2010. The cup is claimed, the colours are tamed, culture is once again the catch-phrase in Cape Town.
Behold its captive audience – Afro-centrics letting their hair down (naturally), Afro-popsters getting their party on, pan-Africanists shaking hands with Afro-pessimists shaking heads.
To direct the paradoxes in our social stews, we need fresh spice, an idea or an action that captures the collective imagination and perhaps directs it towards keener consciousness, or at least to a clearer understanding of what we are.
How about Afro–cosmo-ism, compliments of the Pan African Space Station? It’s an idea that has been fostered and developed by online space, a radio station, and a festival of sound. In essence, PASS rounds up the realities that collide and gets them to jive.
Spearheaded by composer and musician Neo Muyanga (blk Sonshine), and DJ and editor/publisher of Chimurenga Magazine, Ntone Ejabe, and supported by the Africa Centre, The Pan African Space Station is in its 3rd annum of citywide sonic intervention in September “at staggered time and space intervals to help affirm and disrupt, both, the music and geography of the City.” In other words, it’s a celebration of music and music-related events that lifts the lid on this state of mind otherwise known as African.
In the past, that meant you could find yourself listening to music in total darkness in the slave church; sitting at the feet of Kora player, Toumani Diabaté, in a packed St. George’s Cathedral, or dancing in Gugulethu with a granny who won’t give up and a nine-piece Hypnotic Brass Ensemble of brothers (and a cousin) from Chicago south.
This year “PASS embraces the lineages that shape music-making on and from this continent, but we also try to challenge the stereotypes associated with music from Africa,” say the organisers.
Expect instances of:
- Philip Tabane – an animated guitarist with a knack for blending southern African polyrhythmic styles with jazz improvisation, who has impressed audiences since the 60s;
- Kabako’s More More Future Band, a Franco-Congolese collective that makes afro-futurist Punk opera featuring fashion designer Lamine Badian Kouyate (aka xuly bet) on threads, Flamme Kapaya (Ndombolo music’s punk protegé) on guitar, and Faustin Linyekula, contemporary, Congolese dancer and choreographer; and
- Georgia Anne Muldrow, whose “beguiling mix of social revolution and raw street wisdom” has landed her in the spotlight with the likes of Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Madlib.
- Tune into its online radio for guest DJs and live poetry, and see and hear it live at the City Hall (CBD), St. Georges Cathedral (Company’s Gardens) and Guga S’thebe (Langa).
If someone asks what PASS stands for and you have forgotten, tell them, simply, that it’s a licence to listen, and they’ll soon discover it’s a catch phrase for “a cross-cultural and cyber-spatial exploration, bringing together diverse pan-African sounds from ancient grooves to future hip-hop.” And everyone’s invited.
For more information, see http://www.panafricanspacestation.org.za/
