Urban Zulu
An against all odds story of a leading female voice of the New South Africa.
Script is written in three acts. The opening act uBizo is the calling. Like the persistent ring of a telephone, the young Viccie Mhlongo born into the semi-rural valley of a thousand hills Inanda Durban KwaZulu Natal South Africa, she seeks out her musical calling. The musical environment of Shembe and Methodist church hymns inspire her. King Kong – the All African Jazz Opera awakens her to her destiny. Yet, the industry is bad, the apartheid government is a nightmare and family life is oppressive. Busi begins running.
The second act, Ukuvuma is her journey through the trials and tribulations of exile to her alignment to her calling. 16 years in exile, she learns well the performance landscape adapting to many genres and recording all over the world. Diagnosed with cancer she moves to the US for treatment. She emerges from three years in recovery with a heightened intuition to her authentic musical self. Guided by dreams she leaves exile and returns to Africa with a mission to find herself and rises to the top of world music. hailed by the press as a mystic, diviner, musical healer, and punk diva.
The Third Act is uBuntu and is the re-alignment of the many friends of African music with the musical spirit of healing and forgiveness. Against the backdrop of the success of Urban Zulu, comes the lack of access to her music rights, the struggle with the business and her early death with no access to earning. Yet, she does not give up. She puts her attention to cancer awareness. And she returns to studio to record Amakholwa – Believers, a final testament.
iMbizo YamaKhono Season 4
A real time documentation of key protagonists in arts culture and heritage communicate wisdom, knowledge and healing through joy. An engaging edu-doccie style combining archives, interviews, live music that embraces cultural heritage and returns it to the community.
Heavily insightful new interviews and recordings combine with audio visual music and heritage archives to reveal the education from African oral history and heritage. Compositions, repertoire and approaches, both ancient and futuristic enlighten seekers to a new form of music learning in South Africa.
iMbizo yamaKhono is a gathering to extend the legacy of South African musical excellence beyond limitations. The preservation and promotion new sounds, styles and approaches to self-expression is a multiplied through gatherings of the arts. iMbizo's bring people. In South Africa interdependence, coming together is an ancient way of life described in the philosophy of ubuntu.
In this expansive Afrocentric quality free music education Web Series, short music education documentaries profile star performers, composers and wisdom keepers. Each education documentary is accompanied with a Pre-Task and Post-Task worksheet engaging the student in further research and musical learning beyond the documentary. A bonus question facilitates knowledge and skills to be shared in an inspired, collaborative and innovative way. iMbizo yamaKhono is perfectly suited to South African syllabus grades 10-12, bridging course to university and as resources for national libraries and archives.
Key themes are agency and action in the creative process. Insight to philosophy, economy, spiritual practice, indigenous knowledge systems, music, healing, cultural memory, general knowledge, creative economy and cultural activism is outcomes based both to syllabus and career. In this e-learning, e-music course we are interactive, participatory, provocative and rely on music to be heard and played, on photos and images, on audio-visual media and on inspiration to carry the message across.
Jazz As Activism
Culture is a wheel of understanding one another or telling a story that cannot otherwise be told as a collective. Both Germany and South Africa have very violent histories. We need to learn from the past and arts and music is the very backdrop of these era’s. In the struggle against apartheid, it was arts and music that supported it, moved people together and it accelerated the necessary transformation. Like jazz musicians are the narrators of our current issues and our current times, they were the narrators of those times too.
In 2021 President Cyril Ramaphosa bestowed the Order of the Companions of O.R. Tambo in silver on Jurgen Leinhos for his commitment and determination for standing by the oppressed and fighting for their cause as an anti-apartheid activist. This recognition opened the gateway to bring Dyani’s legacy and Jazz Against Apartheid home to its roots in the Eastern Cape. His first Homecoming after exile was in a body bag in 1986 but his legacy known as Jazz Against Apartheid was now coming home. German activist Leinhos had preserved his culural memory, so as to "save this art of exile from oblivion with the music of Johnny Dyani. In our project Jazz against Apartheid we therefore also see a key for the cultural memory of South Africa.”
Key themes include Legacy of exile, heritage, co-operation and collaboration. The empathy, compassion and musical cross-fertilisation between South Africa and European musicians is a means to overcoming shared challenges of oppression, suppression and depression. Under the theme of Imvuselelo, a re-awakening to the richness of the cultural history, highly professional international musicians from abroad collaborate with young artists from underserved communities. Future talents are nurtured and developed in music through “Nachwuchsförderung.” This is the conscious practice of transferring societal values, knowledge and skills to the next generation through workshops and mentorship. Filmed, recorded and documented in Johannesburg, Eastern Cape, Frankfurt, the profiling the legends of South African jazz history and heritage is a legacy that may inspire a cultural exchange of community centres, emerging and professional musicians.