kagablog

hola. been travelling. settling. now i finally got a chance to look at the beautiful work you’ve done. it is was always a great experience to listen to bra geoff, and i like the fact that he speaks a lot in the film. otsile and lesego are very sharp and provide the necessary notes . how do i begin to speak about mashishi, duma, zim and the music they make… the editing is be-witching… this is mind blowing stuff. thanx for posting it. it will be a great teaching aid in my workshops.
peace be with you.

South Africa, 2005, 52min, DVcam
directed by Geoff Mphakati & Aryan Kaganof
produced by Ziyanda Ngcaba for african noise foundation
original music score by Johnny Dyani & Lefifi Tladi
director of photography - AK Thembeka
sound recordist - Basiami Bitsang Segolo
sound editor - The Dark Magus
final mix - JA Assagai
edited by doc zabalaza

GIANT STEPS is an Afrocentric approach to Blackness Now!

Dashiki poet Lefifi Tladi guides us on a journey of consciousness, analysing and interpreting the meaning of independence as opposed to freedom. He is accompanied on this radical exploration by the cream of South African poets, musicians, dancers and visual artists, including Zim Ngqawana, Don Laka, Kgafela oa Magogodi, Lesego Rampolokeng, Afurakan, Mac Manaka, Thabo Mashishi, Moshe Maboe, Moeketsi Koena and Motlhabane Mashiangwako. GIANT STEPS is a moving tribute to its co-director, Bra’ Geoff Mphakati, who passed away tragically during the filming of this, his first documentary.

When your eye first catches the glitter and runs over the
roughness of the sand, you don’t see the exquisite miniatures occupying
spaces that would otherwise reveal emptiness.

On more intimate inspection, it becomes evident that there’s
performance in every part of Motlhabane Mashiangwako’s The Efforts of
Those Who Came Before Us - a dedication to jazz artist Johnny Dyani
which introduces the sonorous instruments of sand, glue and mixed media
to the double bass.

Those considering this recent piece included in Oto La Dimo, the
collaborative retrospective by Mashiangwako together with Lefifi Tladi,
will be absorbed by the harmony of the place in which Mashiangwako, a
stalwart of the African contemporary movement of the 1970s and 1980s,
seems to find his aesthetic today. His is a collection detailed with
evocations of the higher consciousness of an artist, and the recent work
occupies that same place in which his influential Afro-surrealist mixed-
media paintings of the late 1970s were located.

Mashiangwako’s artistic path is entangled with synaesthetic power,
and his current use of unconventional materials in iconoclastic ways,
conceptualises an aesthetic rooted in Afrocentrism increasingly as
ritual. Sand, white-sugar, water, coloured pigments, printer’s ink and
mixed-media on batting - all of these animate the brush and the roller
to elicit the metaphysical in materials drawn from the environment.

But no matter the excitement generated by a personal and artistic
evolution in work which has not strayed from a fundamental philosophy,
it seems the context created by the joylessness of apartheid has been
replaced by an environment of aesthetic ignorance and cultural ennui.
Even as the psychological conflict of political chaos in this country is
stunned into silence, Mashiangwako and Tladi believe that a revisionist
era in South Africa’s visual arts has yet to begin.

After nearly two decades of communing with inhumanity in paintings
which were protected from the security police, the artists are pleased
to be united again in a time of liberation. Oto La Dimo - essentially a
search after Afrocentricism and traditional value-systems - spirals with
the rejuvenation of the spirit, but also presents the artists as
reluctant outsiders.

Once promised a celebrated re-entry into the cultural fray of a free
country, neither has found a destination in a democratic country
obsessed with sport and politics. Tladi would like to see South African
artworks still in exile in galleries around the world repatriated to
galleries and museums back home. Mashiangwako, whose portfolio reads
like a mystical history of this country’s recent past, says this is the
reason why artists like himself and Tladi must continue the revolution -
this time against apathy.

Mashiangwako’s work, Meditator on the Sun, is as much a probe into an
oppressed soul as are the shacks of Untitled, drifting through the
feminine colours of emotional reds and dramatic browns.

“We are forever revolutionary artists,” Mashiangwako says. “Now we’re
exploring how to get past people being unable to see that what we do is
art. Once we thought the middle-classes would understand. Now we know
they can’t tell the difference between a picture cut out of a calendar
and stuck in an expensive frame, and art. This is our revolution now.”

Like Mashiangwako, Tladi has dedicated his life to reflecting on
canvas what it means to be South African. He’s increasingly
dispassionate about the meagre support artists get from a community
which once embraced Black Consciousness and defiance. Yet he can’t
accept that there will ever be enough reason to wash his brushes and
stash them away, dreaming of a better time - to achieve what was
inspired in anti-apartheid conferences on the arts in the 1980s. Art is
forever transformational, it detracts from ordinary, banal existence and
regenerates life.

In the rhythmical strokes of Song for the Sunflower, Tladi opens the
way to the sixth sense, the belief in a higher consciousness shared by
Mashiangwako. He has returned in the 1990s to the blissful movement of
metaphor and to the voice of the spirit guide in works like Plotting
Sound, Pha and Eng. If apathy resounds, it is up to the artist to
discover himself again and to offer hope through an inner life-force.

Unlike the late South Africans Dudu Pukwana, Chris McGregor and
Gerard Sekoto - artists who were denied their right to return to a free
country and whose names are included in a list of people to whom Oto La
Dimo is dedicated - Tladi and Mashiangwako are determined to continue
the struggle for art in the community. It’s not a battle for gallery
space which alienates ordinary people from artworks. Rather, it’s about
bringing people closer to artistic production, restoring a unified human
psyche.

