the US and UK. We sell grass (as per proper dictionary definition people!) to each other, broken cars to our in-laws, and chicken kebabs outside of clubs at night.
In South Africa anyone can be an entrepreneur, anyone can literally stand at a corner and sell something, be it a newspaper, a sandal, fruit or the nation’s favourite, hangers. The one thing I’ve always wondered about as far as hanger merchants are concerned, apart from the question of who their wholesale supplier is, is how do they pick their preferred spots of trade? I mean, you’ll be approaching an intersection and see one with two packs of hangers on either arm. Plastic hangers, steel wire hangers, blue coloured, white, yellow, red, all sorts. Now I understand about keeping your clothes shapely after ironing, but hangers? Is this all we are able to source and sell? Next thing there’s another guy with exactly the same merchandise right next to the first guy. And another one, and another. A whole street full of hanger traders with only one thing on their minds; selling you as many hangers as they possibly can. Mind you, hangers are not exactly perishable. You buy a set and 23 years later chances are you’ll still be using the exact same ones. It could be that you are part of a cult that collects hangers. Or perhaps you buy and also sell hangers at a profit in your spare time when you leave the suburbian office park where you ply your trade from 9 to 5.
I have seen similar from fruit vendors who line up the same type of fruit along a stretch of road without any sort of differentiation whatsoever. Mangoes? “I’ve got a pile over here, so does the guy sitting next to me. And the guy sitting next to him. We bought our fruit boxes from the same market, and apart from the fact that he is slightly shorter than me, we are basically trying to sell you the same thing at the same price. I guess if you like the look of my pants better than his t-shirt you’ll buy my mangoes instead of his.” It’s like petrol stations, except there, the difference lies in the quickness and accuracy of service. Like I said before, if you can find a friendly corner where no one will “compete” against you, you have a shop. In some upmarket streets of Johannesburg for example, traders sell mirrors. Not small, make-up in my handbag type mirrors but full-sized, fit-in-the-lounge framed mirrors. Mirrors are not cheap mind you. So you drive down the road and suddenly feel this sensation as if the whole of NASA is looking at you. Brightness like you'd only see inside Einstein's brain. Mirrors all around. How do you know which one to choose? In fact, what will make me leave a shop at a mall that specialises in selling mirrors, to go and buy one on the street where it may have been sitting for two days in the sun and rain (some traders don’t take them home with, they just chain them up for the next day)? And spend what, upwards of R950? I don’t know. Do the guys accept IOUs, cheques, credit cards or debit cards? Can I apply for credit and pay it off monthly?
In most metro cities in Mzansi you can pretty much buy anything on the street. The usual include food, clothes, small pieces of furniture, black rubbish bags, cell phone accessories, DVDs, newspapers and so on. Salons have cropped up under makeshift tents on pavements in city centres where ladies get their braids done or have their fingernails cut and polished. Sure some of the stuff is not exactly legit, but any streetwise consumer should be able to tell a genuine Rolex from a “made in a chop shop” Bolex. I see a day when you can even buy a house on the street! I suppose you can already do that if you have a laptop and a wireless connection, and you are having coffee outside a restaurant. That's Mzansi for you.
In South Africa anyone can be an entrepreneur, anyone can literally stand at a corner and sell something, be it a newspaper, a sandal, fruit or the nation’s favourite, hangers. The one thing I’ve always wondered about as far as hanger merchants are concerned, apart from the question of who their wholesale supplier is, is how do they pick their preferred spots of trade? I mean, you’ll be approaching an intersection and see one with two packs of hangers on either arm. Plastic hangers, steel wire hangers, blue coloured, white, yellow, red, all sorts. Now I understand about keeping your clothes shapely after ironing, but hangers? Is this all we are able to source and sell? Next thing there’s another guy with exactly the same merchandise right next to the first guy. And another one, and another. A whole street full of hanger traders with only one thing on their minds; selling you as many hangers as they possibly can. Mind you, hangers are not exactly perishable. You buy a set and 23 years later chances are you’ll still be using the exact same ones. It could be that you are part of a cult that collects hangers. Or perhaps you buy and also sell hangers at a profit in your spare time when you leave the suburbian office park where you ply your trade from 9 to 5.
I have seen similar from fruit vendors who line up the same type of fruit along a stretch of road without any sort of differentiation whatsoever. Mangoes? “I’ve got a pile over here, so does the guy sitting next to me. And the guy sitting next to him. We bought our fruit boxes from the same market, and apart from the fact that he is slightly shorter than me, we are basically trying to sell you the same thing at the same price. I guess if you like the look of my pants better than his t-shirt you’ll buy my mangoes instead of his.” It’s like petrol stations, except there, the difference lies in the quickness and accuracy of service. Like I said before, if you can find a friendly corner where no one will “compete” against you, you have a shop. In some upmarket streets of Johannesburg for example, traders sell mirrors. Not small, make-up in my handbag type mirrors but full-sized, fit-in-the-lounge framed mirrors. Mirrors are not cheap mind you. So you drive down the road and suddenly feel this sensation as if the whole of NASA is looking at you. Brightness like you'd only see inside Einstein's brain. Mirrors all around. How do you know which one to choose? In fact, what will make me leave a shop at a mall that specialises in selling mirrors, to go and buy one on the street where it may have been sitting for two days in the sun and rain (some traders don’t take them home with, they just chain them up for the next day)? And spend what, upwards of R950? I don’t know. Do the guys accept IOUs, cheques, credit cards or debit cards? Can I apply for credit and pay it off monthly?
In most metro cities in Mzansi you can pretty much buy anything on the street. The usual include food, clothes, small pieces of furniture, black rubbish bags, cell phone accessories, DVDs, newspapers and so on. Salons have cropped up under makeshift tents on pavements in city centres where ladies get their braids done or have their fingernails cut and polished. Sure some of the stuff is not exactly legit, but any streetwise consumer should be able to tell a genuine Rolex from a “made in a chop shop” Bolex. I see a day when you can even buy a house on the street! I suppose you can already do that if you have a laptop and a wireless connection, and you are having coffee outside a restaurant. That's Mzansi for you.
09 July 2007
Where were you eDurban July?
Unlike half of Jozi, I came down to warm Durban this past weekend like a tonne of feathers; quietly, quickly and without much fanfare. Our lovely hosts Heineken organised a nice automatic Mercedes-Benz C-Class for us to drive while down at the races for the weekend, which was very nice of them. However, I have not tasted a Heineken. More on this later.
Durban people aren’t used to temperatures in teens so as soon as the air drops to under 20, Durbanites run for the nearest Eskimo import shop to stock up. Goodness gracious me, I had left a Jozi reeling at 12 degrees on Friday evening!
