On so many occasions I’m asked, “so where did you grow up?” To which I invariably reply, “uh, well I’ve lived in Durban for like six years, and Jozi for two…” and as my words trail off into oblivion, I stop, and admit, “actually I’m from Margate”.

Most respond hesitantly, at first they ask me about what it might have been to grow up in small seaside resort town and then most are slammed in the forehead by nostalgia. They remember summer romances, or drunken escapades or the smell of suncream, the list is endless but you get the point. For most the mere mention of Margate brings to mind thoughts of relaxation, and to my mind thoughts of a less violent South Africa, a South Africa in which I could walk home post - debauchery. Margate is home though, its relaxed, my middle - class suburban home, smells like home and has been the vehicle for most of the epic moments of upbringing.

So why then, why is this place so bloody fucked up right now? Margate conjures up memories of better days and fittingly it appears it might be stuck on the mantle piece of a middle-class family as just that, a memory. You realize why, as you drive through the town, with its wilted roads, and people milling about in the town’s center who appear to have been cursed by indolence. There are those who are proactive, but if pressed even they shall admit that they are clearly in the minority.

Margate clings to the sea on the east coast of South Africa, its a little lower than Durban and much higher up than Cape Town so there are perfect waves, warm seas and no Durbanites asking you “are you local? These waves, this here beach and the air your inhaling into your foreign lungs are for locals only!” Margate is so close to the fabled utopia, the near misses it has are so glaring that its not possible to dismiss them as negatable in spite of the location and the weather. There is simply no room for a second best when competing with the other utopian candidates, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay who inch ever close to the ideal.

I wont go into the gory economic details of the plight of Margate, the numbers mean very little without the emotional affiliations I have, and other locals of my kind have with the place. Margate has pretty much unlimited potential; the only crux is the lack of solid private investment. Margate hasn’t the same pulling power as Knysna or Plet because it hasn’t a thing to do when it rains, nor are you going to be able to lunch on Margate’s finest cuisine. There are some great restaurants for night time dining, Trattoria La Terraza, Villa Tuscana, La Cupannina - ok so there aren’t many, but they’re great. Fuck it, lets move on, quickly…There are no patisseries, literally not a single place with a sea view in which to go to enjoy a lunch which befit the tropical and tranquil surrounds. There aren’t any cocktail bars. Cock ‘n Tail which straddles the Mugg and Bean building, rather like a brothel might a crappy Italian restaurant is the ultimate youthful den of inequity - definitely more cock and balls than cocktails.

The property is relatively cheap when compared to other sea side resort towns, so the opportunity for investment is still incredible in spight of the rising interest rates and the decline in consumer expenditure.

So if I had a few hundred million, I would buy this place up. I intend to. Did I ever tell you this? Perhaps not. I intend to be filthy stinking (fragrant stench) rich.

I would utilize the locals ability to destroy whatever they see fit to demolish most of what is already here. The town center would be torn up, with real estate agencies, the moles amongst the freckles on Margates suntanned chest, the first to be destroyed and cobbled stone paths (Talita’s idea) would replace all tarmac in the town center. I would pay good money into Vida e Caffe and Lulus bank accounts and demand they create Italian style caffes on each corner, and perhaps I’d have to rent-a-crowd initially to populate their eateries, but a few well dressed young urban-sophisticates could change the hazy landscape and bring back the life into this place.

I’d invest money into budding young resteranteurs ideas, asking for proposals and assuring them that should I like their proposed plans that capital would be raised for the implementation of the ideas pitched. Restaurants would have to assure me that for the length of their stay that they will use primarily local producers, where possible of course.

Those are simply the start of my ideas, but each and every invest would ultimately feed into another, be it via employee expenditure (chefs drinking coffee at Vida, wearing a local clothing company, Moral Fibre, epic T-Shirt) or alternatively via businesses pairing up, expanding and continously impressing those who’ve arrived.

Yes its a dream, but trust me its a race to see who raises the capital first. I will get there, and if you’re onto the same idea - watch yourself.

If you want to visit our online store and purchase one of our fine t-shirts go to :www.moralfibre.co.za/store or simply click on the banner ad on your right displaying our Moral Fibre T-Shirts.