“Ke lefifi le sa bonesiweng ke magatlapa”, go bua Kea’ a bua ka
maikutlo a buang le bana ba phefo. Maboko a ga Kea a phatsitswe
ka lemao la mphatlhalatsane, a rwele kgogamasigo ya dikakanyo le
matlhale a batlapele.

Fa a bopa mola o o akgela sekgele sa sesira letsatsi, o tlogela tsotlhe
lelemeng la “bo-itseng” ka Setswana. Mmoki yo, Kea’betswe o
tlhanasela ka loleme la boammaruri, o thuntsa ditlhase go besa
molelo wa banyana mo thutong.

A ke kgwe boteng ke ipete sebete kere :

Motlogolo o boka a sa gopole gore e fofa ka moswang, o rwele thuto
le go ruta, go neletsana ka poko kitso ya maitemogelo a go tlhogola.
O kwalela nako e e tlang le ba buisi ba ba tlhoafaletseng kitso ya
segaabo. O seka phofu, o e bua molato, o e atlhola leso la go phelela
go kwala poko.

Kea’ ga a kwalele mmuiso yoo rileng, ese ka dingwaga kgotsa thuto.
O kwala a lebeletse go ruta banyana le bana go rata puo, go rata
poko le go itse botlhokwa jwa maropeng.
Mo lebokong la Tshwane , o lemosa go sa lekalekaneng ga baagi, ka
tota re sa lekane re se meno. O kgala le go tlhoka botho ga baagi
bangwe ba Tshwane le botshelo jwa bone jwa mo mebileng. O gatisa
seno ka go boa a tlhoafalela Mafikeng e leng felo le a tsaletsweng
teng. Okare bana ba mephato yotlhe ba ka bona tshono ya go buisa
Maduo, ba tle ba iponele Maduo a thuto!

Go supa fa Kea’ a tlhoafaletse ngwao-boswa, o teile buka eno
Maduo. Mong wa leina Maduo ke mang?

Kea’betswe ke Mokgatla wa Montwaana gotswa ga Mahikana a
senang kgosi, ke setlogolo sa Bakwena baga Mogopa, o ka mo kaya
ele Morolong ka kgodiso,
Maduo, ke rre rragwe mogologolo, Modimoeng wa ntlha, kgoro
kgolo maineng a Sedimo. Fa o buisa leboko Modimoeng, o tla
lemoga gore leina le tswa kae.
Lefoko Maduo le kaya go bona ditlamorago tsa matsapa a gagwe mo
boineelong jwa go kwala poko.

Kea’betswe Mpho ya Modimo-eng?
Kana o santse o tlile go di bona,
Mofoufala tlhaloganyo ya kitso ke matlhoka leitlho la boraro.

O Montwaana wa Kgosi e ile botshabelo,
tshwara morafe lobone le a tima,
Lebogang Modimo-eng?
Ka o itse seabe sa gagwe- Masego.

Tumelo Tuks Kepadisa seopedi sa Motswako, o bua jaana a re “fa o
se mokwadi o se ke wa otulula maikutlo, ke thamalakwane o tla
palelwa ke go a ribolola”. O totobatsa botlhokwa jwa go kwala
poko-tsenelela.

Jabulane HHP Tsambo a re “Lefatshe le a le tshelang, le mo isa
dinaleding,…le fa tsela ya tle e thathafale ka go mo ntsha dikeledi, ga
a kitla a lo latlha”. Seno se supa boineelo mo tsweletsong setso le ngwao.

Motlapele Molemi Morule a re ” kana gaabo motho go
thebephatswa, tsamayang mme ka dipelo le seka la tswa.”

Se bodule! Sejo sa ga Kea’ ebile go mangodimanyoke, go bua
Letlhogonolo Menyatsoe.

Lekwalo oo Magagane o kaya Kea’ ele Moleta sebaka lobaka ka a
tshotse matsapa a go isa leyakgatisong le phasalatsa ka boene. Se ke
phitlhelelo kgolo ya bokwadi, go itlhagisetsa poko ga lekawana le.

Go supa fa mmoki yo a agisana le batho, Kagiso Nkashe a re , “A re
agisaneng lona bana ba mpa, mmitsa ntswa ga a tshole thupa

“Potso , batho le tsenwe ke eng?” o botsa jalo mongwe wa batataise-
bafatlhosi baga Kea’ eleng Lefifi Tladi.

Buka eno ke kgatelopele ya letlhaku le leswa. Batlapele bo J.M
Ntsime ba kile ba re gwetlha go boka sentle.
Leboko la ga Lefifi Tladi la Potso, le bontsha gore batho ga ba
amogele ditlamorago tsa tlhago. Fa selo se diragala, yabo ele nako
fela jaaka ele nako ya gore morole yo o sa batleng go selwa kwa
molelong wa sedikwadikwane sa maitiso a re tshubele lebonenyana.

Ke motlotlo gore ke be ke kgontshitswe ke nako go tlhotlheletsa
Mmoki go nna leitlho le le ntshotshonono, a bone kwalo jaaka
tlhagiso ya maikutlo a bonwang ka leitlho la boraro. Nako ke selabe
sa “bo Nkabo” le bo “O kare”.
Ke ka itumela thata fa re ka bona tlhagiso eno jaaka neo le tsweletso
pele ya puo ya Setswana, gape ele neo e e ka thusang baithuti go
lemoga fa poko e fetogile go tswa malobeng a a neng a sa neele
mokwadi phuthologo ya go ntsha maikutlo jaaka a ntse.
Maboko a, ke maikutlo a kgobokgobo mme fa a ka fetolelwa go nna
dipina, go ka jesa diakolo tota ka gore poko ke karolo ya botshelo
jwa rona.