Most people (read “famous”) showed up in creative outfits as expected. Businesspeople, famous people, politicians who are both, plebs trying to spot a celeb or three, overalled workers making sure everyone got their horse on the track on time, traffic staff etc. Of course yours truly got a chance to rub shoulders with some of these prominent folks, most notably my old friend Ms Unathi Nkayi, her partner Thomas Msengana both of Metro FM, and Lupi the hot-shot producer of Thomas’ breakfast show. Gang of Instrumentals, DJ Tira, Dineo from Yfm… Wait. I’m falling for it now. Let me talk about the horses.
The winner was Hunting Tower, a 4-year old gelding (I understand “gelding” means a castrated horse, which basically means no one thought he’d have the balls to win) owned by Bridgette Oppenheimer of THE Oppenheimers. It made me wonder when black people especially, will ever get to a stage where they aren’t just feeding and walking the animals but they own them to race as well. Always the usual suspects. It reminds me of something asked by someone while we were walking around Greyville – that is the name of the race track folks – which went something like this: “I wonder where xxx xxxxx is. He doesn’t come to these things anymore, maybe he wasn’t invited.” To which I replied “see that’s what happens when you’re a celeb. The minute someone decides you’re not so hot anymore you’re off their lists. No more cool freebies, no more VIPs, no more.” Ayi, how cruel this world is! But can xxx xxxxx not form a consortium, buy a horse and race it instead of waiting for a free VIP invite to attend the Durban July? I mean, who spent and who made money off this race? The usual suspects of course.
So anyway, Hunting Tower draped in the number 5, under veteran jockey Anthony Marcus, took it by a head. Hunting Tower really came out of nowhere and was only prominent from the last 150m or so. He was on 8:1 odds, which if I’m not mistaken, means if you put in R5 on him you would have walked away with R40.
Back at the Heineken marquee Dineo from Yfm hit the dance floor hard, almost literally too as she moved to the live sounds that were provided for the guests. Some people thought she’d had a bit too much Heinie. Who cares, it was a party and it was the Vodacom Durban July man! I still have not drunk Heineken. I reckon there was a fair amount of overbooking there by Heineken, either that or a good number of gatecrashers, ‘cause when we got there and asked for the complimentary drinks vouchers as suggested, there were none to be found. “Sorry sir, we’ve run out” said the two angels at the gate. Strange enough the latecomers who sauntered in after us got their drinks on without a problem. See, it’s really WHO you know man, not WHAT you know! Normally the invited guests are counted and matched to their vouchers so that such things don’t happen. Otherwise the voucher tags are included with your air ticket pack before you leave the Jozi and so on. We had a lovely supper at the marquee, lots of different curries – Durban duh – and left ever so swiftly, thirstier than ever. Still no Heineken for me.
Overall a great occasion won by the best horse of the day. Vodacom has done very well after taking over from Rothmans as the sponsor of the Durban July races. It also makes it even more difficult to choose between the Vodacom July in Durban and the J&B Met in Cape Town. At least there I had the privilege of having some J&B at the J&B marquee. Mmhh…
Durban people aren’t used to temperatures in teens so as soon as the air drops to under 20, Durbanites run for the nearest Eskimo import shop to stock up. Goodness gracious me, I had left a Jozi reeling at 12 degrees on Friday evening!
Most people (read “famous”) showed up in creative outfits as expected. Businesspeople, famous people, politicians who are both, plebs trying to spot a celeb or three, overalled workers making sure everyone got their horse on the track on time, traffic staff etc. Of course yours truly got a chance to rub shoulders with some of these prominent folks, most notably my old friend Ms Unathi Nkayi, her partner Thomas Msengana both of Metro FM, and Lupi the hot-shot producer of Thomas’ breakfast show. Gang of Instrumentals, DJ Tira, Dineo from Yfm… Wait. I’m falling for it now. Let me talk about the horses.
The winner was Hunting Tower, a 4-year old gelding (I understand “gelding” means a castrated horse, which basically means no one thought he’d have the balls to win) owned by Bridgette Oppenheimer of THE Oppenheimers. It made me wonder when black people especially, will ever get to a stage where they aren’t just feeding and walking the animals but they own them to race as well. Always the usual suspects. It reminds me of something asked by someone while we were walking around Greyville – that is the name of the race track folks – which went something like this: “I wonder where xxx xxxxx is. He doesn’t come to these things anymore, maybe he wasn’t invited.” To which I replied “see that’s what happens when you’re a celeb. The minute someone decides you’re not so hot anymore you’re off their lists. No more cool freebies, no more VIPs, no more.” Ayi, how cruel this world is! But can xxx xxxxx not form a consortium, buy a horse and race it instead of waiting for a free VIP invite to attend the Durban July? I mean, who spent and who made money off this race? The usual suspects of course.
So anyway, Hunting Tower draped in the number 5, under veteran jockey Anthony Marcus, took it by a head. Hunting Tower really came out of nowhere and was only prominent from the last 150m or so. He was on 8:1 odds, which if I’m not mistaken, means if you put in R5 on him you would have walked away with R40.
Back at the Heineken marquee Dineo from Yfm hit the dance floor hard, almost literally too as she moved to the live sounds that were provided for the guests. Some people thought she’d had a bit too much Heinie. Who cares, it was a party and it was the Vodacom Durban July man! I still have not drunk Heineken. I reckon there was a fair amount of overbooking there by Heineken, either that or a good number of gatecrashers, ‘cause when we got there and asked for the complimentary drinks vouchers as suggested, there were none to be found. “Sorry sir, we’ve run out” said the two angels at the gate. Strange enough the latecomers who sauntered in after us got their drinks on without a problem. See, it’s really WHO you know man, not WHAT you know! Normally the invited guests are counted and matched to their vouchers so that such things don’t happen. Otherwise the voucher tags are included with your air ticket pack before you leave the Jozi and so on. We had a lovely supper at the marquee, lots of different curries – Durban duh – and left ever so swiftly, thirstier than ever. Still no Heineken for me.
Overall a great occasion won by the best horse of the day. Vodacom has done very well after taking over from Rothmans as the sponsor of the Durban July races. It also makes it even more difficult to choose between the Vodacom July in Durban and the J&B Met in Cape Town. At least there I had the privilege of having some J&B at the J&B marquee. Mmhh…
03 July 2007
What is the colour of money?
If you know anything about aeroplanes you’ll know how big they someti
mes can be. The biggest of the lot so far has been the 747 “Jumbo Jet” designed and built by Boeing in Washington, USA. Now there’s a new giant kid on the block that can carry in excess of 500 passengers if configured a certain way. It is called the A380, it costs R1.7 billion each and is made by Boeing’s main rival in the world of plane-making, Airbus. Airbus is based in France, Europe. Now what is 500 people? That is the same number as the people who regularly receive mzansindaba. It’s 8 full busses, or 36 minibus taxis (carrying 14 passengers now, NOT 24!) or a sizeable stage theatre. It is so big they have to manufacture its parts in over 5 different countries around the world!
