Chimurenga presented a musical conversation between Salim Washington (saxophone/flute), Dalisu Ndlazi (bass) and Asher Gamedze (drums) at the Chimurenga Factory (157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town), Thursday, 24 June 2021.
This event formed part of the Stories About Music in Africa series.
From 5-9 May 2021, Chimurenga’s Pan African Space Station (PASS) landed at Lavoir Moderne Parisien in Goutte d’or, Paris, to imagine, re-examine and re-circulate sonic archives of black radicalism in the francophone world. This session dug into the “soundtrack” (bande-son), an underlying container of information and ideas that is seldom explored on its own terms.
We departed from cinematic practice, specifically films/filmmakers (Julius-Amedee Laou, Elsie Haas, Med Hondo, Kanor sisters, Sarah Maldoror, etc) represented in the printed archive we had recently installed in Centre Pompidou, and expanded the soundtrack beyond the screen to other areas of knowledge production: the street, the club, recording studios, kongossa, live performances, noise, even the magazine page.
We imagined a live in-studio soundtrack that responded to and expanded visual footage from the 2nd Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Rome 1959 – an event charged by the-then process of decolonisation and the unwelcome presence of younger, radical thinkers such as Fanon, Beti, Glissant, Beville and more. We took the cues from Fabienne and Véronique Kanor’s “La noiraude” to explore zouk as aesthetics of black transnationalism – a geography of unauthorised pleasure throughout the 1980s. We listened to Sarah Maldoror’s record collection, and her use of music on film.
In Julius-Amedee Laou’s “Solitaire a micro ouvert”, the brother of a man killed in a racist murder in Paris of the 1980s takes over of a black radio station to address the “community”. In “La Vieille Quimboiseuse et le majordome” he highlights the dialectic between the seen and the heard. We listened to the oral history of “La coordination des femmes noires” that writer Gerty Dambury continually produces; or Gerard Lockel’s development of gro ka moden as decolonial praxis; or the Paris-based afro/astrosonic network documented in the music Jo Maka, Ramadolf, Cheikh Tidiane Fall, Yebga Likoba and more, which not only connects directly to Maldoror’s film “Un dessert pour Constance” but also puts sound to the immigrant struggles of the post-May 68 era. And brought us to the ongoing gentrification and structural violence in Goutte d’or.
We considered Frank Biyong’s retelling of the war of decolonisation in Cameroun in his album “Ibolo Ini”, and more broadly his use of music as site of memorialising; and explored black ecologies through sound.
We presented “Act 2” of Christian Nyampeta’s acclaimed radio-play “The Africans”.
And live performances, talks, screenings, DJ sets. And more.
iPhupho L’ka Biko and Pan African Space Station presented QAMATA PULA, an ancestral invocation collapsing past, present and future, over three days at the Chimurenga Factory (157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock, Cape Town).
iMbewu / Seeds – Thursday, 3rd December
The many ancestors and living ones who preceded us planted seeds that allow us to dream different dreams. We pay tribute to the likes of Miriam Makeba, Madala Kunene, Busi Mhlongo, Stimela, Kutu and others who created conditions for us to become and overcome
iNhlabathi / Soil – Friday, 4th December
Because the past and present are always in conversation, we understand that we come from a lineage that demands from us responsibility. Joined by Cape Town-based artists, we interpret and share Biko’s dream,
uMthimkhulu / Tree – Saturday, 5th December Here is a tree rooted in Afrikan soil. It belongs to us, and those who come after us. On this sonic journey to our desired and foreseen future, we share with you the divine nectar of the tree’s
From 23-25 October 2019, Chimurenga’s Pan African Space Station (PASS) at Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, New York City, explored three narratives related to the participation of African American artists and intellectuals at FESTAC ’77, the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Lagos in 1977.
Wed 23 October 2019, 4pm – 7pm: Sun Ra Arkestra and the jazz avant-garde at FESTAC
As revealed in Chimurenga’s recent publication which compiles stories from/about FESTAC, Sun Ra’s Astro/Afro-mysticism was initially rejected by an important section among FESTAC participants – including some members of the US contingent. In collaboration with trumpet and composer Ahmed Abdullah, and trombonist and composer Craig Harris, both Arkestra members who formed part of Sun Ra’s group at FESTAC, we listened to the Sun Ra Arkestra performances (and other free jazz musicians such as Milford Graves) in Lagos. The musicians were joined by photographer Calvin Reid (who documented the Sun Ra Lagos sessions).
Thurs 24 October 2019, 4pm – 6pm: Black Women Collectives at FESTAC
Stories of the Black Arts Movement are often dominated by iconic black male poets. However Black Women Collectives were represented at FESTAC via their members: Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Louise Meriwether, from the writers group The Sisterhood; and Charlotte Ka Richardson, Faith Ringgold, Valerie Maynard and many more from the visual arts group Where We At.
In her reflection on black women’s collectives and FESTAC, poet, choreographer and myth-scientist Harmony Holiday asks: Can we override those epigenetic tendencies rooted in generational trauma, by simply gathering and sharing ideas on our own terms, or is it too late for that pure and reckless kind of love, that troubled and troubadour Black love?… Can a festival turn into eternal solidarity?
Harmony shared her piece in the PASS studio in the company of Charlotte Ka, Valerie Maynard and Marilyn Nance.
Friday 25 October 2019, 3pm – 5pm: Black photography and the visual memory of FESTAC
FESTAC was mainly ignored by the US mainstream media – reporting and analysis from media outlets such as New York Times and Washington Post, among others, focused more on lamenting the absence of whites and poor organization of the event than covering the month-long programme featuring original productions by some 30,000 artists from all over the Black world. A visual memory of FESTAC exists primarily through the perseverance of independent photographers such as Marilyn Nance, Calvin Reid, Kofi Moyo, Bob Crawford, among others, as well as the coverage produced by black media outlets such as Ebony.
Nance, Reid and other black photographers who documented FESTAC joined us in the PASS studio.
