/ 13 April 2007

More about cash than splash

Although the third South African Music Conference boasted a world-class, house-heavy lineup, including the versatile New Yorker DJ Spinna, Kalawa’s Oskido, turntablist extraordinaire Ready D and the likes of deep house demi-gods Osunlade and Quentin Harris, the real fireworks kicked off late on Wednesday afternoon, when Tira and Sox, aka Durban’s Finest, took to the stage.

Held for the first time in Durban after the previous two events in Johannesburg, the attendance, by mostly fledgling producers, was paltry, which was one of the reasons Wednesday was starting out on a pretty lethargic note.

After sitting through technical production and mastering presentations, there followed presentations by disabled and female DJs, which although well-intentioned, drew unnecessary and meaningless attention to the participants’s disabilities and gender.

The tension soared by a couple of notches as soon as Tira and Sox took to the stage. As the host town’s star DJs, a lot was riding on their input. The pair were due to speak on the ”Durban success story”, which has seen the city transform from a backwater, where people partied outside the venues as opposed to inside them, into a house-mad city where DJs quit their day jobs to become hot-shot promoters, and anonymous scenesters became recording artists and overnight successes.

As DJs such as Sox, Tira and Siyanda became the standard-bearers of kick-ass house throw-downs, a complementary industry of vocalists was spawned, which from the outside looking in, at least, seemed to confirm the beginnings of a cohesive, prolific and original Durban music movement.

From the moment they stepped on stage, however, it seemed this was not so. Tira, and to an extent Sox, it was alleged, were greedy, ego-driven entrepreneurs who shut down opportunities for everybody by refusing to allow up-and-coming DJs to play in their gigs. Fellow Durban DJs got up to heckle Tira about his choice of ”banging” house music, which was said to be fuelling the wave of drugs taking place at house gigs and his allegedly cold attitude towards fellow DJs.

As the tirade of personal attacks continued unabated, Oskido stepped in to defend his beleaguered panelists, saying they had proved themselves reliable and forcing them to commit to opening a 30-minute slot on their weekly show on Igagasi FM, to showcase other up-and-coming local DJs.

The next day provided more of the same theatrics, as DJs Siyanda and Chynaman got up to explain how they had built their individual brands. The only light-hearted part of the presentation was Siyanda’s explanation of his dancefloor gimmick-turned-nationwide hit Iwe-we. After that, a spat between the DJ and singer Professor over unpaid fees turned personal and ugly with Oskido again refereeing, this time calling for a union to be formed to ensure that Durban DJs can work towards a common cause.

The lasting impression of the conference, though, from many of the out of towners, was echoed by Mesh, a representative of Multi-Racial Records, a Pretoria-based record store. ”I don’t think Christos and them will host this music conference here [in Durban] ever again, unless they are crazy,” he said packing up his equipment from the exhibition stand. ”The vibe just wasn’t there. Music is about passion, but here, it seems to have been about money. I hardly saw the local DJs. I was very disappointed, actually.”