So the other day I was told about a private buyer who has bought this thing for his own use. No one could say who it was of course, but from what I understand, it’s a Middle-East based gentleman who no doubt will chop off a few parts, put in some beds, bars, Jacuzzis, plasma TVs and all sorts of other bling material so his 12 hour trips across the oceans don’t seem that long anymore. The A380 can do speeds of up to 1077km/h, meaning flying from Jozi to Cape Town, normally a two-hour exodus, would take roughly an hour.
Why am I even talking about this? Well our BEE boys and girls are beginning to live in excess as well, whether they are buying property or “investing” in expensive automobile machinery. We’ve all seen Mr Motsepe’s BMWs, all registered as DOWNS # GP, with the # standing for a number. I’ve seen up to DOWNS 8 GP! He is also said to have a private jet, which I can entirely believe. Private jets are cheap, coming in at around R100 million each. Mr Cyril Ramaphosa has farms that produce the oddest goods like wine, so does Mr Tokyo Sexwale. Ramaphosa is known also as a very private person who is quite shy of showing off his vast wealth (remember that whole Maybach incident 3 years ago?). I know a black guy who owns, among other cool stuff, a helicopter. Black folk with millions to spend on whatever nice things they want. I did some research in 2004 to find out how many of these folks were in South Africa and discovered that in total, there were 25 000 dollar millionaires in this country in 2003. By 2006 that figure had risen to about 38 000, with about 25% of those being black. That’s about 9 500 people worth R7 million or more. Pre-1990 that figure probably stood at 5!
Again, my point is? The point is; people who make money are the same all over the world. They make it in order to spend it, and if it happens that they give it away, they will not give ALL of it away, in fact they probably spend less than 10% on charitable donations. Of course if you are Bill and Melinda Gates then you can afford to spend over R7 billion on charity. It’s not a lot really. At the Jozi edition of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, President Mbeki said: "A global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable" As a BEE cat or kitten, how are you spreading your wealth? Are you at all or do you feel you still need more? Do you have to spread it? Given the history of the country and the fact that 85% of the economy is in the hands of 5% of people, is it such a bad thing for people to make millions, even billions of rands? Should they feel guilty about it?
Black people have never had millions before, let alone billions sitting with individuals. Therefore when they start making such kinds of money and begin to feel guilty about it, it means they are now joining a certain class of people in whose mind only figures count, not colour, race or creed. They therefore become a class on their own, meaning they aren’t just rich, but they are black and rich too. Does it become their duty now to help the rest of the 95% in uplifting themselves? Are they morally bound?
mes can be. The biggest of the lot so far has been the 747 “Jumbo Jet” designed and built by Boeing in Washington, USA. Now there’s a new giant kid on the block that can carry in excess of 500 passengers if configured a certain way. It is called the A380, it costs R1.7 billion each and is made by Boeing’s main rival in the world of plane-making, Airbus. Airbus is based in France, Europe. Now what is 500 people? That is the same number as the people who regularly receive mzansindaba. It’s 8 full busses, or 36 minibus taxis (carrying 14 passengers now, NOT 24!) or a sizeable stage theatre. It is so big they have to manufacture its parts in over 5 different countries around the world!So the other day I was told about a private buyer who has bought this thing for his own use. No one could say who it was of course, but from what I understand, it’s a Middle-East based gentleman who no doubt will chop off a few parts, put in some beds, bars, Jacuzzis, plasma TVs and all sorts of other bling material so his 12 hour trips across the oceans don’t seem that long anymore. The A380 can do speeds of up to 1077km/h, meaning flying from Jozi to Cape Town, normally a two-hour exodus, would take roughly an hour.
Why am I even talking about this? Well our BEE boys and girls are beginning to live in excess as well, whether they are buying property or “investing” in expensive automobile machinery. We’ve all seen Mr Motsepe’s BMWs, all registered as DOWNS # GP, with the # standing for a number. I’ve seen up to DOWNS 8 GP! He is also said to have a private jet, which I can entirely believe. Private jets are cheap, coming in at around R100 million each. Mr Cyril Ramaphosa has farms that produce the oddest goods like wine, so does Mr Tokyo Sexwale. Ramaphosa is known also as a very private person who is quite shy of showing off his vast wealth (remember that whole Maybach incident 3 years ago?). I know a black guy who owns, among other cool stuff, a helicopter. Black folk with millions to spend on whatever nice things they want. I did some research in 2004 to find out how many of these folks were in South Africa and discovered that in total, there were 25 000 dollar millionaires in this country in 2003. By 2006 that figure had risen to about 38 000, with about 25% of those being black. That’s about 9 500 people worth R7 million or more. Pre-1990 that figure probably stood at 5!Again, my point is? The point is; people who make money are the same all over the world. They make it in order to spend it, and if it happens that they give it away, they will not give ALL of it away, in fact they probably spend less than 10% on charitable donations. Of course if you are Bill and Melinda Gates then you can afford to spend over R7 billion on charity. It’s not a lot really. At the Jozi edition of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, President Mbeki said: "A global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable" As a BEE cat or kitten, how are you spreading your wealth? Are you at all or do you feel you still need more? Do you have to spread it? Given the history of the country and the fact that 85% of the economy is in the hands of 5% of people, is it such a bad thing for people to make millions, even billions of rands? Should they feel guilty about it?
Black people have never had millions before, let alone billions sitting with individuals. Therefore when they start making such kinds of money and begin to feel guilty about it, it means they are now joining a certain class of people in whose mind only figures count, not colour, race or creed. They therefore become a class on their own, meaning they aren’t just rich, but they are black and rich too. Does it become their duty now to help the rest of the 95% in uplifting themselves? Are they morally bound?
26 June 2007
PSL deal: casualties to follow
This PSL/SuperSport/SABC thing must end now, it’s gone on for too long. Not as long as the civil servant’s strike but damn near close!
First casualty, Mr Robert Marawa. The poor oke’s sin? Interviewing the CEO of SuperSport Imtaz Patel on his Metro FM (SABC owns Metro) show about the whole saga the day after interviewing PSL chairman Irvin Khoza and SABC Group CEO Dali Mpofu. Well at least that was the reason he was given by the powers-that-be. My first thought? Journalistic uhm, integrity? You remember him? Ethics, balanced reporting, get many sides of the story, that sort of old-fashioned stuff that kept the likes of Drum going in its heyday? Word is, for a while the SABC has been looking at getting rid of the multi-award-winning sports presenter because he works for both SABC and SuperSport. Anyway, what do I know, I’m just a blogger.
