The Chimurenga Chronic

Category: PASS

  • Neo Muyanga – The Sex For Money No Power Mixtape

    PASS founder, a composer and musician Neo Muyanga highlights the currents and transactions between the physical and the metaphysical, the lustful and the learned, the sensual and confessional and all matters philosophical, sociological and political in this powerplay.  

    “Obia Ba Nnye/Naughty Child” – Desmond Ababio

    “Mentirosa” – Concha Buika

    “Le Buste” – Jean Cocteau/Dj Spooky

    “Die Ballade Von Der Sexuelien Horgkeit” – Kurt Weill

    “Sexy Sadie” The Beatles

    “Yaphel’imali Yam’” – Busi Mhlongo

    “Gimme My Money Back” – The Treme Brass Band

  • Revisit moments from the PASS landing in Amsterdam

    From 11 -15 December 2016, the Pan African Space Station transmitted live in Amsterdam from the OBA Central Library.

    PASS is an experiment in speaking, listening, playing, partying and community, featuring collaborations with artists and rebels whose practices draw from and respond to a variety of contexts; prompting us, through performance, conversation and other forms, to imagine how worlds connect.

    Listen to Kodwo Eshun further entangling our imaginations with ‘Music of Resilience’, recorded on day two of the intervention. For more from PASS in Amsterdam, please visit our Mixcloud.

    Other contributions include ‘Black Stereo’ (Jimmy Rage and Bamba Al Mansour), Chandra Frank, Franck Biyong, Sammy Baloji, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Faustin Linyekula and Jose Pereelanga paying tribute to Franco and TPOK, Amal Alhaag and Maria Guggenbichler reminding you to ‘Count Your Blessings’, Angele Etoundi Essamba, ‘Protest Pop’ with Neo Muyanga, Em’kal Eyongapka, Aurelie Lierman and many many more. More about the landing can be found here.

  • Udaba with Kgafela oa Mogogodi – LIVE at Centre for the Book, Cape Town (2009)

    On 1 October 2009, Pan African Space Station hosted Udaba at The Centre for the Book, Cape Town.
    Udaba was a musical flurry of passion, soul, soothsaying, truth-telling and jazz poetry that takes you on flights of improvisational abandon. Their politically engaged elegies fused vernacular lyricism, Xhosa praise singing and African indigenous music on jam-like sets with a rotating crew of regular collaborators. Udaba drew their inspiration from Xhosa literature and they referred to their music as Umculo Buciko (musical essays).

    For PASS, Udaba collaborated with spoken-word author and filmmaker Kgafela oa Magogodi.

    Ubada have since disbaned, but two of the five founding members, Liyo and Pura hasve formed Izithunywa Zohlanga (Messengers of the Nation) to use indigenous repertoire and idioms to produce music and literature that speaks directly to the present in post-Apartheid South Africa while at the same time being custodians of our heritage through performances. Koketso Potsane writes on the new duo here. 

  • Denderah Rising with Georgia Anne Muldrow + Thandi Ntuli Quartet + The Monkey Nuts

     

    In April 2018, PASS welcomed back Georgia Anne Muldrow and her “ancestral orchestra” feat. Thandi Ntuli Quartet and The Monkey Nuts to Pan African Space Station (PASS). Below is an excerpt of that night. Breathe!

     

    For more visit the Pan African Space Station.

  • P.A.S.S. HARARE

    From 9 – 12 November, the Pan African Space Station (PASS) landed in The National Gallery of Zimbabwe (NGZ) in the centre of Harare.

    In collaboration with visual artist Kudzanai Chiurai, who launched his first ever solo exhibition in his home country titled ‘We Need New Names’, Chimurenga installed the PASS studio as a public research platform towards a Zimbabwe focused issue of the Chimurenga Chronic.

    Looking into the inventions of Zimbabwe, the programming examined music as the paradigm through which the country and region’s political history is told and archived. Whatever Zimbabwe is, and is becoming, already exists in the sound-worlds produced in the region. PASS in Harare invited musicians, artists, writers, cultural producers and rebels based in Harare and beyond in studio to uncover these worlds.

    Now replayable: #PanAfricanSpaceStation Harare sessions, recorded/broadcast live from National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Featuring The Monkey Nuts, Weaver Press, Tinofireyi Aero5ol Zhou, Chirikure Chirikure, Netsayi, Kudzanai Chiurai and Pungwe Nights. Tune in for conversations on Zim Rock, Literary Initiatives, Post-Chimurenga Postures and (why) We Need New Names.