Moral Fibre Clothing : “In Honour of the Artist”

“This is the band that is to bring some change to the negative direction our country’s music scene is spiraling towards, something I will sure be listening to 20 years from now.” – YMag [Popular youth magazine]

KWANI EXPERIENCE is a 6-piece live band hailing from the inner city of Johannesburg South Africa. They are socially aware individuals who pay tribute to old school South Africa in their music and style whilst at the same time representing contemporary South African youth culture. This mix of the past and present to created a new sound, which they call Mudaland funk. Their music and message is a direct result of what happens when conscience individuals with such different backgrounds and personalities get together to create a sound; it becomes so unique that its hard to categorize and best enjoyed live.

Their international popularity is on the increase and they recently made a visit to Norway where we had the pleasure of hanging out with them for a week, trying to understand what drives this band, why they are different and how they are fighting fear through music. We introduce you to the band in this part of the interview, the next part being about their message and lastly about their albums and tours.

Meet the band

Bassist & cofounder (Frank Magongwa) from a small village of about 36 families in Limpopo, of the Ndebele tribe.

Soulful actress/lead female vocalist (Nkoto Keitu Malebye) Born in Mpumulanga of the Pulane tribe, lives in Jo´burg now.

Lead rapper/poet (Kwelagobe Sekele) otherwise known as PO Box is from the Pedi tribe.

Keyboardist (Mahlatse Riba), born in Soweto and lives there now.

Drummer & studio head (Monde Mkhizwana) from the Xhosa tribe in South Africa.

Industrial-percussionist (recycled & light precessions) (Bafana Nhlapo) from the Zulu tribe in South Africa

What is the origin of the name Kwani Experience?

Frank:
Kwani means interrogation in Swahili, it also means, Kwani, from whence, since we all from different cultures and we all get along. Most of the time you find people from these different cultures don´t get along, and this is Kwani Experience, the experience of getting along.

Mathlatse:
The origin of the name Kwani Experience was something decided on when I wasn’t there. Basically it means ‘from whence’ you know. Where is the music coming from? Since we all from different tribes and cultures so we have different influences. The music is influenced from so many places so its music ‘from whence.’

How did you all meet and join the band?

Monde:
This is how I met Kwani Experience, I met each member at different times of my life. I knew Bafana, he used to be a gangster! I used to be afraid of him. I was at school with Franky and Keitu but when I joined the band was in 2004 when I was studying at Tech. In Durban and the drummer was leaving, since then I’m stuck with them, you know, but I’m getting to travel so its cool.

Bafana:
Me how I met the band, well, as Monde says, but I was not a gangster, I used to hang around with them. Why he says this is we used to imitate the Boys to Men group and we had these friends called Dog Squad so they were popular in Soweto and you would not do anything wrong or mess with them. That is why he thought I was a gangster, I could not hang out with the guys around me as I could not gel with them, coming from Jabulani. I felt more comfortable hanging out with them coming from the same life. I started playing with the band when I saw them live one day, and just picked up my drum and joined them onstage, and never came off.

Mathlatse:
The person I´ve known the longest in the band is Frank, he felt that I was going somewhere, we connected so well and he felt there was a lot we could do. I was shy and scared and uncertain whether I was doing a good job, but he was like, Man!. And six years on we doing it still. He was at school with most of the guys and they met there. He was the centre of this whole movement cause he connected everyone.

P.O:
They asked me to join because I knew most of them and the rapper then asked me to join because he was gonna manage the band.

Who are your major musical influences?

Keitu:
I grew up very closely with my parents you know, my mom, introduced me to Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway, from a young age. There was a point when I used to upset her or something and I would come to her singing ‘Where is the love’ but in all the wrong words, only remembering the tune. My grandmother loved singing and so did my mom when she was young, and now I feel I they are my influences and I sing for them, those women who had dreams but could only live them in their little kitchen, humming away. So I am singing for all the women who came before me and the ones who are going to come after. Raphael Sadiq, Four Seasons from Pretoria are also influences, though there is so much passion and fire in South Africa and many great artists its hard to name them all.

P.O.
My musical influences is everything I grew up listening to much rap and hip+hop when I was in High School. I was kind of musically conscience of what I wanted to listen to, listening to main stream artists like Snoop until I was introduced to underground hip+hop and that was when I started rapping in 1998. Then I stopped listening to hip+hop and got into Ragga, and Reggae and Dub a lot from there it was Jazz. South African Jazz artists like Zim Malana, Moses Zaleka are great. Wu Tang clan and many local rappers such as Asylum Tribe (a big hiphop crew from JHB) are also my favourites.