So the other day they had Irvin Khoza telling the world how much his group was getting paid for making this deal happen. Now understand this is a billion rand issue and someone is getting paid no matter what. Figures that have been thrown about hover around R30 million for each of Irvin Khoza, Kaizer Motaung and others involved in putting this thing together. That’s not a lot of money mind you: commission on a billion amounts to hundreds of millions of rand. The issue some people had was that these gents were conducting normal day-to-day business as expected of them in their PSL hats, and so they had no rights to earn a commission on the deal as if they were acting as independent contractors. As far as I know, they ARE independent contractors to the PSL; they only work full-time on their respective clubs, not for the PSL. Even if I’m wrong, I know in publishing for instance, that eve full-time staff whose jobs don’t include selling, that bring in advertising from time to time, also get commission from those sales they make.
Business is business and someone will make money here. And it’s not like they are getting rewarded with government, and hence public funds. This is SuperSport shareholders’ money. It reminds me of the R7 million controversy that had SAFA president Molefi Oliphant in a perpetual spin of denial and acceptance of the money for his role in bringing the World Cup to Mzansi. Again, Oliphant was entitled to that money, or even more! Do you know how much it costs to stage a World Cup? Everyone wants a piece, and for someone to contribute towards bringing it to their country as did those gents including Danny Jordaan, it took years of toil, endless trips and possibly lots of “gifts” to FIFA executives all over the planet. Take the money I say! Take it and run. No casualties here.
First casualty, Mr Robert Marawa. The poor oke’s sin? Interviewing the CEO of SuperSport Imtaz Patel on his Metro FM (SABC owns Metro) show about the whole saga the day after interviewing PSL chairman Irvin Khoza and SABC Group CEO Dali Mpofu. Well at least that was the reason he was given by the powers-that-be. My first thought? Journalistic uhm, integrity? You remember him? Ethics, balanced reporting, get many sides of the story, that sort of old-fashioned stuff that kept the likes of Drum going in its heyday? Word is, for a while the SABC has been looking at getting rid of the multi-award-winning sports presenter because he works for both SABC and SuperSport. Anyway, what do I know, I’m just a blogger.
So the other day they had Irvin Khoza telling the world how much his group was getting paid for making this deal happen. Now understand this is a billion rand issue and someone is getting paid no matter what. Figures that have been thrown about hover around R30 million for each of Irvin Khoza, Kaizer Motaung and others involved in putting this thing together. That’s not a lot of money mind you: commission on a billion amounts to hundreds of millions of rand. The issue some people had was that these gents were conducting normal day-to-day business as expected of them in their PSL hats, and so they had no rights to earn a commission on the deal as if they were acting as independent contractors. As far as I know, they ARE independent contractors to the PSL; they only work full-time on their respective clubs, not for the PSL. Even if I’m wrong, I know in publishing for instance, that eve full-time staff whose jobs don’t include selling, that bring in advertising from time to time, also get commission from those sales they make.
Business is business and someone will make money here. And it’s not like they are getting rewarded with government, and hence public funds. This is SuperSport shareholders’ money. It reminds me of the R7 million controversy that had SAFA president Molefi Oliphant in a perpetual spin of denial and acceptance of the money for his role in bringing the World Cup to Mzansi. Again, Oliphant was entitled to that money, or even more! Do you know how much it costs to stage a World Cup? Everyone wants a piece, and for someone to contribute towards bringing it to their country as did those gents including Danny Jordaan, it took years of toil, endless trips and possibly lots of “gifts” to FIFA executives all over the planet. Take the money I say! Take it and run. No casualties here.
Second possible casualty? Advocate Mpofu himself. Apart from the fact t
hat the ANC Youth League is calling for his resignation, he certainly needs a good look at his SABC Sport executive team. Before we even talk about the PSL rights which they lost, these are the same folks that again, let Marawa leave MTN Soccer Zone. What happened as soon as they did that? The once-popular Monday night football show not only lost hordes of viewers but they lost their primary sponsor as well. I don’t care how you feel about Marawa personally, but the man is bankable. To just let him go without a fight is just plain stupid. It is bad business. I’m not so sure Discovery will stick around to sponsor his former sports show on Metro, without the anchor.So, SABC Sport and Mpofu himself will have to answer to the SABC board as well as to Parliament as to HOW they could let this happen. Were they really caught napping? Were they basking in the “entitlement” trap, thinking the PSL automatically belongs to the public broadcaster? Evidence of this comes from the fact that they did not even submit a tender for the rights as requested. Only SuperSport, etv and Telkom did. Telkom is launching their own satellite TV service soon.
Or was it that the SABC simply could not afford the asking fee?
20 June 2007
A "Gang" and a rapper to attack AIDS
According to information I received this morning, music fans are about to be treated to some awesome kwaito and hip-hop at the turn of August. On 01 September stars Mandoza, Pitch Black Afro, Gang of Instrumentals, Tuks and Mafikizolo will be performing at the Johannesburg Stadium for a concert called 4 One Nation. The aim of the concert is to raise funds for various HIV/AIDS projects.
Elana Afrika from 5fm will host the concert, which is the first of several planned for the whole country. I wish this could be taken quite seriously and that people go out and support these initiatives. Tickets are available at Computicket.
I remember in my own youth when we used to have those kwaito concerts sponsored by the likes of Benson & Hedges and Peter Stuyvesant? Remember? Arthur, Bongo Maffin, M’du, Thebe, Joe Nina, Boom Shaka, Trompies, it was hot! This time around though, without being a hater, I’m not sure how Mandoza and Pitch Black made it to the list. They aren’t exactly on heat at the moment; I mean the last time either had a real hit was with “Godoba” and “Ntofontofo” respectively. GoI and Mafikizolo are not exactly kwaito or hip-hop, but they are still good for crowds. Tuks is just plain hot. That SAMA-winning boy is on fire.
Hopefully during the later concerts we’ll see people like Trompies, the evergreen Arthur and his ever-young shadows, L’Vovo, Pro Verb, HHP and so on. Come on sponsors, put some thrust into it, let’s get the crowds to support this in numbers. Without the correct acts on stage, very few will come.
Elana Afrika from 5fm will host the concert, which is the first of several planned for the whole country. I wish this could be taken quite seriously and that people go out and support these initiatives. Tickets are available at Computicket.
I remember in my own youth when we used to have those kwaito concerts sponsored by the likes of Benson & Hedges and Peter Stuyvesant? Remember? Arthur, Bongo Maffin, M’du, Thebe, Joe Nina, Boom Shaka, Trompies, it was hot! This time around though, without being a hater, I’m not sure how Mandoza and Pitch Black made it to the list. They aren’t exactly on heat at the moment; I mean the last time either had a real hit was with “Godoba” and “Ntofontofo” respectively. GoI and Mafikizolo are not exactly kwaito or hip-hop, but they are still good for crowds. Tuks is just plain hot. That SAMA-winning boy is on fire.