Ke rata go raya Kea’ kere :

Kgabo Mokgatla a e je borekhu,
A e namele,
Mo setlhareng..
A e je borekhu!

Ngaka Otsile Ntsoane
Motsheganong 2008

Motlhabane Mashiangwako began his fine art studies in the house of Geoff mPhakati, a tireless cultural worker and activist who mentored a generation of fine artists and jazz musicians in the sixties and seventies. Under the tutelage of such masters as the late Fikile Magadledla and Winston Saodi, Mashiangwako soon developed into a distinctive stylist. Although his first works were unmistakably political in their subject matter he soon moved away from overt polemics and became known for his studies into materials such as stone, rock, sand and wood, which he would burn or melt onto mixed media canvasses. Mashiangwako infused these works with a cosmic afro-spiritualism that was highly influenced by the writings of Cheik Anta Diop. His current work retains a strong period feel, there is a timeless quality, as if Mashiangwako has been entirely unconcerned with the vagaries of fashion, with digital media, with all the hip and epemeral fancies of the art world - but has solidly continued his afrocentric cosmological studies, uses his canvasses as self-contained time capsules spreading his vision of an afro-humanity freed up and operating at full potential. These are spiritual canvasses which speak the language of myth - truly ancient to the future.

RAMPHOLO MOLEFHE
9/2/2004 12:24:20 AM (GMT +2)

Botswana’s jazz lovers were distraught at the passing away of veteran South African bass player, Sipho Gumede last month. Less visible was the taller than six foot figure of ‘Bra Geoff’ Matlherane Mphakathi who died at the age of 64.

bra’ geoff mphakathi photo by ruby savage

The larger than life Mphakathi was a rare species of a self-instructed promoter, moved by a total commitment to the arts and the crafts and the people who made it.

Mphakathi managed Phillip Tabane and his group that came to be popularly known as Malombo in the 1960s. The group that included drummer Julian Bahula and flutist Abe Cindi caused a sensation at the Castle Lager sponsored jazz festival in Mamelodi in the 1960s where they took first place among a multitude of mainstream oriented jazz bands.

Their music, inspired by the more primitive Pedi based style of Malopo, captured the imagination of the audience and judges alike. Malombo was a radically new ‘jazz’ voice. Bra Geoff then managed Malombo’s protégés who went by the name of Dashiki. This ensemble included vibraphonist, Oupa Mokou and drummer Lefifi Tladi, also a poet, sculptor and graphic artist.

Mokou and Tladi were forced into exile in Botswana where they were joined by Bonjo Keipidile, Thabiso Leshoai and Rampholo Molefhe to continue the tradition of Dashiki. Jonas Gwangwa later joined Dashiki in the late 1970s and the group evolved to be called Shakawe.

Mphakathi visited Botswana on several occasions and continued to inspire the troupe and Tladi in particular. Tladi and Mphakathi collaborated to organise exhibitions of South African artists at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Gaborone.

Among the artists who benefited from Bra Geoff’s tireless work were Motlhabane Mashiangwako, Winston Saoli, the late Fikile Mgadlela and Harry Moyaga who is now resident in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Tladi’s thirst for further instruction in the graphic arts took him to Sweden where he now resides. This Day reports that at the time of his death, Bra Geoff was on the third day of shooting a film documentary Giant Steps: a portrait of Lefifi Tladi

Born on February 4 1940, Bra Geoff established the Jazz appreciation Society in the late 1960s. In the 1970s he established several temporary art galleries that exhibited the works of a broad spectrum of South African artists.

He continued his work in the 1980s through the establishment of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Artists.

He staged art exhibitions in Holland, Sweden, Russia and the United States. Bra Geoff published two books, Lesego Rampolokeng’s Black Heart and Laduma by A K Thembeka after establishing the publishing house, MK Media early this year.

Before his untimely death, Bra Geoff had wanted to re-publish House of Bondage, Ernest Cole’s photographic comment on apartheid.

this obituary first appeared on the arts/culture review

blue notes for mongezi - 4th movement - one of bra’ geoff’s favourite pieces of music

Lefifi Tladi Wears a Pharaoh’s jutting out goatee, with bright eyes and the ever brilliant smile. At the firm age of sixty (60), he is still the eager wildman whose stories and creative exploits gave color to Pretoria’s 70’s black life. Tladi is least troubled about the past, creatively. His art, he says “…is not in search of the past but in illuminating the future, in plotting new ways of seeing… opening up new scopes of perceiving”.

Lefifi Tladi (right) Motlabane ‘a Mashiangoako (left)

Thus the 1970s as a socio-cultural site produced a unique type of avant-garde in South African Art. Out of Ga-Rankuwa through a collectivist approach to Art making and culture-creation Lefifi Tladi and the Dashiki collective were shaped into astute vernacular creative intellectuals, something akin to what Antonio Gramsci termed “organic” intellectual and was later expounded on by Grant Farred on Black Vernacular intellectuals.

Dashiki, the band, in fusing music and politically charged poetry to their performances understood that… ”the political is not always pleasurable; but the pleasurable, within the vernacular, is always potentially political…” and so it was at one Jazz Festival in Mamelodi, east of Pretoria, with a defiantly festive crowed. “…as soon as Lefifi appeared onstage carrying one of his drums a forest of clenched fists shot up in the Black Power salute and they roared: JO-MO! JO-MO! The people had nicknamed him after Kenya’s independence hero Jomo Kenyatta”.