Bafana:
Me I grew up in a family of musicians, my father was a singer, my mom she used to play Toro Toro like all the indigenous instruments. They used to rehearse in our house in Jublani, their band was called Kingsta brothers was the name of the group. I was 6 years old and used to hide under the bed when they rehearsed and listen to each and everyone. I would be there for a long time and when I started singing they would ask, “Who is that?” and find me hiding under the bed. I left music for a long time and became an athlete, touring and stuff but soon became bored. From there I went back to school and studied music, eventually choosing my own direction, leaving the bass and starting to create a musical sound I call Industrial Percussion. Using drums, enamel cups, and many other recycled things to create a new sound.

Frank:
When I was young I used to hang around the leader of the kraal. He was my grandfather and my biggest influence in my music and the way I write it. Also the sound of natural things, like the sea, crickets, wind, fire, the sound of original stuff is my influence. I am a bass player but I am not influenced by musicians at all, its all about the sound of existence, the sound that is not fabricated is what influences me. The raw inspiration. The inspiration of raw and original sounds of nature.

Monde:
What inspires me is my childhood you know, can I tell the truth? Expressing myself is what inspires me because I grew up in a family where there was much violence, my father was a wife beater so I was always afraid to talk to my friends about it because I thought they would laugh at me. So I always used to bottle things up you know, and then I would explode. So as I grew up my family used to put us into sports, music classes , etc., and music was the only thing were I could just vent everything out and no one would complain you know. That has been happening to me till today, so its an inspiration more than an influence. Musicians I like are Michael Jackson, James Brown, all the South African musicians the list goes on.

Part 2 of the Kwani Interview focuses on their Live Without Fear campaign. We ask what fears they have faced and what Live Without Fear means to them.

www.myspace.com/kwaniexp
Email: kwela.sekele@gmail.com
Management: djbob@djbob.co.za

This year I’ve become particularly aware of the immense poverty surrounding me. I’ve been living in Pretoria for almost two years now, and the entire first year I didn’t get around much because of lack of transport - but now that I have constant access to transport, I’m not isolated to a simple bicycle route from my home in suburban Menlopark, through a high school area, to my college in suburban Lynnwood. I have instead been traveling around, visiting the city centre, etc. In all of those travels, I’ve become more awakened to the general poverty in my area - and specifically, the tedious work that people have to endure in order to earn enough money for a loaf of bread and something to drink - yet they return every single day to do it, in order to provide for those that they are responsible for. On numerous occasions, I’ve driven past people selling newspapers in the boiling heat - they spend their entire day doing work that is incredibly demotivating and often results in people being impatient and non-receptive to their efforts.

A specific example that stays in my mind is from a few weeks ago; I was working the merchandise table at a concert in Pretoria, and when I was about to leave at around 1 in the morning, I walked to my car and noticed the security guard still there - I quickly went to get some change and told him I’d be back, then asked him about a fight that took place outside earlier… This got us talking, and I realized that despite our basic language gap, this was an intelligent, good-hearted person. He began talking about how he’d been working this job as a security guard for a few years, yet still earns only R2700 a month. Now, I understand that not everyone can earn large amounts of money, but it seems very unfair to me that is loyalty to the company is not rewarded, despite his commitment of standing in the rain until 1 in the morning to properly do his job, while a CEO somewhere sleeps comfortable and rakes in millions. Now, this is bordering on a discussion on communism, but I don’t really want to go there. What I’m getting at is that Patrick has been working for a company for a few years on on end, he has a wife and kids to support, he is an intelligent, good-hearted man - but he can not work his way up in a capitalist world, simply because of the cards that he has been dealt. The amount of frustration and hopelessness that he feels must be immeasurable. Yet he perseveres, and returns to his job every day, because he has to support his family.

It is people like this that I feel a genuine sense compassion for. And I wish that there was somehow that I could’ve helped just that one person - but as I don’t even work yet for myself I realize that there is absolutely nothing I could do; and I think he knew that as well. And in fact I still think about if there’s any way that I could possibly have helped him out, and not simply in a “here’s your taxi money to get back home” but in a long-term manner - and I realized there simply is no way. And for me to feel despair at his situation, I believe, can do no amount of justice to what he must feel every day - working an unrewarding, lack luster job because he made a commitment to his family that he is going to fulfill.