Hopefully during the later concerts we’ll see people like Trompies, the evergreen Arthur and his ever-young shadows, L’Vovo, Pro Verb, HHP and so on. Come on sponsors, put some thrust into it, let’s get the crowds to support this in numbers. Without the correct acts on stage, very few will come.
19 June 2007
You can help Darfur
Folks, this is an open letter from my pal Tumi. He's a world-recognised musician who excels in the art of rapping to convey his messages. I haven't edited this letter at all in case I lose its meaning somewhere so Tumza, if there are spelling mistakes here my man, forgive a brother!
******************************************************************
An open letter from Tumi
For Space, for Dignity, for Recognition, for Survival, for Darfur
Peace folks,
Since 2003 the Darfur region in Sudan has been plunged into a bloody and disturbing conflict that has seen 200,000 people killed and 2 million displaced according to U.N figures. The conflict has many interwoven causes; from the structural inequality between the centre of the country around the Nile and the peripheral areas such as Darfur, to environmental calamity, political opportunism and also absurd Arab-African regional politics. The cause of the conflict is not the purpose of this letter. It is the devastating effects of the conflict that drive me to this point. In scenes frightfully resembling Rwanda, villages have been depopulated, looted, burnt to the ground, non-combatants have suffered dismemberment and brutal killings at the hand of militias. Rape has also been employed as a weapon in this conflict, women are raped in the open to humiliate them as they are ostracized and culturally considered unclean.
"ITS HAPPENING AGAIN, ARE WE GOING TO JUST MAKE MOVIES ABOUT IT ONCE THE MURDERERS HAVE THEIR FILL''
For the longest time I thought, these things get sorted out by governments and leaders with the profile of Kofi Annan and that all i could do about it is pray that my government was somehow involved in trying to secure a lasting peace agreement that could be honored by the warring parties. For others the apathy is a worsening illness that sees many desensitized to a chilling numbness by daily world news reports of deaths, bombings, political corruption and famines. What is doubly troubling about this situation is the reaction from some sections of the international community, which can be described as minimal at best and anti-human at worst, following the Sudanese government in calling cries of genocide as overreactions and exaggerations. Well folks, the difference between war crimes and genocide matter little to one who tends to a mass grave.
URGENT ACTION NEEDED
In light of the coming rain season, access to the camps most of the internally displaced people inhabit will be severely limited and will leave them cut off from aid. Also the rains will foster a breeding ground for diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, measles, meningitis and malaria. Aid workers have made an urgent appeal for funds to alleviate the hardships of the coming months. Humanitarian organizations have been in Sudan saving lives despite the remoteness of the region and continued instability. There are people doing much to raise the awareness of this humanitarian crisis, through websites, rallies and even organized boycotts of countries violating a U.N arms embargo on Sudan. Even the so-called 'token' African Union peacekeeping force, which with no clear mandate to protect citizens, is out there doing their bit and being targeted by the militia.
WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY DO?
I am not a soldier, nor am I an aid worker. I am an artist making music inspired greatly by the beauty and troubled disturbances of this soil. I would like to extend my voice to fellow artist, musicians, painters, poets, producers, promoters, media personalities, radio stations, T.V programs, big business, small business, party leaders, city leaders, regional leaders, national leaders but especially the artist, particularly the musician. I have always believed the musician is as powerful if not more powerful than some political leaders. Some of your work exists as a force of nature to transform, cleanse, destroy, and resurrect. You carry favor with the people, they love you because you speak to them and about them. You help them rejoice, cry, protest, live, survive even die. To use the power of your talent not as an elitist license that separates us as people above society or people outside society, I appeal especially to you brothers and sisters. I propose an event that will utilize our creative talents to draw the masses and business' attention to the plight of the people of Darfur. An event that will see a united musical community gather in solidarity with the people of Sudan and help our own country understand the severity of the situation in Darfur, help raise not just the awareness but the funds needed in this difficult time. And it is true that in our own country we have problems that need desperate attention, from the scourge of H.I.V to the debilitating poverty. Problems on our soil that have seen countless countries support us in the past, countries with their own problems and issues but who understand their duty as citizens of the world. I appeal to you, be for space, for dignity, for recognition, for survival, for Darfur.
Peace.
For Space, for Dignity, for Recognition, for Survival, for Darfur
Peace folks,
Since 2003 the Darfur region in Sudan has been plunged into a bloody and disturbing conflict that has seen 200,000 people killed and 2 million displaced according to U.N figures. The conflict has many interwoven causes; from the structural inequality between the centre of the country around the Nile and the peripheral areas such as Darfur, to environmental calamity, political opportunism and also absurd Arab-African regional politics. The cause of the conflict is not the purpose of this letter. It is the devastating effects of the conflict that drive me to this point. In scenes frightfully resembling Rwanda, villages have been depopulated, looted, burnt to the ground, non-combatants have suffered dismemberment and brutal killings at the hand of militias. Rape has also been employed as a weapon in this conflict, women are raped in the open to humiliate them as they are ostracized and culturally considered unclean.
"ITS HAPPENING AGAIN, ARE WE GOING TO JUST MAKE MOVIES ABOUT IT ONCE THE MURDERERS HAVE THEIR FILL''
For the longest time I thought, these things get sorted out by governments and leaders with the profile of Kofi Annan and that all i could do about it is pray that my government was somehow involved in trying to secure a lasting peace agreement that could be honored by the warring parties. For others the apathy is a worsening illness that sees many desensitized to a chilling numbness by daily world news reports of deaths, bombings, political corruption and famines. What is doubly troubling about this situation is the reaction from some sections of the international community, which can be described as minimal at best and anti-human at worst, following the Sudanese government in calling cries of genocide as overreactions and exaggerations. Well folks, the difference between war crimes and genocide matter little to one who tends to a mass grave.
URGENT ACTION NEEDED
In light of the coming rain season, access to the camps most of the internally displaced people inhabit will be severely limited and will leave them cut off from aid. Also the rains will foster a breeding ground for diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, measles, meningitis and malaria. Aid workers have made an urgent appeal for funds to alleviate the hardships of the coming months. Humanitarian organizations have been in Sudan saving lives despite the remoteness of the region and continued instability. There are people doing much to raise the awareness of this humanitarian crisis, through websites, rallies and even organized boycotts of countries violating a U.N arms embargo on Sudan. Even the so-called 'token' African Union peacekeeping force, which with no clear mandate to protect citizens, is out there doing their bit and being targeted by the militia.
WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY DO?