“…the formation of DASHIKI sort of crystallized our political role because it brought us into contact with the Black Consciousness Movement…” He remembers as he gazes into the air as if he is asking it to remind him.

He adds that combining poetry and music “… was an ultimate devise because it blended beautifully… and it became politically functional in the community… ” Dashiki acquired popular purchase through that mode in which the political and the popular conjoin identificatory pleasure with ideological resistance.

As early as 1966 they had given meaning to the concept of community art project, with a Youth Club they called ‘DeOlympia’ comprising among others Isaac Nkoana, Anthony Molongwana Makou, photographer Matsobane Legoabe… “…DeOlympia was a recreational thing, it was about encouraging more meaningful activities and interactions for our own development. It kept us off the street…” In 1971 Tladi and the collective transposed the House used for DeOlympia activities into a small museum for contemporary Black art in Ga-Rankuwa. Unfortunately, in 1974 it had to close down. The likes of Sir Isaac Nkoana, Anthony Makou used to work hard giving art workshops at this haven.

Encouraged within Black Consciousness thought the collectivist approach to art making, for one, explodes the construction of artist as individual genius separable from the general society and loftier than the environment that produces him, thus coining the cultural worker as an ideological posture in the broader community of resistance workers. “Through the Cultural wing of the Black consciousness Movement, CUL- COM (Culture Committee)…, Tladi recalls: …we organized a lot of Black art exhibitions at some of the Black universities and schools because we were aware of our people’s ignorance. Bantu education didn’t expose us as a nation to our own creative genius”. On the role of their art practice Tladi relates that theirs “was an instrument in the restoration of the harm done to the senses, apartheid had destroyed our people’s senses”. And, so the populace was always at the centre of their creative efforts because as once noted by Farred, “no post /anti- Colonial struggle can be sustained if it does not contain in it a cultural element moreover one that has popular purchase “

Forced into exile after the 1976 explosion, Lefifi and fellow exiled artists in Botswana established TUKA Cultural Unit. A cultural formation aimed at organizing group exhibitions and sustaining working relations with artists at home in S. Afrika. Through the assistance of the ANC, TUKA members managed to participate in the Pan African Arts Festival, F.A.S.T.A.C in Nigeria. The excursion also provided for a novel opportunity to tour other African countries on their way down to home in the south.

In 1980 Lefifi packed his bags and faced new vistas, as it were, headed for Sweden to study Fine Arts and Art history. Studying in Europe gave a global edge and perspective to ideas shaped in Pretoria’s townships, perhaps, molding what Franz fanon called the global native.

Though not quite returning “home”, in May 1995, the artist-poet-musician held his first exhibition in a democratic South Africa at the UNISA Art Gallery, titled “Xedzedze” Tsonga for “whirlwind”, alongside Fikile Magadlela another firebrand, of Dashiki days. Tladi now lives half and half in the (former) country of his exile and that of his birth: Sweden and South Africa respectively.

Our conversation wasn’t quite concluded, there was a pressing matter requiring his attention. So he lit up a cigarette declaring a wish to quite, his hand unsteady and shaky as he smiled and handed me a CD: Poetry for ARTvanced listeners, it’s an audio anthology of some his poems and Art lectures. He’s signed it:” these are some of our lasting impressions, for Brother Percy”.

Written by: Percy Mabandu
this article first appeared on dashiki dialogues

Another Giant Step For South African Cinema
Kush Khoza, 08-Mar-2006 19:46

the international climate for South African cinema has never been better. Or so it would seem from the spate of attention that our feature films have been garnering. The good news is that documentaries too are sharing in the limelight. The prestigious Milan Festival of African, Asian & Latin American Cinema has selected the South African production GIANT STEPS (2005, 52min, DV) for participation in its official documentary competition.

lefifi tladi (photo aryan kaganof)

GIANT STEPS is an Afrocentric approach to Blackness Now! Dashiki poet Lefifi Tladi guides the audience on a journey of consciousness, analysing and interpreting the meaning of independence as opposed to freedom. He is accompanied on this radical exploration by the cream of South African poets, musicians, dancers and visual artists, including Zim Ngqawana, Don Laka, Kgafela oa Magogodi, Lesego Rampolokeng, Afurakan, Mac Manaka, Thabo Mashishi, Moshe Maboe, Moeketsi Koena and Motlhabane Mashiangwako.

GIANT STEPS is a moving tribute to its co-director, Bra’ Geoff Mphakati, who passed away tragically during the filming of this, his first documentary. Bra’ Geoff Mphakati was a tireless cultural worker who shepherded a generation of musicians, fine artists and writers from his home in Mamelodi. The likes of Don Laka and Vusi Mahlasela cut their jazz teeth at his Pretoria Jazz Appreciation society meetings.

Lefifi Tladi was mentored by Bra’ Geoff after he was kicked out of school for being a “stupid”. Lefifi, inspired by The Last Poets, formed Dashiki, a cultural ensemble that became closely allied to Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement. In 1976 Lefifi went into exile.

bra’ geoff mphakati (photo ruby savage)

GIANT STEPS is a documentary that sees Bra’ Geoff and Lefifi re-united, the two of them taking a generation of younger poets, musicians and artists on a journey of consciousness that is an afrocentric approach to blackness now. Taking poart in this exploration are the likes of Kgafela oa Magogodi, Lesego Rampolokeng, Mac Manaka, Zim Ngqawana and Afurakan. Bra’ Geoff passed away unexpectedly on the fourth day of shooting Giant Steps, which is his first documentary as director. The film was completed by co-director Aryan Kaganof, whose 2002 documentary WESTERN 4.33, won the first prize at the Milan festival. GIANT STEPS is produced by Michelle Wheatley and Ziyanda Ngcaba for Reflex Motion Pictures and was broadcast twice by the SABC.

this article first published by kush

Bra’ Geoff Mphakati : Ah you could never live in South Africa and be involved in the arts and not have a political dimension or dynamic - unless you were unconscious of course!