In April 2018, we 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!
From 11-13 April 2019, the Pan African Space Station landed in the stolen and occupied land of the Boonwurrung (of the Kulin nation), in what is known today as Australia.
Invited by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA) as part of an exhibition entitled Shapes of Knowledge, PASS explored “Black Australia” historical and current connections to pan Africanism and their participation in FESTAC ’77 – the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture which took place in Lagos in 1977.
We give thanks to our collaborators Sista Zai Zanda, who presented a daily show exploring different perspectives on community making in Australia for Africans in collaboration with Naomi Velaphi, Ziimusic and N’fa Jones; rapper and vocalist Lady Lash; pioneering Aboriginal reggae artist Bart Willoughby; composer, singer, trumpeter Olugbade Okunade, featuring musician and producer Enoch Ogiemwanre; multidisciplinary artist Torika Bolatagici who installed her ongoing library project The Community Reading Room; Stani Goma for “Music of the Black Struggle in Australia”, in collaboration with Jason Tamiru.
On 10 September 2016, the Pan African Space Station hosted Gospel Christain Porn Rap duo FOKN Bois at Greatmore Studios, Cape Town.
M3NSA (the Ghanaian Hiplife Pioneer) and Wanlov the Kubolor (African Gypsy) of FOKN Bois unapologetically venture into territories that other Ghanaian musicians stay well clear of. Controversial, bold and shocking, the duo is known to entertain and challenge the status-quo of everyday Ghanaian society. The performance was broadcast live on PASS via the airwaves and can be revisted here.
Chimurenga returned to Paris for a 5-day intervention and installation at La Colonie. From December 13 – 17, 2017, we installed a live radio station and a research library, and hosted talks, screenings and performances that asked ‘Who Killed Kabila?’, as the starting point for an in-depth investigation into power, territory and the creative imagination.
The equation was simple: the length of a Congolese president’s reign is proportional to his/her willingness to honour the principle that the resources of the Congo belong to others. Mzee Kabila failed.
Who killed Kabila is no mystery either. It is not A or B or C. But rather A and B and C. All options are both true and necessary – it’s the coming together of all these individuals, groups and circumstances, on one day, within the proliferating course of the history, that does it.
So telling this story isn’t merely be a matter of presenting multiple perspectives but rather of finding a medium able to capture the radical singularity of the event in its totality, including each singular, sometimes fantastical, historical fact, rumour or suspicion.
We’ve heard plenty about the danger of the single story – we want to explore its power. We take inspiration from the Congolese musical imagination, its capacity for innovation and its potential to allow us to think “with the bodily senses, to write with the musicality of one’s own flesh” (Mbembe).
At La Colonie, Chimurenga installed a library that included books, films, and visual material mapping extensive research that investigates history and changing formations of rule and accumulation, space and territory, allegiance, citizenship, and sovereignty, and the African imagination in music and writing.
Each day, the Pan Africa Space Station, broadcast live with a programme of interviews, discussions and performances by collaborators from around the world including musicians, DJs, journalists, writers, political theorists, thinkers and filmmakers. After the event, the sounds and images generated in this process will contribute towards a special edition of our Pan African broadsheet, the Chronic.
Participants included Dominique Malaquais, Parselelo Kantai, Philou Lozoulou, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Barly Baruti, Victor Gama, Lulendo Mvulu, Déo Namujimbo, Luigi Elongui, Maurice Poto, Mengi Massamba, Hugo Mendez, Jihan El-Tahri, Bintou Simpore, Martin Meissonnier, Paulo Inglês, Franck Biyong, Ray Lema, Brice Ahounou, Nadine Fidji, Spilulu, Arnaud Zaitjman, Julie Peghini, Sinzo Aanza, Koba Lubaki, Percy Zvomuya, Boddhi Satva, Abdourahman Waberi, Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, Sam Tshintu & Academia, Trésor Kibangula, Bullit, Kovo NSondé, Rokia Bamba-Mennessier, Emmanuel Nashi, Franck Leibovici, Julien Seroussi, Daniel Kalinaki, Pascale Obolo, Kivu Ruhorahoza, Jacques Goba, Mo Laudi, Michelange Quay.
On 7 March 2015, Pan African Space Station (PASS) hosted UK musician, composer, producer, DJ and neuroscientist Floating Points (aka Sam Shepard) LIVE at Guga S’Thebe Theatre in Langa.
His DJ work and love for vinyl records has taken him all over the world, with Brazil and Japan favourite regular destinations. This Pan African Space Station (PASS) show will be his first trip to southern Africa and shall see Floating Points perform a vinyl DJ set using his rotary “travel” mixer to combine his own productions with a vast array of influences.
As co-founder of the independent label Eglo Records (with Alexander Nut), Floating Points has helped create and shape a cutting-edge platform for contemporary soul and dance music. Since 2009, he has released a score of much lauded singles, remixes and EPs which continue to cause crowds around the world to dance. Hits including ‘Vacuum Boogie’ and ‘People’s Potential’. His debut album is due later in the year and is set to introduce even more audiences to Floating Points’ distinct and highly inventive sounds. In 2014, Eglo Records released the exceptional singer Fatima’s debut album, Yellow Memories. Floating Points wrote four tracks on this LP, including ‘Do Better’ with Theo Parrish.
This PASS performance was supported by the British Council, Connect ZA and New Music Connections grants and forms part of SA-UK Seasons 2014 & 2015 which is a partnership between the Department of Arts and Culture, South Africa and the British Council.
From 9 – 12 November 2017, 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.
“The second installment of Thath’i Cover Okestra with the Pan African Space Station was, like it’s Johannesburg predecessor: a day-time concert, and in the same way, a child, woman and man family affair. The sound that came out of Guga S’thebe Arts and Culture Centre in Langa, Cape Town was now-now, an old-school kwaito of the future. What I saw and certainly experienced was an open, inter-generational classroom ruled by boogieing and screaming teacher-learners of all shade and size.” – Ra, Rangoato Hlasane, catalyst (with Keleketla! Library accomplice Malose Malahlela) for this coming together.
