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Get a load of the continent’s finest poets and musicians at the Speak the Mind Sessions, an interactive fusion of genres and performance styles presented at the Joburg Arts Alive festival.

September 8, 2006

By Ndaba Dlamini

Poet Myesha Jenkins has published widely

FOLLOWING a weekend of great music on the lake, the Arts Alive International Festival takes on a different twist on 8 and 9 September with a mind-blowing line-up of the finest South African and African poets and musicians at The Bassline in Newtown.

This interactive event, dubbed Speak the Mind Sessions, is a fusion of many different genres and performance styles incorporating obscure collaborations, established and emerging poets and music talent. It follows on from the successful events in the 2005 Arts Alive festival sessions.

The first session on Friday will be hosted by YFM resident poet Julius Makweru and featuring Aryan Kaganof, Blindfold, DJ Kenzhero, Gcina Mhlophe, Malawian Nyamalikiti Mthiwatiwa, Bafo Bafo, Rogerio Manjate from Mozambique and Tumi Molekane.

Best loved for his poems which are collated in a number of collections, Jou Ma Se Poems, Post-Mortemist Poems, Drive-Thru Funeral, Tombstone Dues, Abandonment Boulevard, and For Those Who Love to Die, the eccentric Kaganof is set to enthral the audience with his captivating verses.

Rap lovers can also catch up with soul singer/poet and rapper, Blindfold, at the same venue on the same day. Blindfold, whose real name is Neil Louw, recently released an album Magic In My Mouth, which has been getting a warm reception from most commercial radio stations with hit songs like Love and Sleep and 21st Rhyme Architect.

Sharing the same stage with Blindfold will be hip-hop artist DJ Kenzhero, whose inspiration comes from his grandfather and Louis Armstrong. He started DJ-ing at a place called Jungle Connection where they hosted poetry nights.

The inimitable Gcina Mhlophe has been writing and performing on stage and screen for over 20 years. She has written many children’s books as well as adult audience poetry and plays. Audiences are bound to be riveted by her eloquence and dexterity in coining verses.

Not to be outdone, the duo of Bafo Bafo, comprising Madala and Syd Kitchen, will perform together in a rare organic collaboration. The ability of the two highly individual guitar stylists to fuse cultural elements from the rich diversity of multi-ethnic South Africa is commendable and this is one show not to be missed.

Kitchen plays nylon and steel string acoustic guitars, hosepipe flute and percussion, while Kunene plays steel string acoustic guitars, mouth bow and sings. All the music is organically co-written and sung in Zulu, English and Fanigalo (urban slang).

Better known to exponents of South African hip-hop as the lead vocalist in Tumi and the Volume, Tumi Molekane is a maestro of creating poetic imagery. Poet, philosopher, dreamer and storyteller, Molekane arguably leads one of the country’s most electric music acts and has proved himself to be a strong poetic force.

A continental flavour
Adding a continental flavour to the Saturday session is Nyamalikiti Mthiwatiwa from Malawi. A winner of a National Schools’ Poetry Award in Malawi in 1999, Poet of the Year in 2003 and 2004 for Chancellor College, the youthful wordsmith will definitely leave many an audience gasping for breath. Mozambican writer, actor and winner of the 11th Guimaraes Rosa Contest, Rogerio Manjate, will wrap up the evening’s proceedings.

Mozambican writer, actor and winner of the 11th Guimaraes Rosa Contest, Rogerio Manjate

The second session of Speak the Mind on Saturday will see DJ Kenzhero returning to the stage for a second stint. Also on the same day, Durban writer, poet and musician, Leo Janssen, will present the audience with a holographic “healing shower” of words.

The Saturday show, also hosted by Makweru, will see playwright, writer and performance poet, Lesego Rampolokeng & The Kalahari Surfers, present one show worth seeing. Known for his “rants” performed over reggae-style dubs and his rich poetry, Rampolokeng will certainly be one of the star attractions of the show.

Also on the programme is Napo Masheane, a founding member of the Feela Sistah Spoken Word collective composed of Lebo Mashile, Myesha Jenkins and Ntsiki Mazwai. An accomplished and riveting performer, Masheane has displayed her skills in theatres in the USA and Germany and has graced stages alongside Don Mattera and Linton Kwesi Johnson.

Myesha Jenkins started writing poetry after immigrating to South Africa from the US in 1993 and treasures the “creative leap”. Her poetry has appeared in journals and magazines that include Tribute, True Love and Botsotso. Myesha has performed to great acclaim at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, Mangaung festival (Macufe) and Durban’s Poetry Africa 2004, among others.

Four performers from Malawi, Zimbabwe and Ghana will grace the second session. Writer and poet Stanley Onjezani Kenani from Malawi developed an interest in writing when he was 12 years old and from the mid-1990s started publishing stories in various newspapers and magazines in his home country and, recently, on BBC Focus on Africa.

One of Zimbabwe’s most talented performance poets and storytellers, Chiwoniso Maraire
Kenani will share the stage with the Zimbabwean duo of Chirikure Chirikure and Chiwoniso Maraire. Best known as one of Zimbabwe’s most talented performance poets and storytellers, Chirikure performs his poetry in Shona and English and usually performs with DeteMbira, an mbira band of which he was founding member.

Born in Washington State in the US, Maraire got to play the mbira, despite the fact that traditionally women in Zimbabwe were not permitted to play the instrument. The consistent rhythm of the tonal pluckings of the mbira provide a very authentic background to Chiwoniso’s songs about her people.

Also thrown into the poetic and musical fray is the Ghanaian born writer, producer, actor and playwright Kwame Dawes. A professor in English on the Columbia campus in South Carolina where he is Distinguished Poet in Residence and Director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative, Dawes has produced 15 plays and his critical articles on literature, theatre and film have been published widely.

Both sessions of Speak the Mind start at 8pm and tickets are available at the door or Computicket at R30.

this article first appeared on the official website of the city of johannesburg