We are pleased to host veteran guitarist, composer and mbaqanga jazz revivalist Bheki Khoza at the Chimurenga Factory. Bheki is a graduate of the legendary collective African Jazz Pioneers and has played with masters like Victor Ntoni, Winston Mankunku, Barney Rachabane, and more. He also wrote the music for Zola Maseko’s award winning film Drum (2004). For this session, he is accompanied by Allistair Gibbs (bass) and Nicholas Dlakavu (drums). Friday, 26 April 2024, 7pm Chimurenga Factory – 157 Victoria Rd, Woodstock R150 pre-booked at https://qkt.io/P1Hnaw R200 at the door The post BHEKI KHO ..read more

Gwen Ansell maps the distance between words and music, fiction and autobiography, subversion and submersion through an epistolary review or two books that operate at the limits of  language and song.   “According to my records there was something/More…mind bringing African control on the corny times/of the tunes he would play. There was Space/And the Sun and the Stars he saw in his head/In the sky on the street and the ceilings/Of nightclubs and Lounges as we sought to/Actually lounge trapped in the dull asylum/Of our own enslavements. But Bird was a junkie.” – from “Historiography ..read more

He’s been described as the “founding father of African literature”, an author “who played key role in developing African literature”; a “towering man of letters” who “helped to revive African literature”…  but these accolades do little justice to Chinua Achebe’s literary legacy. One of the greatest writers/storytellers in the English language, Achebe was equally adept at portraying humour and horror – a writer whose wisdom and humanity left an indelible mark on all those who read him.  The international success of his first novel, Things Fall Apart is testimony to his remarkable lega ..read more

The Headline That Morning and Other poems is a poetry collection by Ugandan poet, Peter Kagayi. There are 50 poems in the book with wide ranging themes, from love and disillusionment to politics and to social commentary. Peter Kagayi, a Ugandan poet has served as the Anglophone Coordinator at Writivism, President of the Lantern Meet of Poets and founder of Rhymers Poetry Club. He is also the founder and curator of the regular poetry platform ‘The Poetry Shrine’ at the National Theatre in Kampala and has supported various groups of young poets. He ‘s ..read more

In honour of the late Kelan Phil Cohran we present, below, a tribute mix, compiled by Guilty, covering the sound journey of Kelan Phil Cohran – from his time with Sun Ra’s Solar-Myth Arkestra. Don’t miss “Heliacal Rising of Sothis” – a celebration of Kelan Phil Cohran at the Chimurenga Factory, with bassist and AACM member Adam Zanolini, cornetist Ben Lamar Gay, saxophonist Fred Jackson Jr, Sharon Udoh on keys and drummer Naydja Bruton AKA Rhythm Ninja.  Wednesday, 08 May 2024 from 8pm Chimurenga Factory (157 Victoria Road, Woodstock, Cape Town) R250 at quicket here. R300 at the ..read more

Chronic contributor and artist, Sammy Baloji had an exhibition in Berlin. His body of work, ‘Mémoire’ (from 2006) was on show at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Hiroshimastraße 17)  Over to our friends at AfricAvenir to say more: In his series of photographs entitled, ‘Mémoire’, Sammy Baloji links black and white photographs from Belgian colonial times with contemporary pictures of the mining town Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo. A colonial past with slavery and exploitative hierarchies meets fallow industrial ruins and tips. The large-sized photo-montages distinctly con ..read more

Emeka Ogboh‘s art works require audiences to hone their listening and hearing skills. Turning sounds into words, he documents his hometown in A Personal Reflection on Soundscapes. “I would be somewhere, and the everyday sounds suddenly seemed as interesting to me as the sounds of any music I could hear inside the concert hall. They just seemed so rich that I wanted to document moments of listening. I came to regard the act of listening as a way of making music. I regarded it as a creative activity – finding music in the environment around me.” Bill Fontana Sitting on the low w ..read more

The animating impulse for the literary magazine When Three Sevens Clash was to celebrate the Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo. Along the way, and perhaps realising that no man is bigger than his clan, it became another beast, encompassing Zimbabwe and beyond. Featuring non fiction, photography, and comic art, the project drew several generations of artists. The oldest, the Zimbabwean poet and retired university lecturer Musaemura Zimunya (City Lights and Country Dawns, Thought Tracks, And Now the Poets Speak), was born in 1949, while the youngest, the Zimbabwean doctoral student at ..read more

We are delighted to present a screening of two film-essays by Rangoato Hlasane – Sesasedi Sa Tsodio and Sa Koša Ke Lerole. Sesasedi Sa Tsodio delves into the kwaito DNA and its multiple umbilical cords searches for and celebrates the musicality of leleme la MaAfrika – sonic and phonetic aesthetics of black world making. The character of Tsodio as lyrical fiction/mythology travels through orature and storytelling in black musical and sonic histories of the past, present and future. Traveling banners, thinking and sounding with three locations – Meadowlands, Mamelodi and Mahikeng – serve as ba ..read more

Tumi Mogorosi meets Lesego Rampolokeng (MoRa) is not a word sound genesis but a word sound continuation upholding a sentiment of Black liberation. It is the meeting of different generations still musing on the fundamental freedom question, which is an absolute must within the current upheaval of world politics. The question that sounds out the centre of this meeting is a question of “writing the ungovernable” (Rampolokeng: 2015) ringing true of the O.R Tambo request to render the country ungovernable in 1985. How might these ethics of ungovernability apply in thinking of freedom anew, in thin ..read more