Lefifi Tladi: I told this priest I was dreaming of God yesterday. I remember his name, Father Mathias; and he was asking me “how did he look like?” I said “no she was black!” and he got so angry and said, “that was the Devil’s wife you were dreaming of!” (laughter) Can you imagine! “That wasn’t God, actually have you seen a black angel in your life?” And I was just seven years. I said “no father”, he said “that’s why we only preparing you to get to the less hellish part of hell. Heaven, you’re not going!” (laughter)

Bra’ Geoff Mphakati: I remember in the sixties I walked into the OK Bazaars in Pretoria and I said to the sales lady… I don’t even know what the item was that I wanted, so I tell her, I tell her in English, so the first thing she does is she turns around and says, “Can’t you speak Afrikaans?” So instead of answering her that I can actually speak Afrikaans, I started asking for that item in three or four of the indigenous languages and then she said, “What are you saying?” Then I said to her,” I’m doing you a big favor, I’m talking to you in a language that isn’t my own language, and you dare to ask me to speak Afrikaans? And now I’ve asked you for the item that I wanted in four of our Indigenous languages and you haven’t understood me. You are ungrateful!”

Lefifi Tladi: O SILENT GOD, Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days—
Hear us, good Lord!
We are not better than our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and human men.
When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed:
curse them as we curse them,
do to them all and more than ever they have done to innocence and
Is this Thy justice, O Father, that guile be easier than innocence,
and the innocent crucified for the guilt of the untouched guilty?
Thou Knowest good god A city lay in travail,
God our Lord, and from her loins sprang twin Murder and Black Hate.
but we know that you’re not one of them, that
bloodless and heartless thing that we know that
in Thy soul’s soul sit some soft darkenings of the evening,
in silence, oh silent god.

Bra’ Geoff Mphakati: I managed Dashiki until it was banned and went underground, until some of its members had to leave the country and go abroad, the others went underground within the country. I was managing the Dashiki then because it was important and highly imperative for me or somebody with the understanding and the consciousness of the political dynamic involving Dashiki….and Dashiki became vocal as far as the arts were concerned, opening up and saying what they felt about the state. They didn’t now go into the back rooms and the back yard and hide themselves - they came open. All of their performances they were very very vocal, and this is why they started burning their fingers.

Lefifi Tladi: Cause now we were going to schools really motivating the kids, and when 1976 happened in Soweto then we said well if it’s in Soweto we’ll take it out here. We were burning all these buses and some schools and we were highly highly causing commotion…ultimately we were picked up, all of us but then we went on trial and we got the bail….but during this period of this bail, Shahn Sheti who was our lawyer said that you know your case has been changed from public violence and arson to sabotage, so the mildest sentence you’ll get is about eighteen years.

Lefifi Tladi: Our spears are immersed in blood we are on the war path of blood river,
the distance is long the distance is strenuous but our courage is thriced
for the jet planes fly over Umgungundlovu.
We are the elephant we move the way of no return.

DJ Rude Boy Paul: A gentleman by the name of Lefifi Tladi will be joining us on the other side of the news bulletin, a world renowned artist and poet who has been in exile for over thirty years so he definitely has a story to tell ..

Lefifi Tladi: No actually, Lefifi means darkness but not the darkness you’ll find in cupboards and things like that, like the darkness after sunset, and then Tladi means lightning.

Kgafela oa Magogodi: You Know Lefifi as you may know came out of what we call the black consciousness tradition, came out of the seventies, went to exile I think in 1976.

DJ Rude Boy Paul: That’s almost thirty years out there.

Kgafela oa Magogodi: Yes he has been based in Sweden I think for thirty, since 1980.

Lefifi Tladi: Twenty-four years.

Kgafela oa Magogodi: Oh yes so that for me, it’s great to be here with him and you know and share him with the Y generation, He’s from the Toyi Toyi generation.

Lefifi Tladi: We didn’t know much about ourselves and instead of looking to others, to Europe, then I was collecting a lot of material of contemporary African artists and then from there we had few exhibitions all over the place and from 1980 I got a scholarship to study in Sweden, to 86.

DJ Rude Boy Paul: What did you study exactly?

Lefifi Tladi: Art history, but it’s a wrong name actually, its European art history because there are no Africans in those books of theirs. (laughter)

untitled, watercolour, 1994 - lefifi tladi

Lefifi Tladi: But I think its unfortunate it’s a very sad period for me today because the day before yesterday my guru Geoff Mphakati passed away… so that is the thing that has put my energy levels at quite a low level, because he’s a guy who actually uplifted our consciousness as artists….he made us understand the meaning of being of an artist because we have this simple kind of negative tradition of if a child is dull witted let him go into the arts…

Geoff Mphakati: Lefifi and company, but mostly Lefifi, is what my wife calls my instant children. Lefifi was dumped on my lap by his uncle after he was kicked out of school because they thought he was dumb, they said he was stupid. So I took him on and started piling book after book on him, he lapped them up like nobody’s business. Right now the mentor is like the student and the student is like the mentor.