On 4 November 2012, Pan African Space Station presented Thath’i Cover Okestra LIVE at Guga’ Sthebe Theatre in Langa.
Directed by Bokani Dyer (piano) with Masello Motanapitsi Ya Legola (vocals), Shane Cooper (synths), Tito Zwane (bass guitar), Tiko Ngobeni (percussion, didge and toys), Zweli Mthembu (guitar), Simphiwe Tshabalala (drums) and Lee Thomson (trumpet).
A love letter to kwaito. Revisit the performance here.
From 4 October – 26 November 2017, the Pan African Space Station (PASS) broadcast LIVE from Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. For 8 weeks, the PASS studio functioned as “ecole du soir” (evening school) – a meeting place, a classroom, and laboratory where different worlds converged. The radio programming explored the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, contemporary South Atlantic exchanges and Afro-Mexican cultures – a public research platform toward a forthcoming edition of the Chimurenga Chronic on these themes.
The PASS arkives (re)awaken with a performance from Netsayi and her Black Pressure band. Doreen Gaura takes us back:
Just a little over 10 minutes into the show, she removed her high heeled shoes and jokingly feigned regret for the action as she apologised to the audience, suggesting that she’d only worn them for our sake. It was at that moment that I realised that I was in the presence of spirit and realness and I was in for a great night. Zimbabwean electro – folk band Netsayi & Black Pressure, graced Cape Town with their electro-meets-traditional energy when they performed at the Slave Church on October 5th, 2012 and I had the pleasure of attending their gig. I am generally not the most punctual of humans and that night was no exception as I arrived just as the show was about to start and my waiting friends and I had to hustle for some seats in the gallery as all the ones downstairs were already occupied. This little bit of misfortune later turned into a blessing as my positioning at the far right end of the back row of the gallery made it possible for me to jive away to the band’s more jivable tunes without really disturbing everyone else who chose to remain seated for some weird reason. After all, it wasn’t that kind of party.
The band’s presentation of their individual and collective gifts and offerings was very memorable; from Ray’s tenor/soprano marimba and bass vocal awesomeness to Matthew’s mad skills on the baritone marimba and electric guitar to Ngoni’s badassery on the ngoma and drums to Netsayi herself’s captivating voice. Their performance also featured South African trombonist and singer, Siya Makuzeni, whose beautiful voice added a Xhosa flavour to the mostly Shona and English set. Through their music, Netsayi & Black Pressure comment on various realities, issues, joys and struggles in people’s everyday lives, mostly Zimbabwean people, both in Zimbabwe and in the Zimbabwean diaspora. A natural conversationalist, Netsayi kept the performance interactive by regularly engaging with the audience between songs and encouraging them to interact with her, using her dry sense of humour as a tool to do so.
From 17 -19 February 2017, the Pan African Space Station landed in the library of Contemporary Image Collective (CiC) in downtown Cairo.
PASS in Cairo featured live readings, performances and conversations with Chimurenga’s collaborators in the city, including Hassan Khan,Amanda KM, Mohamed Abdelkarim, Amado Alfadni, Adham Hafez, Shatha Al Deghady, Magdy El Shafee, Amira Hanafi and more.
Recorded sessions from the landing are available for replay via PASS on Mixcloud.
September 12 is Biko Day. On this day in 1977, black consciousness philosopher, thinker, leader Steve Biko died in police custody in 1977. This day also historically marks the start of the Pan African Space Station intervention.
The 24-hr marathon praise party held to launch PASS in 2008, titled “Songs for Biko, and other stomps, screams and prayers”, included DJs, musicians, soundists, poets and generally noise people presenting music and sound inspired by Steve Biko’s work; and read from his words in I Write What I Like.
From 11 -15 December 2016, the Pan African Space Station (PASS) landed in Amsterdam, transmitting live from the OBA Central Library. The PASS live studio featured a 5-day programme as an experiment in speaking, listening, playing, partying and community; as a performance and exhibition space; a research platform and living archive. Programmed and performed by Chimurenga, PASS in Amsterdam featured collaborations with artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians and rebels whose practices draw from and respond to a variety of contexts; to prompt us, through performance, conversation and other forms, to imagine how worlds connect.
We thank all involved for improvising and collaborating with us to make this landing happen. Collaborators include ‘Black Stereo’ (Jimmy Rage and Bamba Al Mansour), Chandra Frank, Faustin Linyekula and Jose Pereelanga paying tribute to Franco, Amal Alhaag and Maria Guggenbichler reminding you to ‘Count Your Blessings’, ‘Protest Pop’ with Neo Muyanga, Em’kal Eyongapka, Kodwo Eshun further entangling our imaginations, Aurelie Lierman and many many more.
To revisit moments from this landing, please visit our Mixcloud. Here’s more about those who contributed to PASS in Amsterdam:
Adeola Enigbokan is an artist and urban theorist based in Amsterdam.
Amal Alhaag and Maria Guggenbichler run DJ workshops for women as part of Side Room, a nomadic meeting room for intersectional feminist and anti-colonial practices.
Akinbode Akinbiyi is a photographer living in Berlin.
Angele Etoundi Essamba is a photographer living and working in Amsterdam. She is also the artistic director for IAM (Intense Art Magazine).
Anna Alix Koffi lives and works in Paris. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of OFF The Wall, a book review dedicated to photography
Ato Malinda is a performance artist who lives and works in Nairobi.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a filmmaker and principal Prince Claus Fund laureate of 2016.
Aurelie Lierman is a sound artist, radio producer, vocalist based in Amsterdam.
DJ CARISTA is an Amsterdama-based radio host and selector at Red Light Radio.
Chandra Frank is a writer and curator living in Amsterdam. She works on black feminist genealogies and the politics of pleasure and resistance.