This situation in general is worrying as it is, but what further adds to it is the sense of selfishness and disregard that is exhibited by a large portion of people I meet today; especially those that fall into the adolescent category. I’ve realized that even if I did everything in my power to help that one person, and if each person in a position to help, decided to help someone else - we’d be getting somewhere. But the problem comes in where people in a position to help can’t be bothered to - because they’re too busy being self-involved, and stuck up on their own issues, that in a broader scheme of things are really irrelevant.

I’ve noticed a trend amongst adolescents that advocates the “troubled, deep, poetic, intellectual teen”. This whole image is encouraged and people somehow think it makes one “arty” or introverted - but it doesn’t. Your depression is one that is based on self-involvement. Nobody cares if you think that you “relate” to Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. And what makes this all worse is the idea that somehow loneliness is a worse poverty than that of hunger - how this thought can be remotely acceptable is beyond me.

I understand that depression is a very real thing, and I understand that it is a medical thing - but I also believe that a lot of people’s depression is due to a lack of not wanting to make things better for themselves. I believe that it is absolutely inane to compare one’s own inner turmoil to that of someone who is suffering through poverty, starvation and famine, as these people ARE truly hopeless. There are no jobs for them, there is no food or water for them, and there is no help for their children. I think that the pain and suffering that one must feel having to witness your family dying around you is far more severe than the pain one must feel if they think that they’re “lonely” as a teenager with many friends, a house over their head etc. If your biggest problem is that you don’t have a boyfriend and you feel “lonely”, I hope that you say your prayers every night to be thankful for how you have been blessed.

What I’m essentially getting at is that a lot of “depression” experienced specifically by teens is one that involves the general teenage angst. And I look back on some of the stupid things I’ve said, and the stupid things I thought I felt, and I truly regret them and look down on that part of my life, but I made a conscious decision to better things for myself as a person - I focused on reading more, eating more healthily, thinking more about my beliefs etc; and in this manner I managed to work things out for myself. I just wish that this was more obvious before, as I wish it becomes obvious to other people - that the pain and “heartache” that you feel is one that can be fixed through a conscious decision. If depression is a biological thing, then there are things that you can take action with in order to make things better, if you so choose.

And I feel that this is something that is troubling about today - everyone thinks that no one else has gone through what they have, and that no one has experienced the pain that they have - if people focused less on this and truly put some effort into making themselves happy with who they are, outside of being validated by peers, that we could all focus our energies on something worthwhile. Maybe we could all focus our energies on being nicer to other people and helping out where we can. We’re living in a very dangerous, troublesome time, and I believe that dwelling on one’s own temporary, stock issues only further complicates things. Further, the selfishness involved in thinking that your issues as a rich, white kid that went to a private school and a good university, are somehow more severe than someone who has literally nothing, and who has to watch his family dying around him, is absolutely astounding, and I think that instead of people rewarding this “poetic” suffering and loneliness that people tend to air all over the internet, we should maybe give these people reality checks, and hopefully more people will realize that happiness is reliant on yourself - not some dream person who will fix all your personal issues and make you feel “whole”…

You can always spot a bachelors event. It’s usually in a public place (shopping centres and busy intersections are timeless favourites) and there’s some poor guy dressed up like a tool. The first clue. Then, there will be 2 or 3 loud-mouthed schmucks who are trying to direct the goings-on in order to achieve maximum possible embarrassment/disruption/inappropriateness. Clue two. Loud-mouthed, because they are compensating for the 2 dozen awkward lurkers who find themselves on the guest list, so also happen to be there, but are probably wondering why the hell they opted in. The 3rd clue.
Interesting how the quieter personalities are seldom the organisers.

I think there’s a lot to be said for choosing those people who surround you on important days. Weddings, for one, but also life in general. I picked my best man because I knew him and, more importantly, knew that he knew me. There was also a bit of a brief from my side; things I’d be willing to tolerate, and not. There was agreement and we moved on. Suddenly there was one less thing for me to worry about. He’s my mate, after all, and we had a great time.

Gloriously, I had the opportunity of returning the favour, yesterday. I arranged his bachelors as something which would simply be a good time with mates. If you’re interested, we all went clay pigeon shooting and ended the day with an evening braai. A good time was had by all; some new experiences for most and lots of great stories. Obviously nothing wrong with a little bit of silliness, but not as an objective.

So, I think there is enough responsibility to go around. Grooms-to-be, pick the people who are going to be your support. Support guys, keep it fun, interesting and uplifting for all. Everyone wins.