Kwaito superstar Oupa Makhendlas Mafokate died in a confusing drama of gunshots. Zwelithini ka Mvelase looks at Makhendlas as a township thesis of his generation – the wasted, young, black and talented
A Nile of tears threatens to storm out of my tear sacks – eyes weighed down by grief and too red to hold back the rain of emotions. I turn around to whistle a poignant Bob Marley tune, Redemption Song.
As positive a product of black soul that Marley’s classic is, it cannot contain the rage that tornadoes in my mind as I sit iced on a computer word processor asking myself why. Why did the young kwaito superstar Oupa Makhendlas Mafokate blow himself away, that fateful Saturday with his blazing rod?
Makhendlas – township slang for “fun lover” – is reported to have committed suicide in the aftermath of a fatal brawl. The young star was billed as the top attraction at Saturday night’s concert in Tonga, Nelspruit. But before he could perform, he got involved in a deadly fracas with a nuisance fan who had reportedly been harassing him and his musical crew before the Mpumalanga show. At some point Makhendlas’s emotions replaced his brains as he whipped out his gun and pumped three bullets into the troublesome man.
That is the official story as told by Mpho Makhetha, manager and chief public relations honcho of 999, Mafokate’s label which is owned by his older brother, kwaito hotshot Arthur Mafokate. But why did Makhendlas have a gun with him? Was he under some kind of threat? “No. Not that I know of,” says Makhetha.
“He should not be sacrificed. Already he is dead. There is no need to blame a dead man for the sins of an alive world,” says Makhetha. “You ask me why did Mafokate have a gun on him?
“You know very well that the music industry in this country is in bad shape when it comes to management of the small labels, which strangely are the money spinners. You know that in some of these shows we have to collect gate share (money) ourselves and you know that the spectre of crime is ever present. So Makhendlas should not come out as a sore thumb for having a gun with him. He was not a skelm (rubbish). Ever since I began working with him I don’t know of anyone who was harrassed or threatened by Makhendlas. I don’t know him as a gun blasting sort.
“He must have horribly snapped off, to an extent which I can’t measure, for he is nowhere to tell me,” said Makhetha, struggling to keep that strong Clint Eastwood tone of a man hurt but seen to be handling it well.
Makhendlas’s death was no route full of roses, but a shortcut to heaven at the hand of his own pistol. To many in the townships, his death represents the heightened streak of madness, uncertainty and fear not only in music, but in the socio-cultural playground in which young blacks play and are raised.
Makhendlas’s story is a classic mirage of the lives of young black men – more so products of 1976. The notion that black men are buffalo soldiers blessed with a natural gift of toughing it out on the rough edges of life has sent young black males into a cyclone of confusion, fear and unending challenges to legitimise their status in this depoliticised era.
It is unlikely that Makhendlas travelled to Mpumalanga to slaughter someone, least of all himself. That he shot someone was a reactionary act of fear. His hurried-up self wipe-off from the face of earth captures the acute social illnesses which face his generation in a South Africa preparing for a post-Mandela era.
He was an extremely humble young man who did his talking onstage. His story mirrors the daily prisms and prison that the music industry has become for young musicians who are big in the eyes of their fans but remain too inconsequential to receive any protection from promoters or police.
“If he was an American artist of the same stature,” Makhetha says, “he could have been provided with extra and even unwanted police protection. But for us such a thing as protection is just this dream. And if artists do not perform at venues they are billed for, for lack of security, they are heaped with blame for any potential riot. I mean for an artist to be forced to deal with stalking fans who have crossed security lines is a scary idea.”
As tears of anger at wasted talent begin to dry, I remember Makhendlas’s artistic zeal. Quite simply, only the musically naive could steal the limelight from Makhendlas’s hit single Emenwe (phezulu) – the most popular piece of dance music in the black urban areas and their satellite peripheries.
Second-born son of Enos and Grace, the 28- year-old Makhendlas was born and reared in Chiawelo. He was a rarity who rose to establish himself as an artist capable of holding his own against the best in kwaito music.
Of course his music, like lots of kwaito, was lyrically deficient, but he was one of the few stars who was in touch with his musical constituency. His second album Jwaleng – with the title track Otla shwela jwaleng (Check out you party animal, lest you drown yourself in a pool of booze), and another Jealous – is as socially relevant as it is packed with infectious grooves.
Oh, Thixo! The young, black and talented are again an endangered species under siege from themselves and a society which is not expecting much from them anyway. A chorus from his masterpiece township dance sizzler would do here: “Emenwe, menwana, emenwe, phezulu. Ek’se Arthur, Hola hola, phezulu.”
While I’m thinking that this life is full of River Phoenix sorts, I begin to wonder, for Makhendlas, if heaven has a ghetto.