Charl Landvreugd is a Rotterdam-based visual and performance artist and curator.
Em’kal Eyongakpa is based in South West Cameroon and Amsterdam. He works at itinerant with video, photography, sculpture, sound, text and performance.
Faut Haut is an avant-pop band based in Amsterdam.
Faustin Linyekula is a dancer, choreographer and founder of Studios Kabako in Kisangani.
Femi Dawkins (a.k.a. Jimmy Rage) is a visual artist, poet and musician who lives in Amsterdam.
Frank Biyong is a musician, composer and producer who lives in Yaounde and Paris. He founded and leads the groups Massak and Afroelectric Orchestra.
Hodan Warsame, Tirza Balk and Kahya Engler are activists based in Amsterdam who produce radio shows, as well as host talks and workshops as part of Redmond Amsterdam.
INSAYNO (In Nasty Situations All You Need: Optimism) is a rapper and spoken-word artist based in Amsterdam.
Jeannine Valeriano is a singer, writer and spoken-word artist based in Amsterdam.
Jorgen Unom JG is a singer and poet living in Amsterdam.
DJ Jumanne aka J4 is the founder of Africanhiphop.com, the oldest website dedicated to hip hop cultures on the continent.
King Shiloh Sound System is a roots reggae & dub sound system working from Amsterdam.
Kodwo Eshun is a British-Ghanaian writer, theorist, filmmaker and co-founder of The Otolith Group.
Kunle Adeyemi is an architect and urban theorist, and the founder of Amsterdam-based NLÉWORKS Architects.
Nana Adusei-Poku is curator, writer and research professor in Visual Culture at Rotterdam University
Neo Muyanga is a musician and composer. He is the co-founder of the Pan African Space Station.
New Urban Collective is an activist collective of based in Amsterdam.
NIC Kay is a performance artist whose work involves sculpture, video, sound, installation, collage and printmaking.
N’gone Fall is an independent curator.
DJ Orpheu The Wizard is the co-founder of Red Light Radio, an Amsterdam-based online radio station.
Philou Louzolo is a DJ and producer based in Amsterdam.
Sammy Baloji is a photographer living in Brussels and Lubumbashi.
Vo Trong Nghia is an architect and Prince Claus Fund laureate of 2016.
Chimurenga Magazine launched its new issue, the Chimurenga Chronic, a speculative newspaper set in May 2008, with a Chronic Library exhibition and a live music event in Johannesburg from 19-26 October 2011.
Under the direction of composer/trumpeter Marcus Wyatt, some of Johannesburg’s leading jazz musicians explored Chimurenga Chronic themes such as history, exile and memory in their tribute to the freedom and prolific musical imagination of South African jazz legends, the Blue Notes, on Friday, 21 October 2011. Chimurenga editor Ntone Edjabe and DJs Nok and Soul Diablo were on the decks, selecting gems from the Blue Notes’ and Brotherhood of Breath’s discography and more.
Check out the video from the event featuring The Blue Notes Tribute Orkestra.
From 23 – 26 June 2016, PASS descended on Freedom Park in Lagos, as part of Goethe Institute’s Lagos_Live 2016 festival. The PASS Lagos sessions brought together a broad spectrum of artists, performers, writers and musicians, whose practices draw from a variety of contexts, to participate through conversations, performances and happenings that provoke us to rethink about our histories and to speculate on our futures through artistic and cultural practice.
The PASS Lagos sessions were part of Chimurenga’s ongoing exploration into the festival as political act – from the “festival decade” of 1966-77 when pan African festivals in Dakar, Algiers, Lagos and Kinshasa functioned as laboratories for the development of new, continent-wide politics and cultures, and presented a shared vision of an Africa yet to come.
The PASS Lagos sessions were programmed by Chimurenga, in collaboration with Dagga Tolar with Ajengule House of Poetry, Salam Salam Agidigbe Band, Ade Bantu, Jahman Anikulapo with Benson Idonije, Molara Wood, Temitope Kogbe, Cosmic Yoruba with Dammy Busari and Ashiwel, Tamerri Collective, Ameru JahFlame, Tam Fiofori with Funsho Ogundipe and Ayetoro, Ore Disu with Olamide Udo-Udoma, Deji Toye with Segun Adefila and Wole Oguntokfun, Akintayo Abodunrin, Qudus Onikeku with Tunde Jegede and Efe Paul, Oris Aigbokhaevbolo and Dami Ajayi, Jumoke Verrisimo with Awoko, and many, many more.
To listen to recordings from PASS Lagos, visit our Mixcloud.
Listen to Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley ‘Declaime’ Perkins, recorded live at the Guga S’thebe, Langa on 2 October, 2010.
American funk-fusion chanteuse Georgia Anne Muldrow is, to have Mos Def tell it, ‘like Flack, Nina Simone, Ella, she’s something else. She’s like religion.’ Muldrow is a seeker, a journeywoman unafraid to chart new musical territories. Travelling side by side with soulmate, influential, purposeful and prolific executive producer/emcee/visual artist Dudley Perkins (Declaime), they forge the missing links between beat konductas like Madlib and Dilla and the early-1970s free soul and jazz pioneers like Pharaoh Sanders.
Hip-hop rhythms are rewired, cracked up by odd meters and halting beats that bleed over improvisational forays, corrupted with tinges of electro, R&B, soul, and modern laptop mayhem.
Can a past that the present has not yet caught up with be summoned to haunt the present as an alternative?
In April and May 2016, Chimurenga’s installation Chimurenga Library and pop-up radio station Pan African Space Station infiltrated the Kallio Library in Helsinki.
The intervention was a continuation of Chimurenga’s ongoing exploration into the utopian moment shortly after African independences, when a series of Pan African festivals staged in Dakar, Algiers, Lagos and Kinshasa functioned as laboratories for the development of new, continent-wide politics and cultures. FESTAC 77 (Lagos 1977) and its predecessors, The First World Festival of Negro Arts (Dakar 1966), the First Pan-African Festival (Algiers 1969) and Zaire 74 (Kinshasa 1974) presented a shared vision of an Africa yet to come.
