That was the question asked to people in Cape Town, South Africa, by the Prison Broadcasting Network (PBN), “a non-profit rehabilitation programme that teaches prisoners the skills to become employable when they are released.” I found the responses unsurprising. But the video has a twist.
Cape Town’s local politics seems to be getting more and more distressing. Last week the Rondebosch Common, a public plot of open land in the leafy suburb of Rondebosch in Cape Town showed a bit more activity than usual. Cape Town’s city council – run by the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s official opposition with 16 percent of the national vote – and the police cracked down on a proposed “people’s jobs, housing and land summit” entitled Occupy Rondebosch Common. The city police acted in a show of force that even the centrist ‘liberal’ media called excessive, and others compared to Apartheid’s suppression of dissent. The police even sprayed blue dye to disperse the peaceful protest. Around 40 people, mostly women, were arrested on site at the common and chief organizer Mario Wanza of the organization Proudly Manenberg was detained before he could even leave the Cape Flats. Mayor Patricia De Lille (a former trade unionist) was quick to call Wanza and his colleagues “agents of destruction.”
In the latest of those ubiquitous lists/rankings floating around the web, a Mexican research group has listed the world’s most dangerous cities based on homicide rates. Most of them are from Central and South America — 5 of the 10 most dangerous cities are in Mexico and 40 out of the top 50 are in Latin America. Then this: the most dangerous city outside of South and North America and the Caribbean, is Cape Town at no.34. Two US cities — New Orleans (at no.21) and Detroit (no.30) — beat out Cape Town. But that’s cold comfort. Oh, and the remaining cities from outside the Americas on the list also come from South Africa: Nelson Mandela Bay is at no.41, Durban no.49 and Johannesburg no.50. No other African cities made the list.
Gebaste Rhymes sent us a link to his single ‘Kaap issie Bom’ [translated: Cape is the Bomb], the first single off One Day Vol. 1. The full album (or audio hip-hopumentary) will be out later in 2012 and “forms part of a larger alternative education initiative.” Gebaste Rhymes describes himself as “a Cape born artist whose audacious style matches his name” and explains that “the song captures a distinctly Cape sense of humour while producer Hybrit Pettens and DJ e-20 laces it with that classic boombap sound.” We have a suspicion who Gebaste Rhymes is. Take a listen.
Not today’s music break. No matter how big your star or fan-base is in Zimbabwe, Gabon or francophone Europe, if you intend to rap about slavery while eating an ice cream at Cape Town’s Waterfront, you’re making a fool of yourself. Or is there a reference to Signal Hill being a historic slave cemetery we missed?
I recently interviewed the Northern Irish filmmaker Phil Harrison (credit: “Even Gods“), who is crowd-funding his first feature, “The Good Man,” set in Ireland and South Africa. The film tells the stories “of a young banker in Belfast and a teenager living in a Cape Town township. When their lives unexpectedly collide, their impact on one another is far greater, and more surprising, than either could have imagined.” Phil, writes: “In terms of the stage we are at we have almost reached our corwdsourcing target–there’s less than 50 shares left of the 400 total.” If you want to support the film, by becoming a shareholder, click here. Some production notes: The actor Aiden Gillen (credits: The Wire–he played Baltimore’s Mayor Carcetti– and Game of Thrones) has signed on to play the lead. Here’s our email interview:
And with this, we hope to close our current chapter on Die Antwoord.
Bruce Lee and Rolanda Fisher, ‘outraged by the copying of their style and demand[ing] recognition and money,’ decided to mock Die Antwoord’s appearance on Taxi Jam* from a while back.
* Taxi jam is a South African ”series of intimate acoustic gigs shot in the back” of the minibus taxis common to South African streets. The acts in the series are mainly based in Cape Town.
Long after midnight, once the tourists and the party-goers have left Cape Town’s Long Street, the city’s darling hub looks pretty vacant, apart from the accidental taxi-driver — it forms the backdrop for South African rapper Rattex’s new video ‘Ewe Nje’. With an album and a mixtape under the belt, but hard to find in the local music stores; a lot more more videos recorded, but hardly played on South African TV, Long Street’s ‘Waiting Room’ club does seem a fit location.
* Re-read Mikko’s story about ‘RATTEX: Labour of love & hard entertainment’.
The trailer for the new Denzel Washington-Ryan Reynolds feature “Safe House,” just got released officially on the interwebs yesterday. The film centers around rogue CIA agent Tobin Frost (Washington in Training Day mode again) on the run from a generic group of bad guys. Reynolds’ character, the CIA safe house’s caretaker in Cape Town, has been given the task of moving him to the next secure location. Cue endless chase scenes and explosions.
The reason why I’m excited about this is that it is shot and set in Cape Town.