(pause)

Geoff Mphakati: I think one of the most crucial issues, now this I’m directing at artists, whether they be poets, dancers, visual artists you know, all of the art forms, literary arts. It boils down to one thing - freedom means money. In other words artists create for an elitist group. Artists have never been able to address themselves from a socio- economic and a political perspective because if they had artists wouldn’t be in the limbo they caught up in right now. It’s who do I sell my work to next, to get a couple of dimes.

Lefifi Tladi: Because we were working within a political context, you see.

Debs Matshoba: Revolutionary music and poetry.

Lefifi Tladi: I mean people when they came into Dashiki they knew it was a conscientisation programme.

Lefifi Tladi: Let’s talk in privacy.
Once again time in a foreign land loses its logic and turns the children of the land into orphans…
…orphans that flow with the rivers, that flow up the mountains,
…orphans who know the tracks of animals and the sound of an elephant suffering… from tooth ache…
Orphans with hard soled feet that can’t be pierced by thorns.
The orphans herd the elephants wearing sandals of baby leopard skins.
Not a drop of royal blood in their veins yet they herd the elephants.
Orphans that know the long tongued sounds that feed from the river.
Orphans like tree trunks who break the horns of the Albino rhinos,
Albino rhinos that pretend to understand us when we talk in our own languages.
Let us go into a huddle and speak our own languages
for privacy.

Afurukan: Good afternoon and welcome, welcome, thank you very very much for coming out …for hearing the call, for coming to share with us what is truly South Africa’s most raw and undiscovered, unearthed talent mixed with something legendary… something fresh, something a lot of us still don’t know anything about and we are so open minded to learn. Today we are honoring Mr. Lefifi Tladi. I know a lot of you are going, who is that? Yes Mr. Lefifi Tladi, I do not have the right I believe because I’m to young to actually say anything about him so as time goes by I’ll get somebody on stage who will give us proper introduction of Mr. Lefifi Tladi.

Lefifi Tladi: The way Kgafela reads poetry inspires me. I’ll read a short poem that I like. It illustrates the depth of our language [Setstwana], it goes like this.

Toro, A Thorn fig, not toro, a dream.
To vomit God is to cut off the wings of angels, is to make a hole out of dreams of slavery.
It is to free ourselves to breathe through the third eye, unpicked by the thorns of the thorn fig (Foreign elements)…
…or to put it another way.
When God vomits I cut off the wings of angels…
… I drill holes for you to dream in.

Lefifi Tladi: I wrote this piece as an exercise in cryptic writing. I’ll have to put on my glasses to see what I’ve written. (laughter) This one also needs to be understood by listening carefully to the intonation of the words… because what is important with these poems is to listen deeply. We’ll start with one that goes like this …Which means I should explain this very clearly now…it means…you see…

Lefifi Tladi: To blind the eyes of bald headed soft-chested twins.

Kgafela oa Magogodi: That was the mother fucking tongue!

Otsile Ntsoane: Lefifi Tladi has written fantastic Sesotho, Setswana poems; I mean metaphorically, he’s galactic traveling above the cosmological levels…but unfortunately the professors of Setswana and seSotho don’t want to open their brains to recognize him and say bring those poems home to be published, read and be taught in school. Now another question some of the guys were asking “hey now I’m struggling to publish indigenous language, to publish an anthology, I want know how am I going to publish. Lefifi says “well look I have written poetry many years ago, I mean I’ve never published, but if you get published in twenty years…

Lesego Rampolokeng: … or if by 2050 you are not published, you have failed!

Lesego Rampolokeng: From the human animal, to the imperial cannibal, the raptor is in flight, larking sight …
on dynamite, now the rhymes glow see how the rhythms flow in the vein of violence…
…now silence is a song turning the wrong king Kong out of Etosha Pan into a satellite dish …
I move in whirlpools of riot, demon light, demented cry, demented die but I
I
I
I cut
lord, demon lie, demented cry, demented die but I cut…
Demon light, demented cry, demented die but…
…I’m a poem taking form beyond the napalm storm,
I’m a moving mosaic, a sonic volcano while they hop till they drop the atom bomb
cut,
and out.

Lesego Rampolokeng: To be honest I don’t think that I would have attempted to take the first step into the poetic word… or into that terrain where the mind gets to be pulled apart, gets to be dissected and opened out, and left bleeding and pumping for people to eat off, were it not for him…(points to Lefifi) …I doubt it very much, because at the time I had of course had been exposed to the Shakespeares, to the dead white romantics and such like and I hated poetry…I don’t know if I’ve changed, I perhaps still hate or perhaps still hate even much more… because for me it was something that was alienating for me even the nursery rhymes that we were taught bah bah black sheep……I looked at that stuff and I could not identify with the sheep, I was much more of a mountain goat…(laughter) …you know so when he burst upon the scene and into my consciousness I had to embrace that and get myself married to it and that’s why I’m here…

Lefifi Tladi: Now I talk about our visit to our second place where our spirits interpret…
…to us the depth of our dream visions through the third eye of our souls…
…3D vision which clarify our dreams and allow those who hear through their third ear to speak in ancient tongues…
…tongues of fire without smoke because this is the place where nervous systems are perfected…
…where the radio waves settle where there is no depth, nor width nor weight of the existing things…
…those who reach out to these places are indeed the true messengers…
…let us open our third senses so as to understand what it is we should do at the place where we are…
…because this life is not a thorn fig but a dream…

war of the gods, motlhabane mashiangwako, 2005

Motlhabane Mashiangwako: I became a visual artists in Geoff’s house you know. One day we paid Geoff a visit and we found these artists in Geoff’s house and look, it was fantastic. They were using Geoff’s main bedroom as a studio… and that is where I first picked up a piece of paper. I mean I was among the heavy guys like Winston Saodi, Fikile Magadlela…and a lot more others like Lefifi Tladi, Gilbert Mabale and so on, there was music happening, there was the visual arts happening and…somebody gave me, allowed me a piece of paper which I took and I started drawing…and what I drew on that piece of paper was a foot with an eye, you know, and roots coming out of the foot. So the next painting what I later entitled “Nkosi Sikelela e Africa” It was a head of a woman with parted hairs, you know, and a lot of lips around it, you know which represented, the islands around Africa and this face was in tears. That was the African continent or the matriarchal Africa mourning the loss and the suffering of her children and that was in 1974 in Geoff’s house.