I am not a soldier, nor am I an aid worker. I am an artist making music inspired greatly by the beauty and troubled disturbances of this soil. I would like to extend my voice to fellow artist, musicians, painters, poets, producers, promoters, media personalities, radio stations, T.V programs, big business, small business, party leaders, city leaders, regional leaders, national leaders but especially the artist, particularly the musician. I have always believed the musician is as powerful if not more powerful than some political leaders. Some of your work exists as a force of nature to transform, cleanse, destroy, and resurrect. You carry favor with the people, they love you because you speak to them and about them. You help them rejoice, cry, protest, live, survive even die. To use the power of your talent not as an elitist license that separates us as people above society or people outside society, I appeal especially to you brothers and sisters. I propose an event that will utilize our creative talents to draw the masses and business' attention to the plight of the people of Darfur. An event that will see a united musical community gather in solidarity with the people of Sudan and help our own country understand the severity of the situation in Darfur, help raise not just the awareness but the funds needed in this difficult time. And it is true that in our own country we have problems that need desperate attention, from the scourge of H.I.V to the debilitating poverty. Problems on our soil that have seen countless countries support us in the past, countries with their own problems and issues but who understand their duty as citizens of the world. I appeal to you, be for space, for dignity, for recognition, for survival, for Darfur.
Peace.
14 June 2007
Bouga Luv ready to run for charity
“Run Bouga run!” Sounds like a line from Forrest Gump, but it’s not. It’s Kabelo running the Comrades Marathon again, for charity again. Ever since Bouga turned the other cheek he’s been doing all these amazing things with his life, things I would never ever have associated with him say, in 1999 for instance.
Last year he helped raise about R250 000 for the charities he chose to support. This year he hasn’t reached that amount yet so he’s asking that we help him out by telling people about his efforts of trying to raise money for a charity that supports recovering drug addicts. Another great cause. I heard him on Yfm with Lee and AK, then on Metro FM speaking to Glen last week, and saw him on etv this morning. The boy is in seriously good shape and he should be ready to take on Poly Shorts. His time last year was just shy of 11 hours, which is quite good for a novice who happens to be a rich and famous kwaito artist. So R10 it costs per SMS to his line.
I think I was left with R15 in my phone balance this morning and I probably could have sacrifised the R10 for a good cause. After all, charity IS charity and often I donate to various charities myself. That was until it hit me that Bouga Two Shoes is a member of Rhema Bible Church, and that his chosen charity is a branch of his church! “What’s wrong with that?” I hear you ask. Nothing. Ok, one thing. Pastor Ray McCauley, leader of the church, is a multi-millionaire. Now without going into much more detail, for me it just sounded like Bill Gates going on a campaign for people to donate money to his “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”, which does excellent research and charity work all over the world, including Mzansi. Except Gates can afford to give his own money away, or at least some of it. I believe so can Pastor Ray.
For artists like Kabelo to highlight important societal issues is vital for our survival. For him to run for charity is certainly commendable. It just seems to me Pastor Ray, whom I know is running several charitable programmes already, should be giving a bit more than what he has so far. Bouga Luv should not be running short of his targets.
Last year he helped raise about R250 000 for the charities he chose to support. This year he hasn’t reached that amount yet so he’s asking that we help him out by telling people about his efforts of trying to raise money for a charity that supports recovering drug addicts. Another great cause. I heard him on Yfm with Lee and AK, then on Metro FM speaking to Glen last week, and saw him on etv this morning. The boy is in seriously good shape and he should be ready to take on Poly Shorts. His time last year was just shy of 11 hours, which is quite good for a novice who happens to be a rich and famous kwaito artist. So R10 it costs per SMS to his line.
I think I was left with R15 in my phone balance this morning and I probably could have sacrifised the R10 for a good cause. After all, charity IS charity and often I donate to various charities myself. That was until it hit me that Bouga Two Shoes is a member of Rhema Bible Church, and that his chosen charity is a branch of his church! “What’s wrong with that?” I hear you ask. Nothing. Ok, one thing. Pastor Ray McCauley, leader of the church, is a multi-millionaire. Now without going into much more detail, for me it just sounded like Bill Gates going on a campaign for people to donate money to his “Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”, which does excellent research and charity work all over the world, including Mzansi. Except Gates can afford to give his own money away, or at least some of it. I believe so can Pastor Ray.
For artists like Kabelo to highlight important societal issues is vital for our survival. For him to run for charity is certainly commendable. It just seems to me Pastor Ray, whom I know is running several charitable programmes already, should be giving a bit more than what he has so far. Bouga Luv should not be running short of his targets.
13 June 2007
Thandiswa recording: part two
Gallo Record Company yesterday announced that Thandiswa is back working at the studio on her second CD. After the success of Zabalaza it must be said that anticipation of the sophomore has already started growing.
The CD is due for release in October and Thandiswa hopes to work with Me’Shell Ndegeocello as one of the collaborators. She will also serve as co-producer with Sipho Sithole, the man credited with signing Skwatta Kamp to Gallo while he was still deputy CEO. I do believe Thandiswa has immense talent when it comes to song and over the years she has proven this over and over again with Bongo Maffin, BOP and other projects she has supported. Not particularly known as a hard worker, some of her colleagues always complain about her lateness to show up in studio, and as one who has chased her for interviews before, I can testify to that too.
The other strange thing about some artists is their tendency to leave their tried-and-tested label producers when seeking solo sounds. I didn’t mention any of the KaLaWa Jazmee crew in my production credits because I’m told so far none of them have been confirmed to work on the Thandiswa project. Why is that? Is it a case of her looking for a different sound? Surely a company able to produce a range of sounds, from house to kwaito to hip-hop to Afro beats can make a “different” sound? Or is there another reason?
My own personal thought, informed only by experience, is that Thandiswa just wants more control of her sound, thereby gaining a better representation of herself through music, and ultimately controlling any musician’s lifeblood on her own: the mighty royalties. You see at KaLaWa, teamwork overrides individual stardom, something you’ll notice on their cover sleeves “produced by the DCC”. The DCC includes Mandla “Spikiri”, Zaine “Mahoota”, Oscar, Bruce and Don Laka. Now imagine having to share all that royalty cash with so many other peeps. It’s like being part of Skwatta Kamp!
The CD is due for release in October and Thandiswa hopes to work with Me’Shell Ndegeocello as one of the collaborators. She will also serve as co-producer with Sipho Sithole, the man credited with signing Skwatta Kamp to Gallo while he was still deputy CEO. I do believe Thandiswa has immense talent when it comes to song and over the years she has proven this over and over again with Bongo Maffin, BOP and other projects she has supported. Not particularly known as a hard worker, some of her colleagues always complain about her lateness to show up in studio, and as one who has chased her for interviews before, I can testify to that too.
The other strange thing about some artists is their tendency to leave their tried-and-tested label producers when seeking solo sounds. I didn’t mention any of the KaLaWa Jazmee crew in my production credits because I’m told so far none of them have been confirmed to work on the Thandiswa project. Why is that? Is it a case of her looking for a different sound? Surely a company able to produce a range of sounds, from house to kwaito to hip-hop to Afro beats can make a “different” sound? Or is there another reason?
