Uhuru Phalafala
THIS WAY I SALUTE YOU – a gathering for Keorapetse Kgositsile
“When the clouds clear / We shall know the colour of the sky.”
On Thursday 30 January 2025, we are proud to host the launch of two long-awaited books on our dearly departed teacher Keorapetse Kgositsile:
Collected Works, 1969–2018, from the Broadside and Third World Press days to Beyond Words, a near 50-year journey of word-sound-power, edited by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers and Uhuru Portia Phalafala; and Uhuru’s own pathbreaking study, Keorapetse Kgositsile & the Black Arts Movement.
Join us at Chimurenga Factory with Uhuru Portia Phalafala, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Lwando Scott and mpho ndaba from 7pm or listen in here via PASS
(illustration by Medu for a concert by Gwangwa-led Shakawe feat. KK in Gaborone, circa 1982)
SANKOFA – a conversation and listening session with KING THA
We were honoured to host royalty at the Chimurenga Factory on 22 July 2024 – our revered King Tha, the earth-acclaimed singer-songwrioter and bandleader Thandiswa Mazwai joined us for groundings pon her new LP and our long march back to total liberation. King Tha was in conversation with our sister-comrade-poet-theorist Uhuru Phalafala. Listen to the session here: We retreat forward, always.
LAUNCHING MINE MINE MINE
LIBERATION RADIO: CAPE TOWN – 18 March 2022 – 3pm: Fugitive Archives
In the final broadcast, we discuss methods of recovering, curating, re-presenting and conserving black collective and fugitive practice. With Uhuru Phalafala, Sinazo Mtshemla, Lerato Kuzwayo, Kgomotso Ramushu. Dr Uhuru Phalafala is a scholar, an artist and lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch. She is author of the upcoming monograph on Keorapetse Kgositsile titled Black Radical Traditions from the South: Keorapetse Kgositsile and the Black Arts Movement. She heads a project that repatriates and republishes apartheid-era cultural production. Sinazo Mtshemla is a …
LIBERATION RADIO: CAPE TOWN – 15th-18th March 2022, 3-6pm
Liberation Radio is part of Chimurenga’s ongoing query on knowledge production via African sound worlds. Through this program we explore the possibilities of radio as a research platform and the sonic archives of cultural struggles, and the role of city-studios such as Cairo, Accra, Conakry, Algiers, Dar es Salaam, Lusaka and more, as revolutionary capitals which hosted and disseminated liberatory work through their national infrastructure. This edition, live from our Cape Town studio on the 15th -18th of March from …
Category: Liberation Radio, News, Pass Blog, Pass Radio
Tags: Ali Hlongwane, Amandla Cultural Ensemble, Asher Gamedze, Athi Mongezeleli Joja, Bongiwe Dhlomo-Mautloa, Dashiki, Gwen Ansell, Judy Seidman, Kgomotso Ramushu, Lerato Kuzwayo, Liberation Radio, Mafube Arts Commune, Malopoets, Masello Montana, Medu Art Ensemble, Memory Biwa, Neo Muyanga, Nhlanhla Ngqaqu, Percy Mabandu, Pungwe, Rob Machiri, Sinazo Mtshemla, Steve Dyer, Uhuru Phalafala, Yasmina Reggad
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HOME IS WHERE THE MUSIC IS
“Home is where the music is” is drawn from Keorapetse Kgositsile’s poem “For Hughie Masekela”, dedicated to the South African trumpeter, composer and bandleader. The poem ends with the lines, “This then is the rhythm / and the blues of it / Home is where the music is”. The poem was published in the 1974 collection, The Present Is A Dangerous Place To Live, however it was presented to Masekela earlier. Bra Hugh then recorded a double album titled Home …