THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW
LEGEND has it that Modjadji, the rain queen, is not only the most powerful of all traditional healers but is also immortal. Like the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, she is said to be reincarnated in a different body each lifetime.
Charmaine Modjadji, shebeen queen of South Africa, may deny any relationship to this great sangoma and rain-maker. But, sipping tea in the lush garden of her home in one of Johannesburg’s wealthy northern suburbs, I begin to wonder.
Her mood is thunderous as we discuss the council’s plan to shut down her business. Suddenly, the sky darkens; fierce winds begin to blow away the yellow paper napkins covering freshly baked scones collected from Soweto, thunder drums in the sky and we are hit by a deluge of rain.
We had just been talking about her namesake and I look at her quizzically. “Nothing to do with me,” she replies coyly to my unasked question. I’m not entirely convinced. She is wearing shell and cowhide jewellery (which smells pretty foul) given to her by a spiritualist from the Ivory Coast. “I wear them when I’m feeling down,” she says.
So campaigners bent on frustrating her business plans, beware: who knows what could happen if this flamboyant former beauty queen gets really mad.
Modjadji’s upmarket shebeen, Mama’s Jazz Joint, is a haven for the country’s new black elite and for whites who want a taste of township entertainment without straying too far from home. She says racism is behind the campaign to drive her out of Dunkeld West.
“White people see things in a different perspective. Many are scared to have our culture so near. There is a white social club next door and no one complains. There are also two brothels just up the road, but they too are white and therefore culturally acceptable
`’I don’t understand how they can forget so fast. Does rainbow nation mean that we have to adopt their ways? Where is the spirit of reconciliation Mandela talks about?”
Some of her neighbours in this traditionally white area have been petitioning for two years to have Mama’s ousted from its luxury setting, tucked among other service-related businesses on Jan Smuts Avenue. They say it is a noisy shebeen and should not be allowed in a residential area. Some are worried Mama’s presence will drive down property prices.
“It’s not a shebeen. It’s a private social club,” snaps Modjadji, her long braided hair swirling around her neck as she pivots to survey the scene. “Where have you ever seen a shebeen with a pool and 10 rooms – including private suites, restaurants and a conference room? In fact, there is more noise from the street than the club.”
The club may be upmarket (membership is R500), but everyone knows you only have to get a small group of black folks together and their boisterous enjoyment of life can sound like rowdy football supporters after their team has won a major championship. I certainly would not like to live nearby, but then I am exceptionally noise- sensitive.
Since its opening in 1994, when Hugh Masekela played live in the garden, Mama’s has risen to almost cult status as the place to hang out for returned exiles, ex- soldiers, Inkatha people, foreign embassy officials and many government members.
Gauteng Premier Tokyo Sexwale (a close friend of Modjadji since her youth) is a frequent visitor and Labour Minister Tito Mboweni even has a special room set aside for him and his guests.
The club’s interior is like someone’s living room, though the dim red lights give it a slightly seedy air. Maroon is the dominant colour, lending the place a down- market Indian restaurant look.
“Mama’s is for everyone. It’s about South Africa’s tradition of hospitality, but people feel more comfortable aligning it with a shebeen, which is an illegal drinking tavern – this is not illegal. I’m deliberately being messed about by racists who don’t want to mix. What they are really saying is that our culture is not welcome in their cosy suburbs.”
Nomvula “Charmaine” Mapula Modjadji was born in Payneville, a township on the gold reef surrounding Johannesburg. She moved to Soweto in 1972 after taking up journalism with The World newspaper, forerunner to the Sowetan.
Though untrained and fresh out of high school, she persuaded the editor she could write feature articles, soon becoming a star contributor to the women’s page. Apartheid was at its height and the northern suburbs were as unknown to her as a foreign country.
“I wasn’t legally allowed to visit white suburbs and so didn’t know them.”
Her first visit to the home of a white liberal colleague was a revelation: “I was stunned and could not understand how a family of five could live in such a big house with so many rooms.”
Her traditional box-like four-room township family house had only two bedrooms. Here she grew up with four siblings, her mother (a domestic servant) and grandmother. “It was my grandmother who showed me that the strength, power and determination of one person can make a difference.”
After a year in journalism, Modjadji put her natural beauty and slim figure to use in modelling. She won the Miss Black Johannesburg beauty pageant and landed the coveted assignment as the first black woman to have her face plastered on an advertising billboard – for Lux beauty soap – in 1974.
A year later Modjadji moved into the rag trade as public relations representative and then buyer for a major clothing outlet, winning it big business from black communities.
This was followed by a stint in the music business, working for Warner Bros as a marketing manager until 1979, and several months as a beauty consultant for Flora Roberts cosmetics.
She then won her biggest prize: a United Nations scholarship to Hunter College in New York City. She has a BA degree in communication and a master’s degree in film and music from University of California at Los Angeles.
Her time in the United States included four years in Hawaii, before she returned to South Africa in 1993 because she “wanted to be part of the changes taking place in my homeland”.
But returning home after 16 years of self- imposed exile, she says the attitudes of many racists have not changed, and that is why many black people will not move to the suburbs. “They believe they don’t belong, and this case shows they have a point. I’m basically being told I can only live among whites if I play by their rules.”
She wants a place where people can pitch up any time, in the tradition of shebeens in black areas, which are usually situated in the heart of residential areas – rather in the same way Britain has pubs on just about every street corner.
“Why should I not be able to have a club in the suburb? The Group Areas Act no longer exists. This place has zoning rights for a social club, so technically I’m not breaking the law … It’s the blackness that is a problem.” She plans to discuss the issue on next Monday’s Felicia Mabuza- Shuttle Show.
Modjadji applied for a social club licence when she opened in 1994, but before the tribunal had made its ruling the council had obtained a court order shutting her down. The tribunal later rejected her application and she is to appeal on March 25.
“I was told I had to be living here while the application for consent to use it as a club was being considered. So I sold my house in Randburg and signed a lease, with the option to buy after two years.”
This was supposed to be a pilot scheme: “I have international investors ready to fund a franchise of similar clubs across the country. But I can’t take anyone’s money when the ship is smelling.”
She points out much of that end of Jan Smuts Avenue has already been zoned for business. “The council’s propaganda is concentrating on noise, blowing things out of proportion; they act as if what I’m doing is illegal.”
Mickey Baloyi, product development manager for Johnnie Walker, is a supporter and regular customer: “This place is like a bridge between two cultures. It’s a home away from home for blacks who have moved into previously white suburbs. It’s also a place where business deals are made.”
But the neighbours are not impressed. One allegedly told Modjadji he would spend every penny he has to shut her down. He has been trying to sell his house for more than a year.
Modjadji, who has a 25-year-old son and a nine-month-old grandchild, says it is clear “there is a concerted effort by those representing white business interests to ensure that I don’t operate within `their’ territory. I suggest they wake up to the realisation that they now have to share this land more equally with us.”
The queen has spoken.