This Africa was as much a geographic reality as it was a construct, a continent whose boundaries shift according to the prevailing configurations of global racial identities and power. Building on their previous research platforms staged in Cape Town, Lagos, San Francisco, Sharjah, Paris, London and New York (among others), Chimurenga will remap these Pan-Africanist imaginations and cultural visions in Helsinki. What is important here is not the reiteration of the actual past, but the persistence of what never actually happened, but might have.
The project was part of the Remembering Silences season curated by Ahmed Al-Nawas.
To listen to recordings from PASS in Helsinki, visit our Mixcloud.
a word/sound documentary by the Insurrections Ensemble, with an introduction by Ari Sitas
Listen to enigmatic, innovative seer and composer-band leader Doctor Philip Tabane’s set, recorded live at St. George’s Cathedral on September 30, 2010
The Dr is a giant in South African music. Since the early 60s he has forged a musical path that defies boundaries, channelling the voices of his ancestors, the Malombo spirits of Venda, through rich polyrhythmic African beats and alchemic free jazz improvisation.
While Tabane has toured internationally, playing with jazz greats like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Charles Mingus, his home is in South Africa with Malombo. Here, working with an ever-shifting cast of musicians, his Malombo Jazz Makers, the master lets loose with intricate improvisation and free-form soloing that trace the linage of gospel, blues and funk back to its African roots.
But Malombo is not just music. It’s an individualised spirit force that uses song and dance as a vehicle of expression. It’s Tabane eschewing traditional cord structures as he fashions harmonious sound around the innuendo of his voice. It’s the Doctor, dressed in snakeskin trousers, injecting his Gibson hollow-body with an insatiable sense of discovery, coaxing free form sounds by hitting the strings or sparking otherworldly melodies from feather light plucks. It’s energy music, a potent life force that reignites black consciousness and speaks to the soul while insisting you get up and dance.
From 11 to 15 November 2015, the Chimurenga Library hosted PASS with a live broadcasting programme of music, interviews, and events with Chimurenga collaborators in New York, including musicians, journalists, writers, curators, and filmmakers. The live broadcast studio functioned amidst an installation that brought together pop-up stores that experiment with trade, informal economies, aesthetics and body language, music and spoken word, mobility and infrastructure.
Working with collaborators such as Brooklyn-based African Record Centre and Yoruba Book Center (established 1971); artist and educator Nontsikelelo Mutiti, setup an African hair braiding salon; and poet, choreographer, and Afrosonics archivist Harmony Holiday, ideas, thinking, and debate moved fluidly between events, transactions, broadcasts, conversations, music and records, publications, archive material, services, and objects.
Participants in the PASS program included: South African composer Neo Muyanga; Africa is a Country; Hisham Aidi, the author of Rebel Music: Race, Empire and the New Muslim Youth Culture; Moroccan poet Omar Berrada; Cuban-American artist and writer Coco Fusco; curator and choreographer Rashida Bumbray (in conversation with African Arts Festival in Brooklyn); poet, fiction writer, and playwright Rashidah Ismaili AbuBakr; Somali novelist Abdi Latif Ega; journalist and broadcaster Giovanni Russonello; and photographer Marilyn Nance.
To listen to recordings from PASS New York, visit our Mixcloud.
Listen to the jazz pianist and composer’s trio set, recorded live at St. George’s Cathedral on 30 September 2010.
Kyle Shepherd’s music displays a timelessness that challenges musical dichotomies. A skilled jazz composer, bandleader and pianist, he roots his sound in unique rhythms, harmonies and melodic devices of Cape Town and South Africa. But he’s unafraid to chart new territories, teaming up with fellow young jazz guns Shane Cooper (double bass) and Jonno Sweetman (drums) to fearlessly blaze a trail through everything from full-on free jazz improv to experiments with global roots music, slam poetic and more. In Shepherd’s hands, everything from Afrikaans volksliedjies and Muslim calls to prayer, to goema grooves, the hymns of a dozen different community churches and Xhosa melodies are reworked in a sonic space that’s far beyond the original contexts but also outside of jazz as we know it. As the doyen of South African jazz scribes Gwen Ansell points out: this is music that lives in the jazz world but is never imprisoned by it.
In the first week of October 2015, PASS presented a live broadcasting programme of music, interviews and events with Chimurenga collaborators in London including musicians, journalists, writers, curators and filmmakers.
Participants included Chimurenga (Ntone Edjabe, Graeme Arendse and Ben Verghese), The Otolith Collective (Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar), Sorryyoufeeluncomfortable(Mahamed Abdullahi, Nadeem Din-Gabisi, Deborah Findlater, Laurél Hadleigh, Jacob V Joyce, Rabz Lansiquot, Nyasha Mangera-Lakew, Anni Movsisyan, Yusuf Musse, Salina Popova and Imani Robinson) and Pass Me the Microphone (Amanprit Sandhu and Hansi Momodu-Gordon), accompanied by guest presenters and interviewees.
To listen to recordings from PASS London, visit our Mixcloud
Listen to legendary Camerounian drummer/percussionist Brice Wassy’s Trio performance, recorded live at the Albert Hall on October 1 2010
Known as the ‘King of 6/8 Rhythm,’ Camerounian drummer/percussionist Brice Wassy has been a centrifugal force in African music for the past four decades. The former bandleader for Manu Dibango and Salif Keita, he has worked with Miriam Makeba, Mabi Thobejane, Madala Kunene, Toure Kunda, Moses Molelekwa, and Busi Mhlongo, as well as the likes of French jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, Cuban percussionist Changuito, and Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira.
