Otherness — “let’s get high” chill music.
THE PLAY LIST
Kindness: Otherness. These days I’m hanging out in a sonic community of hyper-contemporary musicians based in the United States and the United Kingdom, whose most potent and reliable platform is the internet and the underground word-of-mouth. When I sat two seats away from Kindness at last year’s Black Portraitures conference in Newtown, Johannesburg, it made sense that the hunting ground for the alternative future is Africa, the ultimate “otherland’’. Otherness is a fusion of “let’s get high” chill music, which occasionally dips into the past funk beats and reminds you that this is the perfect pre-party music. (MB)
THE GAMING LIST
Mass Effect: Andromeda is getting a lot of flak. Deservedly, I suppose — its animations and mechanics are just as janky as the original trilogy. Or just as not-janky as the original, depending on how much you loved guiding your Shepard around the galaxy. And its bedrooms. Point being, this is mass effect just as it was then, despite the strides made in RPGs since 2012’s ME3. I’ve barely dented its promised 50+ hours of play, but I don’t think I mind the throwback gameplay. Whether you’ll be willing to forgive its clunkiness depends on how much you’re looking forward to exploring a brand new galaxy. And its bedrooms. (TSM)
THE READING LIST
Noel Mostert: Frontiers: The Epic of South Africa’s Creation and the Tragedy of the Xhosa People. Helen Zille inspired the history lover in me to dig up an old favourite and reread the details of how Britain’s colonial endeavours at the Cape unfolded, from the different perspectives of the participating parties: Ngqika, Tyali, Hintsa, Maqoma, Smith, D’Urban, the London Missionary Society’s failed humanitarian efforts, the Wesleyans, the Boers and the Khoikhoi of the Cape circa 1830s. This is the best book on South Africa’s early history that I have read. (MB)
Jace Clayton: Uproot. The writer mixes travel, a sound knowledge of global bass culture and a unique way with prose to bring you up close and personal with the changing nature of music, its consumption and its social currency. Clayton makes visceral the complete political absurdity and dynamism that 21st-century global tech is wrapped in. (KS)
The Lists were compiled by Friday editor Milisuthando Bongela, senior arts writer Kwanele Sosibo and gaming writer @TheSerifM