 | This is a middle class publication. Look at the stories that have been published in this magazine over the last little while: Stories on rocking the daisies, independent music, theatre productions, designer shoe competitions, and a re-elaboration of 19th century South African history by a white guy. As I write this, and as you read it, there can be no illusion between us that the information being exchanged has universal relevance. No. It is just between us. ...read more |
Middle Class Manifesto
Thursday, October 20th, 2011 by Sarah Dawson
Hipster Hop
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 by Rob Cockcroft, images by Paul Ward
 | For the first time in a long while I’m actually excited to be attending a hip hop party, especially because it’s at Evol which carries the stigma of drawing emo hipster crowds. I’m over the whole knapsack-rocking hip hop purist vibe I’ve been checking out of late where everyone is a stone-faced rap critic. I just want to get drunk and jam and not be ice-grilled for it. I want to be around people in 80’s/90’s throwback gear who don’t ...read more |
An Inconvenient Youth
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011 by Brandon Edmonds
 | In Mike Judge’s underrated dystopian comedy about America in 500 years , Idiocracy (2006), the biggest movie of the moment is called “Ass”. It wins 8 Oscars and amounts to little more than a bare white ass facing the audience with a fart soundtrack. I was reminded of it several times wading through Fiona Forde’s dire new book on Julius Malema, An Inconvenient Youth. It is a patchwork text ...read more |
Carry on Camping
Friday, October 14th, 2011 by Brandon Edmonds
 | In a blog post about the Wall Street Occupation, historian McKenzie Wark, author of a great book on the Situationists, walks through Zuccotti Park, where all manner of people are still heroically camped in a month-long globally-proliferating protest against, well, we’ll get to that. She’d gone quite selfishly since she lives nearby and it’s where her children play (“I wanted to make sure our Park was still there”) and finds a ‘sort of fugue state’ enticingly beyond the frozen consumer-entertainment ...read more |
Z v Z
Thursday, October 13th, 2011 by Carlos Amato, illustration by Zapiro
 | This week, Jacob Zuma obtained a court date for his defamation lawsuit against Jonathan Shapiro, aka Zapiro, thus paving the way for history’s first civil court battle between a president and a cartoonist. Mahala spoke to Zapiro, whose 16th annual collection, The Last Sushi, hits the streets this month. ...read more |
Novelties and Party Tricks
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 by Andrei Van Wyk, images by Hanro Havenga
 | Sweat oozes from the windows of the dubstep party next door as the bright light illuminates the wet faces of the kids dancing outside while trying to grab a smoke. The inside of Town Hall, Newtown, Jozi, is hot in temperature but cold in spirit. The corners are crammed with people too shy to dance to the hi-fi sounds of Two Door Cinema Club and Foster the People. Others just stand awkwardly next to the toilets waiting for their girlfriend ...read more |
Room 107
Friday, October 7th, 2011 by Rick De La Ray, images by Lani Spice
 | There are a lot of things that went through my head when I found out that I would be making the long-winded journey to Kimberley for the weekend of the Maloof Money Cup. I had been to one of these events before, back in 1997 in a small town in Germany called Münster. Had the people of Kimberley and the Northern Cape government any idea of what they were letting themselves in for? The flashbacks of a 12 foot burning ...read more |
News from the Back
Monday, October 3rd, 2011 by Carlos Amato
 | AS the “foreign correspondent” on e.tv’s news parody show Late Night News, David Kibuuka begins many bulletins with the declaration: “This place is shit!” Kibuuka has filed reports on the shitness of umpteen nations including Swaziland, Italy, Zimbabwe, India, Nigeria, Haiti and the US. Born in Uganda (his family moved to Jo’burg when he was 10), Kibuuka has taken some flak for his tetchy brand of journalism. ...read more |
Out of the Murk
Friday, September 30th, 2011 by Roger Young
 | The BLK JKS are gearing up to record a new album. Roger Young sat down with Mpumi Mcata and Tshepang Ramoba to discuss the process of finding a recording studio, a producer, a country, a time frame and some songs. Mahala: So, when do you leave for Mali? Mpumi: Late. We just did some demos and we sent the demos to the label. A formality for them to release the budget. That’s the stage we’re at. ...read more |
The Happy Clappy Struggle
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 by Lindokuhle Nkosi
 | iBhunu, the word derived from the Afrikaans plural “boere” meaning farmers; it evolved to refer to the Afrikaner population in general, and then more specifically to the apartheid system and the many forces of oppression that system represented. It became a catch-all phrase for the perpetrators of black oppression. Globally, today, you could equate the term “iBhunu” with “the man”. When one speaks of sticking it to the man, no-one interprets that as a call to physically violate, or cause harm to ...read more |
