Vusumzi Nkomo
a sonic vignette of a place (market), a time (night), and the inevitable collision of the two. The place is presented as (because it is) a lively rendezvous of possibilities and boundless capacity. This spatial specificity is the direction of the song, a direction that is simultaneously a destination- it leads to the thing that it already is; the promises + prospects it carries in its womb. The time is suggestive of a coupla’ things; of memory-as-remembering, of color (colors of the night, melanin-bodies), post-dusk rest, & time as byproduct of capitalist modernity (being at the market at night, doing whatever it is that human beings do whenever their humanness is in sync and not in question, doing it outside the capitalist time of production, see Society of the Spectacle).
Memory.
1
The band ‘treks’ back to, which is to say travels back to, a night, some nights.
2
The band seeks to retrieve the memories of the night/s in the marketplace. To remember, to remember together, how it feels to be in the marketplace, and more particularly at night in the marketplace.
Traveling Black: the African space and place
The song inherits a tradition of thinking ‘Black’ about the market, the African market and pan African disourse/s of and in the marketplace, which are nothing other than discourses about the future of Africa and Africans. Legendary composer-pianist Tat’ uAbdullah Ibrahim’s African Marketplace (1978) is a sonic intervention into the question of marketplaces (in Africa) as (perhaps socialist) centres for thinking about the production of a collective African social life. One might think, rightfully so, of the African Marketplace (thanks to Tat’ Abdullah, and now Kujenga) as forbearer to Commonist tendencies (as theorised, or appropriated? by Jeff Shantz), what we might as well call African Commonist tendencies; African spaces of sustenance outside of the hyper-militarised and excessively expansionist logic of the colony-capital. be-ing African. Where ‘consumption’ is subordinated to the collective wellbeing of those congregated in the marketplace. Jovial together, in Africa. as Africans.
[Might be interesting to think of what this means, really means, in South Africa at a time of a generalised and State sanctioned xenophobia, and the harmful political-social implications of such backward and regressive thinking, and the political un-willingless of our government to think of progressive ways of re-thinking/un-making the seemingly rigid colonial borders that continue to haunt post-colonial Africa.]
Last notes on the song:
1
The song is Nationality’s4 quintessential= its soul. (the pulse,
2
…bustling, but placid. full-of-life/light. impilo, ubomi. ukhanyo. nothando.
3?
the song is full of laughter, of harmless banter, beaming ‘sociality’, a pursuit of togetherness and ethical co-existence this city is not famous for. the song is for the City, it is those stolen moments of joy. joy sonically laid bare before us. As we bear witness to what could potentially be the biggest cultural export from this part of the continent. Kujenga.
In closing
Kujenga’s offering is pristine and colourful. evokes well-lit scenes of energetic and youthful lovers & glistening eyes. evokes dance and good health. children and their carelessness. ama-Oledi and wizened ‘Timers’.
A tale of four men, gentle in their approach to music making.
End.
Listen to Kujenga's debut album, Nationality (2019) on Spotify and all major streaming platforms.
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