Credentials aside, Wassy is a formidable talent who deserves to be listen to on his own terms. His music is a full-frontal rhythmic attack profoundly rooted in Africa, but opened to all genres. Bringing together jazz and Afro-pop, he mixes improvisation with sophisticated compositional imagination; elasticity and experimentation with timbre and harmony; instruments new and old. As Fela Kuti once put it, Wassy has ‘opened our minds with the militancy of his message and our hearts to the rhythms of Afrobeat.’
From 17 – 19 September 2015 , the Pan African Space Station (PASS) installed our pop-up inside the gallery of Fondation Cartier, Paris with live programming that explored the past-present-future of Congolese music cultures. This intervention featured as part of the exhibition Beauté Congo – 1926-2015 – Congo Kitoko.
Contributions by Bintou Simporé (Nova), Ray Lema, Afrikadaa Magazine, Helmie Bellini trio (feat. Hilaire Penda), Andy Amadi Okoroafor (Clam Mag), DJ Mo Laudi, Dinozord and David Bovée of Schengen Shegue, Pitcho, Jolie Ngemi, Boddhi Satva and more artists in studio.
Duetting in their unique ways, Baloji teamed up with legendary guitar player Dizzy Mandjeku for a performance-lecture, the Kongo Astronauts with Méga Mingiedi, Christine Eyene extended encounters to examine bikutsi music with filmmaker Blaise Ndjehoya, and talks on Congolese cinema by Jean-Pierre Bekelo and Mweze Ngangura.
Additionally, Binetou Sylla of Syllart Records provided a regular feature facilitating conversations with and performances by Alain Mabanckou, Nyboma, Fabregas Métis Noir, Dally Kimoko, Lokassa Ya Mbongo, Yondo Sister, Kékélé and Bumba Massa.
Contributions beamed in from New York, Montreal and Kinshasa to present the writers collective Moziki littéraire, from the Centre d’Art Picha in Lubumbashi, and from Bogota by Afro-Columbian music pioneers Palenque Records.
This edition of the Pan African Space Station POP-UP studio in Paris has been developed in collaboration with the Fondation Cartier for the Exhibition “Beauté Congo, 1926-2015, Congo Kitoko”
To listen to recordings from PASS Paris, visit our Mixcloud.
Chimurenga and Hangar (Lisbon) present Radio MAC live on PASS 14-21 June 2021, 6pm.
Listen to Imperial Tiger Orchestra, featuring Endress Hassan, LIVE at Albert Hall, Woodstock on 1 October 2010.
Switzerland based Imperial Tiger Orchestra, in a unique collaboration with Ethiopian singer Endress Hassen, chart a similarly timeless trajectory, mixing ancient Ethiopian traditions with killer big-band hooks and fierce grooves that betray a future-forward electronic vision
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Listen to a killer set by Theo Parrish, recorded live at Albert Hall, Woodstock on September 29, 2010.
Theo Parrish’s biography forges an allegiance between to two of the great American house dynasties. He was raised in Chicago but settled in Detroit. So Chicago’s murky, atmospheric soulfulness shares space with the fierce intellectualism of Detroit-vintage techno.
But for Parrish, techno is a global music, a cross-generic tradition of expansive composition that defines the ritualistically confining house template. Playing vinyl like a self-contained instrument, dissolving the borders between machine music and free form expression, he’s as likely to break out in a deep slamming soul or to skitter-dance across outer-orbit beats as he is to swing or testify Coltrane-style. Like Trane his music strains the bounds of convention, seeking new territories and different sounds. Like Sun Ra he confronts technology and attempts to humanize it, to explore inner as well as outer space.
‘Jazz spawned house music, jazz spawned hip hop, jazz spawned funk and they all reflect back into that,’ he says. Nowhere is this lineage more apparent than on the compositions off his own Sound Signature label, where sonic fragments of jazz, ragas, blues, rock, soul and afrobeat are fused into unheard sounds, fictional sonic sculptures of impossible future musics.
Listen to Kisangani (DRC) based dance collective Studios Kabako’s ‘More more more… Future’, recorded live at the City Hall on September 28, 2010
Infusing the hybrid rhythms of Ndombolo music with hefty doses of punk rage and cosmic energy, Studio Kabako deliver a pre-Sputnik space travelogue into the unknown. Flying in the face of fatalist perception of Africa, they merge explosive dance and experimental theatre, mysticism and militancy, riddle and confrontation, within a wholly new context, where weird worlds of sound open up before us.
To the seething poems of Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, choreographer Faustin Linyekula, makes dance boil over into trance, while fashion designer Lamine Badian Kouyate (Xuly Bët) gives inventive embodiment to the trailblazing harmonies and energies of the guitarist, Flamme Kapaya and his band. The result is a poetics of autonomy, conceived in sonic, social, aesthetic and economic terms, and prepared to sweating blood for a better future.
From 5-9 May 2021, Chimurenga’s Pan African Space Station (PASS) will land at Lavoir Moderne Parisien in Goutte d’or, Paris, to imagine, re-examine and re-circulate sonic archives of black radicalism in the francophone world.
On 6 June 2010, PASS hosted The Shebeen as College of Music, a Chimurenga session for the launch of Chimurenga 15: The Curriculum is Everything, live from Duma’s Falling Leaves Jazz Rendezvous in Gugulethu.
Live performances by Bokani Dyer’s Trio, featuring Sisonke Xonti, and the ‘undaground jazz kollectiv’, The Loud Minority (Ntone, Mighty and Mogale).
On Wednesday 17 February through to Saturday 20 February, Pan African Space Station […]
On 30 September 2009, Pan African Space Station presented ‘War Chorale’, composed and directed by Bheki Khoza in response to a short novella by Chilean author and activist, Fernando Alegria. War Chorale is a musical exploration into the slipperiness of history, love and memory, and the nearly invisible line that separates fiction from reality.
It brought together multi-talented jazz vocalist and trombone player Siya Makuzeni, Mozambican guitarist and bandleader Dino Miranda, jazz ensemble A Congregation and the Unqambothi mixed choir in a once off performance that opened PASS II in 2009
On 2 October 2009, Pan African Space Station presented Nothembi Mkhwebane, LIVE at Centre for the Book, Cape Town.
