As we announced earlier this month, Africa is a Country is teaming up with Coffeebeans Routes in Cape Town to bring you a live concert series called “If you can’t see me, are you really there?”

The first edition will happen this Thursday at 19:30 Cape Town time. Visit the site at that time (use the previous link to calculate your own time) to participate live, and read up on what Coffeebeans Routes has to say about the first act below!

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FIRST CONCERT – LOIT SOLS & CHURCHIL NAUDE

The Coffeebeans Routes concert series “If you Can’t See Me, Are You Really There?” opens on Thursday the 25th of June with a goema rymklets folk hip hop collaboration between acclaimed published poet and performer Loit Sols, and Afrikaans hip hop artist Churchil Naude aka Kroeskop, Koos Kombuis’s favourite rapper. This is their first live collaboration. The show comes on the tails of Churchil’s debut album release, Kroeskop vol Geraas, and their studio collaboration on the Wasgoedlyn project.

Goema is what connects Loit and Churchil. Goema, the geographically distinct, historically unique, rhythmically inflected, culturally outerclass, irreverent, scatological and deeply spiritual indigenous masala.

Brandishing a Khoekhoegowab language dictionary, Loit points to the Khoesan etymology of Goema: “Goma”, meaning the hide of an ox. The drum, says Loit, is not a drum without the stretched hide. Goema is also derived from the Indonesian “Gumum” meaning murmur, indicative of the drumbeat of dissent among the Cape’s West Indies slave ancestors. Drum. Bush Telegraph. Language. Goema – sameness and difference.  Visible and invisible.

Loit is a poet, musician, graphic designer, performance artist, Goema lexicologist, and now also radio presenter – he has just started a weekly slot on Radio Sonder Grense, RSG, on Friday mornings 0745 – 0800. Born in Retreat in 1957, he started writing at age 8, and taught himself music starting at age 21 with a guitar. He has performed variously, locally and internationally, including the Winternachten Festival in the Netherlands, Stellenbos Woordfees, Infecting The City Cape Town, and the Riddu Riddu Festival in Norway. He has two published anthologies: his debut being My Straat En Anne Praat-Poems (1998), and Die Faraway Klanke vanne Hadedah (2006). His recorded music & poetry include: A Moment In Cape Town, Sierjis Kak-Praat and the Goemarati Compilation.

Churchil is a hip hop artist and carpenter. Fine woodwork is his day to day. As he says about hip hop as an income, “daasie geldie, there’s no money. You do it because you have a passion. That’s it”. Loit says the same about being a poet. Churchil has been an MC since the mid 1990s, starting out in English. “I’ve got albums full of English material, but it was the discovery of Koos Kombuis’ album Elke Boomelaar’s se Droom that woke me up to my mother tongue as ‘great’, as the tongue that I had to use”. Churchil has collaborated widely in South Africa, recording with a number of his own musical mentors, including Anton Goosen, who he grew up hearing on the radio and TV (check out their video below, Boy from the Suburbs).

The Loit Sols Churchil Naude session will be intimate, just the two of them with guitar, voice and harmonica. If you’re in Cape Town, book your tickets here. If you can’t be there, catch the live stream with us!