I live in a country where our local musicians, media, politicians, creatives and the blogosphere share something in common; the abject celebration of mediocrity. I believe that this perpetuates a prosaic environment in which many do the minimum to get by. After all – there is little incentive to be excellent at what you do when you are praised for being average. My intentions are not negative or pessimistic in addressing this issue, however. I want to see clever, creative and ingenious South Africans celebrated and acknowledged on the world stage, and back at home. But this can not happen if we continue to focus on self-reference, think locally and applaud bland and uninspired performances. Criticism is a vital tool for improvement and one that is not employed with enough frequency in SA, as is the case with our environment of generally apathetic consumerism that has led to a generally unacceptable service industry. (more…)

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In the absence of official iPhone availability Apple fans outside of the States will be pleased to know that the much anticipated iPod Touch has finally been launched. Resembling the iPhone in its looks and functionality, the iPod Touch is the first truly wide-screen iPod (besides the iPhone, of course) and adds several features that have until now been unavailable from Apple’s industry-leading digital media player.
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South African music videos, or, rather, music videos from South African bands, are notoriously shite. With the odd exception, they are usually shot using the drummer’s mother’s camcorder, are edited by the lead singer’s sister and feature one of her hippie friends running around on the beach in Durban. That sort of thing. The height of creativity for SA music videos is the camcorder operator shaking the camera around a bit while filming the lead singer tearing his hair out, sitting on his bed and pretending to sing.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and I accept that in general our bands just can’t afford quality videos. But the few who can have not produced anything better than described above and the reason the rest of them don’t have money has more to do with the fact that they are rubbish as musicians and less to do with the “kak local industry.”

But recently, thank god, we’ve started to see some quality creeping into the local music video industry, thanks to some highly talented individuals who have decided to stick around in South Africa instead of pissing off to first world countries to make advertisements.

The Springbok Nude Girls video for ‘Illuminate’ was a solid piece of work – produced by Star Productions, who are now working on the reunited Nude Girls’ next video single.

Lightning Type also had a rad video for their song ‘Mercy’, produced by Room 5 in Johannesburg.

And I have just finished watching the best music video ever to come out of South Africa, in my humble opinion. It’s for the song ‘As Long As I Am Here’ by Prime Circle, remixed for the latest Cafe D’Afrique compilation.

It was directed and produced by Morgan Dingle, stars Tanya van Graan and was shot by Willie Nel. Witness a music video the way they should be done.

Being South African and strapped for cash is no longer any excuse for mincing out mediocre horse-shit. Prime Circle and the Nude Girl’s latest videos are proof that we have mad skills available locally. Now if only our television stations would get with the programme (‘scuse the pun) and show these videos instead of Paris Hilton’s latest turd.

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No one on earth could possibly make beats or rhymes as sick as CX KidTronic and Saul Williams. They must be visiting from a rubber planet made of speakers where philosophy, beat science, poetry and English are taught from pre-birth.

I had the absolute pleasure of seeing Saul Williams and CX perform at the recent Oppikoppi Rock Paper Scissors festival, where myself and Richard III were spinning beats and where we recorded episode 10 of Seedcast live. I also drank too much, slept in my car and got roped into announcing on the Sipho Gumede Stage. It was pleasant.

Saul Williams was included in the line-up as part of a recent South African tour. It’s been a while since I’ve heard something really original, but Saul blew me away; especially with CX handling the beats – which were completely unlike anything I’ve ever heard before and certainly too good to be carelessly dumped on with genre-comparing.

After the show Saul was chilling back stage and CX disappeared (probably had to fetch more Pepsi in the spaceship). Kenny (DJ Kenzhero) asked me to take a pic of him and Saul with my mobile phone, which, as you can see, takes grainy, kak pics – especially at night.
Respect Saul – your music and poetry is amazing and it was an honour to meet you.

If you aren’t familiar with Saul Williams, look for his self-titled album, Saul Williams and find out what I’m on about. He also has a book available called The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip Hop.

And, of course, if you can see Saul and Tronic performing live, don’t miss it. You won’t be disapointed.

Other aliens I saw at this year’s Oppikoppi: The Real Estate Agents, Lark, A Blunted Stuntman, Fletcher, Teba, Goldfish, Obita, Jacob Israel, DJ Kenzhero… and all on the fattest sounding stage I’ve ever heard, thanks to soundmen Rasta, Lito and DJ Bob.

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