(This article was published on the 25th of June, 2018)
On the 15th of June, Nkosi X shared with iLiso his views on art and life (as they often intersect).
I’m interested in your contribution to music, sound. Firstly, lets start with Dambudzo, on the question of death and belonging. He says he imagines himself existing in another world, where ultimately he dies, he transgresses the dominant laws of the time, rebels against common sense and ends up dying. The central thematic here is that of belonging, or lack thereof. In one story he’s a poet that insults the chief in a poem. Take us through your understanding of belonging within the creative space: how does it affect your art? Feeling that you don’t belong anywhere both physically and symbolically, of course drawing from the analogy provided by Dambudzo. As an artist that does not belong, you are most likely to pay the price of not being booked, not being signed.
I feel like, physically I’m here, but spiritually I’m elsewhere. I feel like there’s a different realm where I go to, transcend this one. I feel like I’m here, to take this existence and shift it to another dimension. Belonging, I don’t feel like I belong anywhere. I’m in a journey. An astronaut about to takeoff to another space. I’m here to create new vibrations, that will allow us to exist in a new dimension.
I feel like, physically I’m here, but spiritually I’m elsewhere. I feel like there’s a different realm where I go to, transcend this one.
With that said, as someone engaged in a different mode of thinking, the idea of not belonging, which comes in different forms- exclusion being one of them, dislocation, feeling dislocated. I’m interested in the question, “why go on?” knowing, conscious of all these obstacles, what is that one thing that keeps you going, to say, “tomorrow, I’ll go to the studio tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll wake up and do this” despite all this.
As artists we are often mistaken as being delusional, we believe in freedom, not only in the world’s freedom but in one’s freedom. I feel like there can never be boundaries strong enough to hold me back from doing my art. And, yes there are physical obstacles, but as an artist I feel like I have my own freedom that, like, allows me to be whatever I want to be. So, not that I overlook obstacles but as an artist, I feel like I have nothing to lose. I am here, not for this moment, but for the future. What can possibly hold me back from doing what I love? Its not only the love but the belief in freedom. Nothing can hold me back from expressing my freedom.
I’m also interested in the appalling state of art, generally, that we find ourselves in an embarrassingly banal position. There’s a question of mediocrity, a lack of any critical reading of society. But the more scarier question, as artists in general, not only are we incapable but we are terrified of inventing anything new.
You see, the listening public is not nearly as stupid as the artists that are being given to that audience. As an artist I have the responsibility of creating something different. The problem is not with the audience but the artists. I’m here for that change, to shift the known, the typical. . .
To invent the unknown
Yeah. For a different world. It is my responsibility. I have no excuse, no excuse to hold back, to not do what has to be done. There will be obstacles, but it’s not enough of an excuse. As long as I have an audience that is not as stupid as the artists. What we have in the industry is very mediocre. It’s not something that we can only talk about, but we can change it.
With that change, now you’re bringing up something interesting, that I discussed with a friend, he says his work is not with white people but with black people. What he means by that is we should not focus on disrupting that mediocrity but rather creating alternative spaces toward change. I’d love your comment on alternative spaces, bearing in mind that its cold outside capital, outside capital artists are starving: what would be the political and symbolic significance of having alternative spaces outside the “known” as you alluded to earlier.
You known, when you are dealing with a societal problem, the goal is not to focus on what’s negative but on what can be positive. I feel like in alternative spaces we get to ask ourselves how do we best bring about change. ‘Cause like, we must acknowledge the negatives, but to focus so much on negativity we are actually adding to negativity. But the goal is to move forward; to invent the future. Whether it’s helping someone who doesn’t have shelter, or food, or clothes . . .
It’s bigger than music this thing.
It’s bigger than music. It’s about vibrations, positive vibrations. Not to focus on positivity in an unconscious, ignorant way but in an educational way.
So you saying we shouldn’t focus on dismantling the source of these negative vibrations but rather creating more positive vibrations?
Instead of fighting war with war, we’re fighting war with positive. I mean, what’s the point of having a revolution when the results of that revolution will be continued death. Rather focus on a positive post-revolution.
Jimi Hendrix. I want you to give us your personal take on his view that we should see music as colors. You, personally, please share with us your take on the relationship between people, colors and music.
I see every vibration, and every sound. I see it in color. That specific color has a different sort of vibe, vibration. If it’s pink, there’s a manifestation in my mind, that this color has a certain energy about it. If it’s black, the same process applies. So that’s what happens when I say I see music in colors. Its unfortunate that I can’t paint it on paper, otherwise I would illustrate the musical patterns on paper. The other thing is, I see music as something that unites, creates a bond within human nature. It connects us. . .
It’s a language on its own.
We could have differences with people but music can fuse vibrations into one. It creates understanding where confusion thrives. That’s why it has a lot of colors. It’s colorful. It doesn’t discriminate, music accepts you as who you are. Music is our rainbow nation than this thing called a rainbow nation. It is the true rainbow nation. It calms Mother Nature.
We have been emotionally connected to sounds.
With Jimi, I know you don’t his politics serious. . .
[laughter]
But, with him and Nat (Nakasa), I view them in the same light. Somewhere Jimi mentions that his music, in the 70s I think, he says his music was written in the 1700s, in 1652, these songs were written in 1820, 1790, you know, similar years, and people (British audience) are like, the fuck. There he’s talking about sound, music that transcends- black music- that simply transcends narrow ideas about time and space, that, even if we were there in 1790, we could’ve wrote those songs then, even folks in 1790 probably wrote these songs. Lastly, the pain, that these people feel, that creates these sounds, this music, this jazz, this bebop, hip hop, that creates all these things, creates rock n roll, their pain, that creates the blues, their pain, you can’t subject it to a particular time, its a broader vision that simply transcends space and time. As someone who seems to project his politics into the future, would you then say your music was not written in 2018, but the year 3000, 4020, or year 6015, that year? Would you say you share the same view?