My own personal thought, informed only by experience, is that Thandiswa just wants more control of her sound, thereby gaining a better representation of herself through music, and ultimately controlling any musician’s lifeblood on her own: the mighty royalties. You see at KaLaWa, teamwork overrides individual stardom, something you’ll notice on their cover sleeves “produced by the DCC”. The DCC includes Mandla “Spikiri”, Zaine “Mahoota”, Oscar, Bruce and Don Laka. Now imagine having to share all that royalty cash with so many other peeps. It’s like being part of Skwatta Kamp!
11 June 2007
The Lion IS King!
I was in high school when I first saw The Lion King movie. And it was in isiZulu nogal! It was the first time since Rocky 4 (the scene where Carl Weathers’ character Apollo Creed gets killed in the ring by Dolph Lundgren’s, Captain Ivan Drago) that I cried while watching a movie. As a young teen boy growing up you still have the whole “I’m the man/tigers don’t cry issue”. What got my tears flowing in The Lion King was that whole act when Mufasa, Simba’s father gets run over by a herd of migrating buffalo. Yo, that was some real sad stuff! That movie went on to gross over US$700 million the world over – and still counting -, which it thoroughly deserved for a job well done.
The stage production I must confess, didn’t give me cause to flap my wings in anticipation when I first heard about it. There was Lebo M, there was Duma ka Ndlovu, holding auditions at the Bassline in Newtown, downtown Jozi towards the end of 2006. In my mind an international production of this magnitude should have at least been auditioned at the Civic or Market or even the State Theater in Pretoria. But what I saw on stage two weeks ago (since I’m not Thamzn Mandela I didn’t make last week’s red carpet event with all the rest of the African VIPs) made me realise that I had fallen for the “hate myself” trap that I always deplore in other people. Sure a number of well-knowns are in there, namely Sello Maake ka Ncube (Archie, Generations) who plays Simba’s dad Mufasa, Zoë Mthiyane (songbird discovered on Coca Cola Pop Stars), Simba's mom, and Mark Rayment who plays Scar and has played that character in the London production as well. But the bulk of the actors are unknown, yet you couldn’t tell from the way they pull it all off. Rafiki’s character for example is one of the funniest, along with of course Timone and Pumba, while Scar looks even more menacing than he was in the animated movie. The lady who plays Rafiki is a real find. That girl has enough in her gut to put any Idols finalist to shame. The discovery of the young Simba was a great job also, although the little one sings a bit better than he can act, while an even better job was done with his little girl friend. Ncube can act, we know, but I had no clue that he could sing too. And I say this as someone who lives with an opera singer! We laughed our asses off, shed a small tear during THAT scene (y’all know which one!), laughed again and again and almost got up to dance along. Brilliant. And no, I don’t work for Lebo M!
Tickets cost between R150 for the “extra strong” seats and R450 for the upper-crust “I can even smell the hyenas’ bad breath from here” front rows.
The Lion King is an amazing production, with extremely creative costumes, a believable cast of professionals, set in an African theatre at Monte Casino. That is the way it should always have been.
The stage production I must confess, didn’t give me cause to flap my wings in anticipation when I first heard about it. There was Lebo M, there was Duma ka Ndlovu, holding auditions at the Bassline in Newtown, downtown Jozi towards the end of 2006. In my mind an international production of this magnitude should have at least been auditioned at the Civic or Market or even the State Theater in Pretoria. But what I saw on stage two weeks ago (since I’m not Thamzn Mandela I didn’t make last week’s red carpet event with all the rest of the African VIPs) made me realise that I had fallen for the “hate myself” trap that I always deplore in other people. Sure a number of well-knowns are in there, namely Sello Maake ka Ncube (Archie, Generations) who plays Simba’s dad Mufasa, Zoë Mthiyane (songbird discovered on Coca Cola Pop Stars), Simba's mom, and Mark Rayment who plays Scar and has played that character in the London production as well. But the bulk of the actors are unknown, yet you couldn’t tell from the way they pull it all off. Rafiki’s character for example is one of the funniest, along with of course Timone and Pumba, while Scar looks even more menacing than he was in the animated movie. The lady who plays Rafiki is a real find. That girl has enough in her gut to put any Idols finalist to shame. The discovery of the young Simba was a great job also, although the little one sings a bit better than he can act, while an even better job was done with his little girl friend. Ncube can act, we know, but I had no clue that he could sing too. And I say this as someone who lives with an opera singer! We laughed our asses off, shed a small tear during THAT scene (y’all know which one!), laughed again and again and almost got up to dance along. Brilliant. And no, I don’t work for Lebo M!
Tickets cost between R150 for the “extra strong” seats and R450 for the upper-crust “I can even smell the hyenas’ bad breath from here” front rows.
The Lion King is an amazing production, with extremely creative costumes, a believable cast of professionals, set in an African theatre at Monte Casino. That is the way it should always have been.
06 June 2007
Your chance to be an Idol
The world’s biggest music talent search show is coming back on the telly. Yippee.
Excuse my enthusiasm, which is hidden behind that sarcastic last remark. We know the show is hilarious, often unearthing more standup comedians than it does talented singers. Yet, how many of us can name three past Idols winners? Sure Heinz Winckler is the easy one; he was the first one and dare I say, deservedly so as well. Some people had said Ayanda Nhlangothi should have won that year, but I don’t believe she had the complete Idols package which is yes, a package complete with pay-as-you-hug fans. You can see from the type of music she currently does. She would be best suited for “Mbaqanga Idols”. Perhaps Bianca Le Grange should have won. Now THERE was a package if I ever saw one myself! Loyiso Bala certainly would have agreed.
After Heinz it was just downhill. Anke Pietrangeli (2003), Karin Kortje (2005) and Dewald Louw (2006). Goodness, who are these folks? Karin for one, got more (in)famous for her much-publicised personal life than her CD (which is claimed to have sold over 20 000 copies to date). Anke was just Anke and Dewald fell victim to the show being moved from M-Net to Kyknet, making it an all-Afrikaans affair.
Before I go on, let’s just get the name right first. It is Idols. Not Pop Idols or Idols Stars. Just Idols. There. So Idols auditions kick off in Jozi on the 23rd June at the Standard Bank Arena. You have to be between the ages of 18 and 30 to enter. If you turn 31 on June 22, sorry for you. And please bring your best singing voice because the judges are the same as two years ago, that is, Randall Abrahams (walking music encyclopedia and BIG Elvis fan), Mara Louw (whose tenure on SABC 2’s Muvhango has just ended), Gareth Cliff (5fm shock jock) and Dave Thompson, the marketing suit from Sony BMG who are the people actually awarding the recording contract to the eventual winner. The show will broadcast on M-Net from 19 August at 17:30.