African Queen of Ndebele music Nothembi Mkhwebane tunes her electric guitar to both urban and rural traditions, engaging the now through age old verbal idioms of experience, and a polyvocality of tone, tune, and texture; of hue and cry. Mkhwebane has her roots in rural Mpumalanga where she grew up steeped in Ndebele musical traditions. Since her move to Pretoria in 1977 she has recorded multiple albums, collaborated extensively and formed her own record company.
At once soulful and ecstatic, visually mesmerizing and intellectually challenging, her spectacular performances combine music and song with wildly energetic dance routines and sensational outfits, decorated with typical, intricate Ndebele bead and metalwork. These have secured her a following both in South Africa and abroad and she regularly performs everywhere from cultural gatherings and traditional ceremonies, to big stages in the US, the UK and Europe.
On 2 October 2009, Pan African Space Station hosted Culture Musical Club LIVE at St Georges Cathedral, Cape Town.
Culture Musical Club (CMC) began life as part of the youth organization of the Afro Shirazi Party during Zanzibar’s struggle for independence back in 1956. Today, CMC is Zanzibar’s most prolific and successful taarab orchestra. The club performs widely at concerts in Zanzibar’s Stone Town, but also frequently takes its music to the rural areas. The first and foremost aim of their social gatherings is to enjoy music and “to be moved” by it, as the original meaning of the word “taarab” implies.
On 1 October 2009, Pan African Space Station presented Franck Biyong and Massak Afroclectic Orchestra, LIVE at Centre for the Book Cape Town.
Cameroonian composer and producer Franck Biyong operates outside the boundaries which map the trajectories of African musicians in and out of the continent. After migrating to France in the late 80s, he consciously bypassed Paris and Brussels’ factories of Afro-pop slickness to establish himself as an electro producer in the London Underground. And although he formed Massak in 1997 as an Afrobeat ensemble-tribute to the legendary Africa 70 and Egypt 80, he used the band as a platform to project the music forward – a sound he called “Afrolectric”.
As a producer and musician, Biyong has collaborated with Afropolitanist greats such as Keziah Jones, Tony Allen, Cheick Tidiane Seck and many more; and released several 7′ and 12′ on dance labels such as BBE, Compost, Soul Fire and the rising Truth & Soul. He wrote and performed an opera, in memory of the poet Aime Cesaire, titled Knowledge-Identity-Reconstruction. He’s currently at work on a new Massak LP in collaboration with bikutsi legends Les Tetes Brulees.[Franck Biyong (guitar, vocals); Xavier Sibre (baritone sax, bass clarinet, flutes); Loc Da Silva (keyboards); Nicolas Baudino (tenor sax, soprano sax, flute); Thierry Tauliaut (percussion); Olivier Berthelot (bass); Auguste Manly (drums)]
iPhupho L’ka Biko and Pan African Space Station present QAMATA PULA, an ancestral invocation collapsing past, present and future, over three days at the Chimurenga Factory
On 1 October 2009, Pan African Space Station hosted Udaba, in collaboration with spoken-word author and filmmaker Kgafela oa Magogodi, at The Centre for the Book, Cape Town.
Udaba is a musical flurry of passion, soul, soothsaying, truth-telling and jazz poetry that takes you on flights of improvisational abandon. Their politically engaged elegies fuse vernacular lyricism, Xhosa praise singing and African indigenous music on jam-like sets with a rotating crew of regular collaborators. Udaba draw their inspiration from Xhosa literature and refer to their music as Umculo Buciko (musical essays). Based in the Eastern Cape, they regularly perform at gatherings, poetry jams, festivals and clubs and recently released their debut album Umculo Buciko.
Bringing Mandinka history lessons that chart 700+ years., Diabate mediates traditions inherited from Mali’s ancient Mande Empire through globetrotting jazz, blues and electro frequencies. A lifelong Bamako resident, Diabate rose to global acclaim almost 20 years ago when he recorded the world’s first solo kora album Kaira. Since then his career has been characterised by a fierce refusal to erect a line between an ancient locality and a modern cosmopolis.
Launching Chimurenga 14: Everyone Has Their Indian
Featuring: Madosini, Udaba (East London), Teba Shumba, Vuyo Khatsha, Sylvia Ntantlu, Kakudji (DRC/France) in collaboration with Sparck) and Fong Kong Bantu Sound System.
Thursday 2 April 2009
The Africa Centre – 44 Long Street , Cape Town
From 9pm – R50/door
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Anthony Joseph is a poet, novelist, musician and lecturer described as ‘the leader of the black avant-garde in Britain’. Born in Trinidad, his experimental poetry, fiction, music and spoken word occupies a space between surrealism, jazz and the rhythms of Caribbean speech and sound, creating what he calls ‘liquid textology’. He is the author of two poetry collections and a novel The African Origins of UFOs.
This performance, featuring his jazz septet The Spasm Band, brings together the echoes of dub poets, Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra cosmic visions. Joseph’s new collection of poetry, Bird Head Son, is due in 2008 and will be followed by a new Spasm Band album with the same title.
Live at Assembly, Cape Town on 2 October 2008.
Known to many simply as ‘Bafo’, Madala Kunene is undeniably one of the best guitarists to have come out of Durban. This eclectic musician has an aura of calmness and wisdom that is meticulously replicated in his music – deep-rooted in spiritual and traditional rhythms. Bafo has performed his trance-inducing sounds at festivals around the world and collaborated with the likes of Busi Mhlongo, Mabi Tobejane, Moses Molelekwa and countless others. In 2003 he composed the score for Oscar-award nominated Yesterday – the first ever full length feature film in Zulu.