I think Jimi was saying that the music is in the right hands. The music has always been on the right hands. We have been emotionally connected to sounds. I see him as a futurist. I’m also a futurist. The future has no ending, there’ll always be differences, impediments, even in that future we so desire. What we envision is a better place. Where flesh dies but souls multiply.
And just to make a general comment; for a people who happen, due to incidents in history, happen to be black, are prolly the only people in the world who are always forced to question ‘this moment’. Even in the year 1700, they are questioning, “why are we here?” Constantly dreaming of the future. Because they can’t bare ‘this moment’. In 2018, we are also saying we can’t bare ‘this moment’. Black people have not had the luxury of enjoying ‘this moment’, for itself, for at least the past 400 years. We’ve had to dream of ‘that world’. No one else has to be battle with this question.
We will get there.
Yeah.
I feel like we will get to a point where we no longer have to fight, we no longer have to be activists, to be black in a way that makes the world uncomfortable. I feel like, we’ll be just human. I feel like we’re busy fighting instead of enjoying the privilege of being inside Mother Nature. I also think we are on survival mode instead of living life to the fullest.
Would you say, in that future, you’d still make the same sound, same sort of music? Or there wouldn’t be a need?
Me as a creative I feel like I change constantly. It just happens. The sound I’m making now is not the same as the one I was making three months back.
I’m talking about a world that will change at a dramatically, paradigmatic level; when the world really changes. I know it won’t change next year or next of next year. Where it doesn’t matter whether you’re black, or you’re white, or you a man or woman. Do you think in that world where you are simply a human being- currently black people do not live a life that resemble a life of a human being. Go to KwaLanga, people live like dogs. People live in tin houses, matchbox sizes. Do you think in a world where people no longer live like that, in a world of milk and honey, do you think there’ll be a need to create rebellious sounds, rebellious music, alternative sounds?
There will be no need for fighting. The world is always moving forward, finding new ways of doing things. That world will be a world for the battle of ideas. To invent, there’ll be innovation.
Maybe we’ll create flying houses!
Flying cars! It will be a different dimension. I feel like the thing that is holding us back is that our thinking is still locked at the level of the body; some bodies resemble a threat, some don’t. Like, how many times have black people been backed down for their ideas, not allowed to express their ideas, we never knew the man who created Jack Daniel whiskey was black, or the idea of a Ford, we don’t know those things. In that world, everyone will be expected to contribute towards the battle of ideas. Free thought. I mean then, it we make sense to preach free thought. I mean, it’s irrelevant to preach free thought in such a fucked up world. Here you can’t think freely.
Something you mentioned once, “art is safe with us”.
Yeah, art is safe with us. Us as black people to be more specific. It’s safe here with us. Look, throughout these years, how many times have black people, despite the situation we find ourselves, regardless of how the world is designed to be anti black, how many times have we been able to create something new. That’s why I say art is safe with us. We are constantly pushing the boundaries, broadening the horizons; we are creating new vibrations
Troubling the normal!
Yah, we break the rules. We broke the western laws of music. We broke all those rules. With hip-hop, we broke those rules.
Even jazz . . .
With RnB, we broke those rules. So art is safe with us. With people who will contribute and bring change.
Mxm! I feel like we are creating and yet we have to live up to the standards of people who were not in that process of creation.
Me and a friend we were talking earlier today about soccer. My observation was, it’s interesting how Brazilian players can play in different teams. Unlike in Spain, in order for them to be successful they had to concentrate their squad around one team, Barcelona. I mean that’s mediocrity if you think about it. If you go to Brazil, you will find the squad is spread across the globe but they will come together and gel. This mate of mine said, “but that’s a jazz thing”. Those were his exact words. It’s a black thing. I wanted to know what he meant; jazz artists could be coming from different parts of the world and meet up in a gig and work, and improvise. With classical music, they can’t do that. They have to meet up before the gig and learn, study the music, rehearse. For those engaged in that tradition of improvisation, of course it will always come natural for them to create. I mean, whenever black people create something new, people always question its legitimacy, “is it art?” “Is it really music?”
Mxm! I feel like we are creating and yet we have to live up to the standards of people who were not in that process of creation. They were not there. But we have to live up to their standards of what is art or not art. Where were they when we were creating? Why should they question our creation? Couldn’t they just create something better instead?
That’s always the case with black music; ”no this is not music!”
We create and then people start posing these question. But when the art matures, they want to grab it.
J Cole once said he looked up jazz on Apple Music and found that over 90% of the artists there were white!
In jazz? The fuck!
Yeah man. That was when he made that song (Fire Squad) about Eminem, Macklemore. Now, with jazz, this gives the impression that blacks can’t or don’t make this kind of music, or not good enough; “why are they not on iTunes?” They are not good enough.
In the next 50 years, or 10! They will say it was created by whites. Same with rock music! Ask any white kid!
The capture of memory!
Go to the hood, and play rock: “no that’s white music!” It’s a lie!
I get this all the time when I play “Late Picture” (by Nkosi X): “But that’s white people’s music!” Me I’m like, “nah, this chap is black, from eKasi!”
Nkosi X, real name Nkosikhona Maseti, is a Cape Town-based rapper and vocalist interested experimental art and all things alternative. His recent project is titled "Free Tape", an alternative body of work, and can be accessed on all digital platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music etc.
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