I have a grand dream. They should do a World Idols for all the country/ region winners and finalists, and the judges must be Randall, Simon Cowell (American Idol) and Dede (from Idols West Africa). How’s about it?
Excuse my enthusiasm, which is hidden behind that sarcastic last remark. We know the show is hilarious, often unearthing more standup comedians than it does talented singers. Yet, how many of us can name three past Idols winners? Sure Heinz Winckler is the easy one; he was the first one and dare I say, deservedly so as well. Some people had said Ayanda Nhlangothi should have won that year, but I don’t believe she had the complete Idols package which is yes, a package complete with pay-as-you-hug fans. You can see from the type of music she currently does. She would be best suited for “Mbaqanga Idols”. Perhaps Bianca Le Grange should have won. Now THERE was a package if I ever saw one myself! Loyiso Bala certainly would have agreed.
After Heinz it was just downhill. Anke Pietrangeli (2003), Karin Kortje (2005) and Dewald Louw (2006). Goodness, who are these folks? Karin for one, got more (in)famous for her much-publicised personal life than her CD (which is claimed to have sold over 20 000 copies to date). Anke was just Anke and Dewald fell victim to the show being moved from M-Net to Kyknet, making it an all-Afrikaans affair.
Before I go on, let’s just get the name right first. It is Idols. Not Pop Idols or Idols Stars. Just Idols. There. So Idols auditions kick off in Jozi on the 23rd June at the Standard Bank Arena. You have to be between the ages of 18 and 30 to enter. If you turn 31 on June 22, sorry for you. And please bring your best singing voice because the judges are the same as two years ago, that is, Randall Abrahams (walking music encyclopedia and BIG Elvis fan), Mara Louw (whose tenure on SABC 2’s Muvhango has just ended), Gareth Cliff (5fm shock jock) and Dave Thompson, the marketing suit from Sony BMG who are the people actually awarding the recording contract to the eventual winner. The show will broadcast on M-Net from 19 August at 17:30.
I have a grand dream. They should do a World Idols for all the country/ region winners and finalists, and the judges must be Randall, Simon Cowell (American Idol) and Dede (from Idols West Africa). How’s about it?
Here's to a few weeks of bad tunes, wrong pitch, funny insults, tears and laughs!
04 June 2007
Is there an iRipoff coming to my stoep?
So the buzz around the iPhone has resurfaced after Apple king Steve Jobs unveiled it last year. Having seen shots of the thing and read of its capabilities, it struck me as odd that the world would suddenly get so hyped up about a product that has existed in Japan for over 4 years already in different forms. One Japanese guy interviewed after the iPhone announcement earlier in the year said his phone could even talk to his TV and fridge about upcoming shows and what kinda food was going bad respectively. The Japs unfortunately, are like South Africans; they just don’t have a clue as to how to market their technology like the Americans can.
It reminds me of the dash-bound, front-loading 6-CD changer I first experienced in an old Lexus way back when the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW were still using CD shuttles sitting in the boot of a car. Here was a CD player you could load up 6 CDs into through one slot, without even opening the door of your car. Awesome. Years later the Europeans have caught up to it and suddenly it is the in-thing!
It reminds me of the dash-bound, front-loading 6-CD changer I first experienced in an old Lexus way back when the likes of Mercedes-Benz and BMW were still using CD shuttles sitting in the boot of a car. Here was a CD player you could load up 6 CDs into through one slot, without even opening the door of your car. Awesome. Years later the Europeans have caught up to it and suddenly it is the in-thing!
iPhone is the same. Essentially an iPod/ cell phone combo is what the iPhone is, with its 4 – 8GB storage capacity. A phone that plays music (MP3 files), makes calls, surfs the Internet, handles emails…I’m sure by now you are thinking “wait a minute, that sounds like phones I already know!”. This is true. One of the latest is Samsung’s F300 which has been popularised by Beyonce on the TV ads. Clever technology, stupid idea. For one, I can only speak on the F300 phone OR listen to music, not do both at the same time. Which means surfacewise, I don’t need two to operate these functions, one will do, as it has over these years. The other thing of course, is how do I place it down since both surfaces are scratchable? Not smart at all. My old 2005 model Nokia 7710 too has all these capabilities as well, including QWERTY touch keyboard, radio and Bluetooth.
Nevertheless, Apple has an extremely busy and well-funded marketing machine that has bolted it into people’s minds that the iPhone is revolutionary (touch-screen), that it represents cutting-edge hi-tech that no one else has come up with before. It’s true there’s some nice stuff there, but hell, not even the name itself is new; Apple had a legal tiff just a few months ago with the original owners of the
name iPhone, which was tech firm Cisco Systems.At the announcement in January Apple said the iPhone would only be available in the US. I’m told it will sell over there for between US$500 and US$600 a piece. That is R3 570 and R4 284 respectively today. Of course if it ever came to sunny Mzansi you might see prices of between R6 000 to R10 000 each without contract.
28 May 2007
FreshlyGround rocks Botswana despite bad sound
FreshlyGround, one of Mzansi’s best bands, made their presence felt in front of hundreds of fans in Botswana last weekend! The popular folk/rock band gave their usual all with energetic moves and quirky punchlines.
What a great show it was, bar the poor sound quality. True, the show took place at a venue not properly suitable for music (kinda reminded me of the old school halls we used to pack when watching kung-fu movies back in the 1980s! Y’all know what I’m talking about!) The promoters should really have been more discerning when choosing a venue for an MTV-award winning band of FG’s caliber. But then again, horror stories about bad promoters are bound all over the place. I’m going off on a tangent here but the worst I’ve heard of so far was the Musiq band manager who couldn’t get his own Visa on time and thus forbade the entire tour from happening last year. What a disgrace!
Hopefully a new generation of music promoter emerges, that will take our artists a bit more seriously and professionally. Yes, sometimes it is the artist’s fault, but as a promoter you cannot be faulted at all; you must be at your best always.
What a great show it was, bar the poor sound quality. True, the show took place at a venue not properly suitable for music (kinda reminded me of the old school halls we used to pack when watching kung-fu movies back in the 1980s! Y’all know what I’m talking about!) The promoters should really have been more discerning when choosing a venue for an MTV-award winning band of FG’s caliber. But then again, horror stories about bad promoters are bound all over the place. I’m going off on a tangent here but the worst I’ve heard of so far was the Musiq band manager who couldn’t get his own Visa on time and thus forbade the entire tour from happening last year. What a disgrace!
Hopefully a new generation of music promoter emerges, that will take our artists a bit more seriously and professionally. Yes, sometimes it is the artist’s fault, but as a promoter you cannot be faulted at all; you must be at your best always.
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