CHIMURENGA LIBRARY
In 2011 we invited the composer, sound artist and librettist Neo Muyanga to compose a mixtape to accompany the first edition of the Chimurenga Chronic – the publication was imagined as the once-off edition of a newspaper-as-time-travel-machine that transported readers back to the peak of the xenophobic attacks across SA in May 2008.
Muyanga responded with a 45mn suite titled “Dipalo – a mixtape for those who practice counting”. The mixtape includes the following 12 tracks:
a) 1+1= (a re-composition of a 5000-year-old offering to Lord Ganesha, an opener of sorts)
b) 4:7 (heaven’s on the ocean is a proportional refrain on reaching nirvana, the 7th grade, via the mundane material world)
c) 3sin= rθ (sino projection technology theme)
d) 3(x)n (illegal border crossing and migration theme. composed for dancers)
e) e=mcx \rightarrow \infty (a true story about an explosive riot day with SADF soldiers who attacked Soweto on June 16th, 1985. Composed for those who got hurt)
f) ƒ:X→Y (horizon heart aflame. Composed for a lover)
g) (a summing of random themes theme)
h) 4x+2 (the 2 or 4 step theme)
i) y~ 6/8 (a travelling theme in 6 parts over eight. Composed for puppets)
j) y\ge \!\, 6/8 (a running theme in 6 parts over 8 )
k) 1/4° (a kota bread theme. Composed for skolies and thieves)
l) (a perpetual circle. Composed for an apartheid-era multi-racial soccer club)
Join us to re-listen.
Wednesday, 15 April 2026 from 7pm
Live on the Pan African Space Station
Tune in!
Chimurenga 16 – The Chimurenga Chronicle (October 2011), a speculative, future-forward newspaper that travels back in time to re-imagine the present. In this issue, through fiction, essays, interviews, poetry, photography and art, contributors examine and redefine rigid notions of essential knowledge.
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