star child, motlhabane mashiangwako, 2004

Lefifi Tladi: What we were doing in terms of this kind of paintings was that we were laying a foundation that gives a broader scope of how we perceive our future, you get it? And unfortunately it didn’t filter down because we got independence and independence simply means: what the Westerners or the imperialists do is when they see that you’re about to get your freedom they give you independence, and independence simply means they give you the machinery that they were oppressing you with so you oppress yourself.

Mac Manaka:

I feel like grabbing liberation by the throat,
choking until it until it speaks the truth
until it admits that it was paid to fool us with the idea that we are free…
cause if we are why do we wake up to morning news
about the struggle that continues
attracting issues
and more issues.
Who am I in this life story?
I feel like a puppet playing on guitar strings composing instruments with a torture tongue
and listening to the wind reciting poems of fallen heroes…
while trying to break chains
that enslave brains
because in this land liberation is an elusive image
hidden behind empty promises of freedom…
tattooed on a timeless bomb and any minute from now
it will explode
into a thousand pieces of hope.
My question is
will we still cope?
They said I am free,
free from what?
‘Cos some are still caught in that Bantu art.
They said I am free,
free from what?
‘Cos some are still caught in that Bantu art.
Free from the teacher who gave me four
cause she had
issues with Madiba…
free from the white man who stole the rhythm of marimba,
the ethnic sound of mbaqanga
and the beat of a gumboot dancer…
yes I feel like grabbing liberation by the throat,
choke it until it speaks the truth
about soldiers in that boat
about..
the Cape’s racist leather coat of Jan Van Riebeck…
and so change and expand
are my biggest priority
while I emancipate myself from mental slavery,
cause no one but us
will free us.

Lefifi Tladi: Each and every generation has to define itself in the context of its role in the development of its own society..and I could just take a, for example in the context of South Africa at the time of black Consciousness, that was a generation who had to define its role within the development of the society and our point of departure was based on consciousness. The uplifting of a consciousness that is anchored in Africa and on that basis we began to find out what is this “Africa”?…what is its history?, what is its contribution to world development? and as Ngugi wa Thiongo would say we were shifting the centre from a euro-centric perspective to an afro-centric perspective.

Leffif Tladi: The way I hate out onto the past, soul delves into the past and future manifesting himself as the us or…the us or…us us us, the us or…
A colour dances around, beauty beyond angelic, so nice so rare…until the gust of ghost…
These legs can not cope with the temper and broken light…passing through a prism, hanging from the eye of a revolving moon…
…ancient cave paintings walk from the walls out of our magical past towards the hedonist…
…Saodi a medium mystic.

Geoff Mphakati: What inspired us? We are artists we are forever creating, we are innovative people…we are dynamic we are volatile; we are a combination of a volcanic eruption…an earthquake, a hurricane, a typhoon, put them all together - That’s who we are.

Motlhabane Mashiangwako: So you don’t become an artist out of choice you become an artist out of, if I was say maybe a Christian I would say out of a call, you get a calling.

Afurukan: I stood in a cipher with God.
I stood in a cipher with God and all He seemed to speak about was rotating planets and stars…
I stood in a cipher with God and all He seemed to speak about was separating light from the dark,
barbeques on the sun and leaving a burning candle on the moon.
Four was his beat box and Moses was keeping score when two four corner stones
and his accomplice was a four headed shadow which seemed to bump its head in every direction…
While I spied and listened from a distance in anticipation he started talking about me
and I thought he was dissing but actually he was explaining the philosophy behind me…
because you see God is a wizard and I’m his magical bag of tricks
and all He needs to do is think and I spit and I all He needs to do is think and I spit…
and we don’t need blunts to reach the highest ultimate level of thought
cause we smoke life rolled up in papyrus leaves and blow our smoke rings and let them hang around certain planets.
Then Thor changed a beat and twenty-one angels joined in, we opened up the cipher so that the rest of hell could move in…
flames sparked a cipher from this fiery creature claiming he was a battle cat
he started dissing but God ignored him, I asked why, He said no holy Gabriel handle that.
He called me the first son of man and kept on repeating that the Armageddon is only a punch line away;
the Armageddon is only a punch line away.
But how could it be?
He had promised me that we would cipher into eternity,
and then decided He was out of my league.
He brought Moses in to battle me, and I was like
damn!.

Okay let’s break it down.

Moses is from the old school and is known to battle only with ten lions…
but to maintain and project his voice to transmit to ten mics
….ten times, ten MCs, embarrassed being taken out at the same time.
The cipher was getting hot and I had to battle back, I had to battle
back, so looking to Moses I was like, looking to Moses I was like hold up!
You not an MC even if I was the red sea and you were his staff you still couldn’t split me…
don’t even look at me you need to live another century to be raw enough to battle me.
I’m the prodigal son from the crowd you mislead
and I’m back to make you swallow every word you ever said
even on Noah’s ark you wouldn’t survive regardless.
I make you write Afurakan the eleventh commandment!

