Friday News brought to you by South Africa's best read!

Phumlani Pikoli and the art of quitting school to make it

Friday Kwanele Sosibo - 25 Sep 2020

Writer, skater and filmmaker Phumlani Pikoli says his artistic intention was ‘to play’

‘Prisoner 913’: The long, zigzagging path to Mandela’s release

Friday Shaun De Waal - 24 Sep 2020

A new book draws on the secret archive of NP justice minister Kobie Coetsee to paint a detailed picture of the lead-up to Nelson Mandela’s release. Shaun de Waal spoke to co-author Riaan de Villiers

Canary in the coalmine: How Christopher Dorner keeps showing up in protest music

Friday Lloyd Gedye - 24 Sep 2020

Musicians break genre boundaries and, through the lyrics about the Los Angeles police officer who killed cops, express black anger

No grand illusions or announcements of change in Dolla Sapeta’s Skeptical Erections

Friday Tom Penfold - 24 Sep 2020

In his work, poet and artist Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta weaves a tight thread between his two practices and the Eastern Cape township of New Brighton

Is kwaito an old thing yet?

Friday Esinako Ndabeni - 21 Sep 2020

Kwaito was born during South Africa’s transition to democracy and lives on as a kind of heritage

Extract from ‘Born to Kwaito’: How we choose to fashion ourselves

Friday Esinako Ndabeni - 21 Sep 2020

How we choose to dress is an instrument to communicate personal, race, class, gender and identity politics, as discussed in this extract from ‘Born to Kwaito’

On Jackson Hlungwani: A close encounter with an artistic deity

Friday Mary Corrigall - 21 Sep 2020

A survey of Jackson Hlungwani’s practice presents a transcendental experience, even for non-believers

Omar Badsha: Recording the roles of the ordinary

Friday Niren Tolsi - 17 Sep 2020

Saho’s Omar Badsha believes in the power of people telling their own stories, but more funding to support this practice is crucial

A modicum of release: Lumumba’s remains return home at last

Friday Percy Zvomuya - 17 Sep 2020

Sixty years after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the DRC’s first prime minister, his remains will be returned from Belgium

Review: The land is not to be outdone in ‘Dust’

Friday Kwanele Sosibo - 17 Sep 2020

Pieter du Plessis’s post-apocalyptic film throws up some interesting questions, but it also needs to work a little harder

The Portfolio: Khaya Ngwenya

Friday Khaya Ngwenya - 16 Sep 2020

Photojournalist Khaya Ngwenya’s style focus on exploiting natural light while staying in motion

Homegrown vs Big Pharma: Who stands to benefit from the legal market for medical marijuana?

Friday Guy Oliver - 15 Sep 2020

Cannabis is scheduled for its South African parole on September 18. Kelly McQue’s handy medical marijuana producers’ guide is an opening salvo against corporate medicine’s demand for exclusive rights to the plant’s healing powers

Achmat Dangor: On writing and change

Friday Andries Walter Oliphant - 12 Sep 2020

Celebrated author and political activist Achmat Dangor died on Sunday at the age of 71. Here, in a 1990 interview published in Staffrider, he speaks to Andries Walter Oliphant about his work and aspects of South African literature and culture

Nostalgia, connection and the nomadic sound of Mx Blouse

Friday Mx Blouse - 11 Sep 2020

Mx Blouse talks about their sonic influences and how these fused together to shape their debut album, 'Elementality'

Soul Assassins: Mx Blouse selects six producers who are vital to their sound

Friday Mx Blouse - 11 Sep 2020

From Micr. Pluto and Eye-On Feather to Parabyl, Mx Blouse has worked with a diverse range of producers who have all helped to shape their debut album, ‘Elementality’

Myesha Jenkins: A sister who always said it with feeling

Friday Gwen Ansell - 10 Sep 2020

Poet and activist Myesha Jenkins (1948-2020) took her craft, including her teaching, extremely seriously

The Portfolio: Lizzie ZiqubuM

Friday Baja La Dhlamini Sidzumo - 10 Sep 2020

Photographer Lizzie ZiqubuM’s Senior Citizens exhibition, on show at the KZNSA Gallery is a celebration and appreciation of the role of grandmothers

‘This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection’ is an intriguing work set in Lesotho about a grieving mother

Friday Taryn Joffe - 8 Sep 2020

The film, which explores loss and land resettlement, is absorbing and technically accomplished

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