In the season finale of ‘This is Jo’burg’, an Ethiopian refugee/restaurateur, a Zulu migrant/scholar and a young surrealist painter take Charles Leonard into their lives in the City of Gold
Instead of sulking in the corner, the vocal residents Brixton in Jo’burg are finding solutions that are progressive and inclusive
Between 1936 and 1975 a radio station subverted young Jo’burgers all the way from Mozambique. LM Radio’s highly effective ad department came for their money, but it was its DJs that took their souls with the freewheeling “hippy” music that they played. Historian Charles van Onselen explains how that made the apartheid elders at the SABC spitting mad
In the 1980s Capital Radio 604 was more than just a cool station broadcasting from the hippy haven of Port St John’s on the Wild Coast. It’s small, but effective news team was based in Jo’burg, from where they tackled the state, one bulletin at a time
In this episode Charles Leonard speaks to a city musician who’s just released an album through one of the most respected international record labels, explores how this brash mining town’s history can be heard in Jo’burg jazz, and finds out what makes someone open a new record store in the city
Charles Leonard is taken on a walking tour by the Rand Club’s first black, female chairperson. He also gets Jo’burg’s funniest stand-up comedian to tell him his funniest Jo’burg joke
In this episode Charles Leonard examines two types of Jo’burg noise: one made by religious humans in an inner city suburb, the other a familiar avian racket.
Charles Leonard asks three women from different backgrounds about the idea of being outsiders, about being Jo’burgers and what this city means to them
In this episode Charles Leonard hangs out with the city’s top crime reporter and a feared gangster who was convicted for multiple murders.
In this third episode of ‘This is Jo’burg’, Charles Leonard hears from a can-do homeless person who regulates traffic at intersections during the constant power cuts – he explains why he started doing it
In this second episode of ‘This is Jo’burg’ an unconventional historian takes Charles Leonard to that spot where the city of gold was supposedly born
In the first episode of “This is Jo’burg”, the poet, educator, mother, memoirist, activist, Nelson Mandela’s former chief of staff and ambassador to the US and France, Barbara Masekela goes on a road-trip with Leonard of her beloved Johannesburg. She tells the stories, recounts the memories and expresses hopes for her city