 | The media dubbed it the “Battle of Rondebosch Common” but only the police used force. What you really need to know is the opportunistic mayor of Cape Town, Patricia De Lille, fucked up big time. She could have ignored the planned People’s Summit and let it collapse through internal contradictions and organizational failure (as so many protests unfortunately do). Nobody would have noticed except the Neighbourhood Watches and the Ratepayers Associations bent on keeping the poor out of the area. ...read more |
Notes on a Crushed Protest
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012 by Ben Fogel, images by Zachary Levenson and Elena Echevarria
Root for the Villain
Monday, January 30th, 2012 by Rob Cockcroft
 | A couple of years ago Queen’s rapper/producer J-Zone’s 2002 release “Pimps don’t pay taxes” became the soundtrack to my life. Complete with stories of failed attempts at macking, cock blockers and dissing judgemental headwrap chicks, who were all too prevalent at hip hop parties on Long Street. The album spoke to my younger self more than any of the so-called conscious raps that were still popular at the time. ...read more |
Take Back the Common
Thursday, January 26th, 2012 by Christopher McMichael
 | This Friday communities around the Cape will march from Athlone stadium to Rondebosch commons for a three day ‘occupation’. The aim is a public space to discuss solutions to a range of issues: housing, rent arrears, evictions, political corruption and the ongoing segregation in the city. ...read more |
Be Original, Don’t Be Dismal
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 by Lindokuhle Nkosi
 | Toya Delazy is a busy, young woman. I’ve been given twenty minutes to talk to her, over the phone, while a minder from Sony Music listens in on the line. She sounds excited, if not a little overwhelmed. For people who haven’t been in and around the Durban music scene, Toya Delazy’s jump to South Africa’s musical mainframe may seem a little sudden. From relative nothingness, this young jazz student now has a music video “Pump It On” on high ...read more |
Doggone Snowblindness
Friday, January 20th, 2012 by Brandon Edmonds
 | This is a story about empathy. I saw a headline “Gardener ‘raped’ employer’s dog” and my spider sense tingled. Unusual, gonzo, attention-grabbing. There’s race in there, animal sex, class and the suburbs. Things I can write about. Right up my alley. “A 54-year old Pretoria gardener has been denied bail after he allegedly raped his employer’s Dachshund bitch.” He did the dog in a Wendy House. It writes itself. ...read more |
Roofies
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 by Themba Kriger
 | Stepping out of the tiny lift in a nondescript building on Loop Street, Amy was surprised to be in, what appeared to be someone’s lounge, complete with couches and coffee table. The room was small with the lift and a door to her right, being the only obvious points of exit. She felt as if she was stuck inside of a surreal, text-based video game from the 80s. ...read more |
Fucking Hell | An Interview with Cameron Platter
Monday, January 16th, 2012 by Linda Stupart
 | Durban-based artist Cameron Platter is (in)famous within the South African contemporary art community for his biting satire of contemporary popular culture. Featuring trademark Afro-bling styling and politically incorrect struggle-art appropriation, Platter’s painstaking pencil-crayon drawings, jagged flash animations, wooden sculptures and ceramics feature secret lairs, zebras-from-space, pornography, penis enlargements, Rorke’s Drift and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Linda Stupart talks to him about his new show, John Muafengejo, being a Michaelis Graduate and the future. ...read more |
31 Million Reasons
Thursday, January 12th, 2012 by Kavish Chetty
 | I don’t know precisely where the artistic impulse for endless local crime fiction emerged. It’s much easier to see its dark inspiration in the seething, throbbing streets of South Africa. This place is ostensibly, in the phrase of Mike Nicol, “killer country”. Full of chaos and questless violence, it’s the kind of place where a character of his can cough out (quilled in archetypal genre language: nasty, brutish, short) “You want to kill anybody, you take them to South Africa. ...read more |
Drug Mules
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 by Brandon Edmonds
 | A Black Market Eucharist for the 21st Century The population of Ecuador is Roman Catholic. As much as 95% in the CIA World Factbook. So it’s a safe bet that the 48-year old Ecuadorian man who was arrested at OR Tambo airport on Christmas day and who, according to News24, “during excretion (in custody) let off plastic containers that had liquid cocaine” was himself a believer. ...read more |
