Andrew McUtchen
Music
Two years ago, the Mail & Guardian reported on the disturbing prevalence of violence at kwaito gigs, from performers as much as the audience. Last week, at the One City, Many Condoms Aids awareness concert at Cape Town’s Langa stadium, a threat to personal liberty of an entirely different kind awaited this country’s biggest stars, among them E’Smile, Kyllex and Skeem.
Tribe lead singer, Reason Sithole, nodded gravely at the mention of danger, and explained: “Yes, you’re right, I am under constant threat. I can’t even get a drink without someone trying to take my clothes, or kiss me, or ask for my autograph. It’s tough out there.”
Sithole’s relaxed attitude to playing in front of the 1 000-strong crowd may have had something to do with the thin blue line, which in this case was extraordinarily thick. By that, and despite the temptation, I’m not referring to the reported fact that over 25% of South African police are illiterate, and could only appreciate the pretty pictures on the Aids awareness brochures distributed by organisers.
To live in peace, the saying goes, you must prepare for war. And stretching around the back of the almost exclusively African crowd, there lay an ominous constabulary cordon punctuated (a little unnecessarily, it seemed to me) with an armoured troop carrier.
The security, however, as with all the One City Festival events I have attended, did not dampen spirits, or intimidate. From the very first scratch of the wax by kwaito DJs commissioned to warm up the frigid afternoon, the atmosphere was festive and neighbourly.
Among the first few performers were the hip-hop/R&B outfit Black Noise. Plying the energetic insurgency of Public Enemy, with the harmonious vocal histrionics of soft American R&B, they took immediate control of the stage, and held it for their too- brief set of 25 minutes. As much gymnasts as they are singers, DJs and MCs, they delighted all with head-spinning B-Boy tricks, performed in sync to a booming freestyle beat.
Such sheer dynamism was a hard act to follow for gospel duo Mike-T and Frank, who sang with impeccable harmony, but little charisma. While I struggled for the right words, a young teenager with a grossly inflated condom protruding from between his fly breezed past me, rolling his eyes, saying loudly: “This is boring”. Words though, I discovered later, are rarely used at a concert like this to sum up feelings.
This particular audience displayed two highly animated types of response, both of which left little doubt as to their verdict. If something is good, like the incendiary talent of young kwaito quartet Tribe, or kwaito pioneer Kyllex, you must mirror the complex dance moves. If you are old or have a baby strapped to your back, you must show your pleasure by moving slowly in time and clapping. If young and trying to impress groups of females, either jig indifferently or cavort like a Zulu prince imitating a baboon. Australian journalists should not, I too quickly found, attempt the latter. All must scream and whistle maniacally when given the chance.
All present seemed to appreciate the safe sex message, although, sadly, red ribbons painted on the cheeks of children paled as mere symbols when compared to the very real funeral programme crumpled in the hand of a woman next to me. It was for her late best friend, a 29-year-old woman, who had died of Aids. For this concert-goer at least, the solemnity of the objective was not lost among the revelry, and the harmony.