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.
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
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!
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.
a live reading for Bessie Head’s 85th
13 July 2022 from 6pm
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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
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.
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 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.
Thursday, 31 March 2022
7pm
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)]
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
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)
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.
Chimurenga Factory
Saturday, 06 November 2021
On Wednesday 17 February through to Saturday 20 February, Pan African Space Station […]
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