The beat,
the beast started as four had swallowed his electrical tongue
and all corners of the universe seemed to fold in.
Too dumbstruck to react I watched Moses collapse face flat…
as the twenty one angels hung their heads in shame,
and I fell on my knees at gods feet and I was like
Our Father please forgive me for I have killed one of your sons,
please forgive me for I have killed one of me.
My tongue was then imprisoned for twenty-one reincarnations
and only then can I cipher with God again
and only then can I truly be me again.

Lefifi Tladi: Yes spirituality actually, that’s why they say Africans are soulful; it means they have their senses very much in contact. That’s what I understand of soul. To have your senses in harmony, and once you have your senses you become, obviously, soulful - Eye ear nose tongue and texture control.

Lefifi Tladi: We are the elephant we move in the way of no return,
our spears are immersed in blood,
we are the elephant, we move the way of no return…
we are the warrior transformed into a guerilla
for the spirit of Sharpville moves from the past into the present wearing the new mask.
Soweto, Soweto, Soweto we are the elephant we move the way of no return,
we are the warriors transformed into a guerilla.

bra’ geoff matlharene mphakati, co-director of giant steps

Don Laka: And Geoff Mpakhati introduced me to the real new world of Jazz, you know hard bop and all the new modern jazz musicians you know…the African jazz, avant garde jazz, he really, I mean he used to take us into his house, you know buy us snacks and stuff. We sit there and play, he said now the concert begins and he would play a record from the first track up to the last track. That’s how you, I remember in 1976 when he just came with a CD and, it was on a Friday he called me I went to him with a friend of mine. We sat there listening to a CD from Friday until Saturday the next day. That’s how important that music became to me and I was introduced to it by Geoff.

Geoff Mphakati: And the poetry came into place because of the Last Poets merging or fusing African musical forms with poetry.

Lefifi Tladi: Actually funnily enough the first time we heard the Last Poets was in Alexandra at Wally Serote’s place, and then actually the name the Last Poets was given to the Last Poets by Willy Kgositsile who gave them the name the Last Poets, and the Last Poets also were a group that were there because their purpose was to uplift the consciousness of the ordinary working class into a kind of an aesthetic level of appreciating what black people can do.

Debs Matshoba: But at least, you know for instance, the kind of songs that we used to sing commonly, you know are revolutionary songs.
like there was this one…
“Oh when I was a non-white,
a non-white,
a non-white,
Oh when I was a non-white,
a non-white a non-white was I.
I was yes Master, yes Miss, yes Master, yes Miss,

you know and that how we were conscientising people

“now that I’m a black man,
a black man,
a black man,
and now that I’m a black a man, a black man am I…

…it is No Master, No Miss., no Master”

You know, because we were called non-whites. We were refusing to be called non-whites. No, white people are actually non-blacks!

Geoff Mphakati: And the indigenous perspective really took off from the very onset with Dashiki beccause they had poetry in Tswana, Pedi.

Lesego Rampolokeng: We are going to Church.

Kgafela oa Magogodi: They disgrace us. They fight over meat at funerals, they have no respect
They like to squabble, fighting for meat at funerals, insulting each other’s mother.
They pelt one another with bricks and use cattle to hurt one another, breaking windows.
Shouting “Voetsek’ but the meat they’re fighting for isn’t in the pot its under the blanket.
They shame us by fighting for meat at funerals, giving each other the smell of their armpits.
They stab him with a knife in the eye and when he runs he falls into a pot of samp.
He hits the black pot and falls onto the fire with his belly. Everybody screams.
The congregation Gossips…
…the priest gives them a sermon…
He says “Hey you people, which one messed with the other one’s wife?”

Lefifi Tladi: The thing that made Dashiki quite different was that it was a combination of music and poetry… and that was inspired mainly by how traditional music and poetry had been working together…and from a political perspective when we started working with the Black Consciousness movement. People like Steve Biko, Mandla Langa and Aubrey Mokwae had come to our place in GaRankuwa and see how we could function together as a mobilizing force to uplift the consciousness of the people.

Don Laka: The Black Consciousness was the movement that really drove us to understand ourselves and know who we are… …that had obviously the influence of people like Dashiki who carried the flag at that time. You know with us who come from the sixties and the seventies, you know most specially the seventies, the height of Apartheid at the time and the oppression, the serious oppression of the eighties. If you listen to the music that we did because the lyrics were banned and people thought we couldn’t write lyrics. We subjected ourselves to writing lyrics that would mean nothing but deep down the music that we produced, you know was protest music. You know it was music that would keep us hoping.

Lefifi Tladi: To them the earth’s deepest depths are taboo.
Before we sit at a table and speak in a foreign language with the Albino
Foreigners.
We need to go into a huddle and speak to ourselves in our own languages.
We need to make our own decisions about governance and what is important to us on our own terms.
This discussion needs to happen amongst ourselves in our own languages before we can negotiate with the albino foreigners.

TITLE OVER SCREEN : Giant Steps is dedicated to Bra Geoff Mphakati who passed away during the shooting of this, his first documentary as director.

Lefifi Tladi: So now we don’t make poems we create, for brother Geoff.

Lefifi Tladi: A spontaneous reflection of our soul steps…you have trembled beyond the illusion of political manifestations.

Lefifi Tladi: Oh silent god…
Thou whose voice afar in mist and mystery hath left our ears an-hungered in these fearful days
We are not better than our fellows, Lord, we are but weak and humble men.
When our devils do deviltry, curse Thou the doer and the deed:
curse them as we curse them

Geoff Mphakati: You need to revisit your past, to be able to be able to move ahead, until you revisit your past, you are moving ahead into a void.