For his appearances at PASS in Cape Town, Bafo launched a concept titled “Sounds in the Darkness of Light”, a solo performance in complete darkness. This places the audience in a realm of darkness where only sounds illustrate the images of one’s immediate surroundings. A realm well understood by the visually impaired, who dwell in it daily. Members of blind societies from surrounding communities were invited to the event and escorted the artist himself onto the stage.
Bangui-born, Paris based Bibi Tanga is a singer and bass player whose music combines Curtis Mayfield’s truth-speaking falsetto, James Brown’s funk epics and Sly Stone’s lysergic experimentation with Africa’s big band traditions, including Miriam Makeba’s Bembeya Jazz National, Franco’s TPOK Jazz and Fela Kuti’s Africa 70. His current project is a collaboration with Professeur Inlassable, an accomplished DJ/producer and studio sorcerer, and a walking library of gothic samples. Their album, Yellow Gauze is a unique hybrid kaleidoscope of black music traditions. Weird and good.
Live the Assembly (Wed Oct 1, 2008)
BLK JKS are an internationally acclaimed, Johannesburg based band. Says music journalist Miles Keylock: “What makes them hip is that they’re South African and damn it, they sound it. In fact listening to BLK JKS is kind of like taking a slow cruise through Jozi with your windows rolled down. Afro-jazz riffs segue into tribal rhythms, which swagger through street-level sociology before exploding into hardcore bursts of noise, kwaai kwaito beats and addictive rock hooks. It’s not funk rock. It’s not punk rock. It’s not indie rock. It’s just music, and it’ll infect your mind if you let it”.
Live at Assembly, Cape Town in 2008.
Cindy Blackman is widely regarded as one of the top drummers in the world. She’s upheld the backbeat and created texture for a veritable Who’s Who in jazz: Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson, Don Pullen, Hugh Masekela, Pharaoh Sanders, Sam Rivers, Cassandra Wilson, Angela Bofill, Bill Laswell, Buckethead. However, she’s better known as keeper of ‘polyriddims’ for funk rocker Lenny Kravitz since 1993. Indeed, she is one of a few drummers who can easily move from straight-ahead jazz to rock to funk and back again. Of her album Woks on Canvas, jazz critic Mike Zwerin said: “Some drummers act, some react. Some keep time, others create it. Cindy Blackman is among the few who can…” Cindy Blackman has also released an acclaimed drumming instructional video entitled Multiplicity.
Live at Slave Church in Cape Town on 1 October 2008.
Guga S’thebe in Langa, Cape Town (Wed Oct 1, 2008)
Bebson de la Rue is a singer/rapper and the leader of Tryonix, an Afrofuturist project based in Kinshasa (DRC). As poet laureate of Kinshasa’s streets (hence his nickname “De La Rue” meaning “Of the streets”), Bebson is an influential figure in Ngbaka, one of the city’s most notorious ghettos, where he also teaches music and dance. He is also an inventor of music instruments and sound machines, some of which are used during Tryonix’s performances. Bebson and his brother Dicoco Boketshu, a bass player and video artist, formed Tryonix during the mid-1990s, as a collaborative project that blends Congolese rumba with rap and Jamaican raggamuffin with jazz sensibilities and electronica. Lyrically, Bebson taps into his vast knowledge of proverbs, Mongo chants and Kinshasa’s street slang. A sound they call Original Raggamuffin Folklore (ORF). In 1998, Tryonix released their critically acclaimed album entitled Mazapo, which lead to appearances at festivals across the DRC. They’ve since performed in Cameroon, Belgium and France.
Live at The Assembly (Wed Oct 1, 2008)
On 2 December 2005, Chimurenga hosted Felasophy for the launch of Chimurenga 08: We’re All Nigerian, at Shivava Cafe in Newtown, Johannesburg.
This Chimurenga Session included performances by Mxo, Tumi, Kwani Experience, Marcus Wyatt, DJ Kenzhero and more.
Listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of Felasophy here.
Kaapstad! (And Jozi, The Night Moses Died)
a Chimurenga session to launch vol 7 (and coz we want to and we can)
with
Maverick feat. Jethro
Claire feat. Incense In Stereo
Fong Kong Bantu Soundsystem feat. Neo Muyanga
The Pan African Market, 76 on Long
Sat. 21, May 2005
From 3pm
Consider this an invitation
Dress code – whatever Prince says, no gold, diamonds, pearls or platinum.
Live from 5pm
Friday 21 August 2020
panafricanspacestation.org.za
We are standing under a glaring spotlight screaming at the tops of our lungs, from the backs of our throats which we grind together to access black blues unwords, thymus against heart, blue in green meridian, that aquamarine plexus that water and sky correct and regulate in us.
Join us in celebrating the life and work of our dearly departed brother and comrade, the poet, journalist and griot of liberation struggles.
From 23 – 25 October 2019, Chimurenga will install its Pan African Space Station (PASS) at The New School’s Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, New York City.
n her 30 years of exile, Miriam Makeba redefined pan Africanism. She was a woman with nine passports and honorary citizenship in 10 countries.
From 11 -13 April, as part of an exhibition hosted by Monash […]
PASS founder, a composer and musician Neo Muyanga highlights the currents and […]
From 11 -15 December 2016, the Pan African Space Station transmitted live […]
On 1 October 2009, Pan African Space Station hosted Udaba at The […]
In April 2018, PASS welcomed back Georgia Anne Muldrow and her […]
From 9 – 12 November, the Pan African Space Station (PASS) landed […]
– Ntone Edjabe A few years ago, while researching the political history […]
“Dislocation” is how Congolese rumba historians describe the incessant splinterings that are […]
On October 15, 1987, Burkinabe revolutionary idealist and Pan-Africanist, Thomas Sankara was […]
For our first UK presentation, Chimurenga will infiltrate The Showroom’s building in […]
The collective improvisations of black America – and their profound impact on poetry and sound – are near impossible to find in the annals of US academe. In fact, their absence is as stark as the control of archiving is white, writes Harmony Holiday.
by Dike Okoro Ikwunga Wonodi is not a new face among Afrobeat […]
