Isangoma: Urban Shaman

A film by Zanele Muholi

In ya dis ya time

Linea 105 - Cento Cinque

there is a circulating joke among insiders

that goes sumtin like this:

do yu kno what the 105 [105 is the bus number] stands for?

It stands fo; 100 foreigners and 5 italians including the bus driver riding in that bus

And that’s not far from the truth

The bus leaves from termini [rome central station] up to grotte celoni along via Casalina

105 is not only 105 but its express tho it makes all the stops along the route

And its almost the only bus that covers that casalina route

And as an insider you will know that that is where you will find the immigrants in rome

That’s where most of us live and all the immigrants shops and businesses are located

You will be overwhelmed by the number of foreign faces packed in that bus

the route goes sumthing like this:

Remembering Funk

For as far back as i rememba

me always organized mah music in biographical order

The stages in my life’s trajectory

Those memorable events that shaped us into who we are today and going forwards

Those never to happen again but never to be forgotten

Those life shaping moments

I particularly rememba mah groove soul funk period

The seventies funk the cheek and sleek of it all!

t’was Graem aka Boeta G pon the decks who was making us groove and gyrate

Back in cape town otherwise known as Kaap Staad 

at a place call 206 with a red chillie sign hanging there

Down in the basement and up pon the roof top

upstairs we usually skanked to some reggae beats

while downstairs would usually be funk hip hop jungle drum n’ bass

Live bands dj sets afro funk seventies funk cape town funk

Muslim gals foreign blondes local dreadies and dem gugulethu rude bwoys

Everybodi and anybodi,  burning down the house at 206

Dub master China was in the running of tings even then

and the Fong Kong Bantu Sound System was still not conceived even then

and Moodphase 5ive was still an underground band/outfit then

and DJ Ntone had not started Chimurenga then

he was heavily rotating in the dj circles

and he would hit us with his own special blend of funkadelic afro souol funk

of days gone by  long side Boeta G 

t’was about grooving t’was all about blending

Tings times space moment

They happen they don  happen

They become memories trajectories

To be encountered and perhaps retold

For what is man without his story…

A wombman for iver lives out her story

In ya dis ya time

Ramblings...

Bin doin a lot of readin dis here daze
but i also bin doin a lot or writin too
except that i bin puttin pen on paper rather
than typin away on the computer
its a totally different vyb..that is typin vs writin
tho is the same thing is got a different feel to it
whe yu type you easily and quickly erase and start over [backspace]
yet wehn yu write yu can cancel but not necessarily erase
so the thot stays and it lingers and at times yu expand on it or continue with it
but this new high teck thats simplifies everyting and forcibly hurries us thru life
yu end up hurrying up yo thots and erasing them and doin all sorts of funny things with them
whereas when yu put pen on paper, yu get to relax a bit and ponder a bit
yeah i like writing the ol fashioned way
i even still write letters to peeps and especially mah moms
who hasn't caught on to this high teck world and she neva will and i enjoy her fo that
i jot down thots and ideas and quotes and ramblings and sightings and events and dates and things to do...
yeah i still like scribbling away on any piece of paper tht i lay mah hands on
and i also enjoy re-reading them after a long while
and also, when yu is writing, yo head is facin downwards
so dem thots can spill and spiral down your arm until they get to your fingers
and they come out thru dem fingers and flow on to the paper via the pen
when yu is typin yo head is facin fowards and seem to be detached from your being
and attached to that screen, almost as if the thots come out from the screen an not from within you
but as i hav always maintained
tis the thot that counts
so whicheverway it comes out
is better than keepin it in
in ya dis ya time

L'estate Romana

For those of us who for sum dubious reason or other


Did not manage to make it to the summer festivals scattered around the euro

And had to content with the hot humid summer in rome , jah know!

We kept the flame of fire burning still

Until the massicci and the sound bwoys and promoters make their way back and broke from all

The summer jams fests and splashes.

It was at Villa Ada that we enjoyed a mini reggae splash

Remembering

I rememba mah formative daze in the city of the pope

I had no guide so to speak, because mah then boyfriend
had other important things to do it seems

So I would jus wake up in the morning, prepare a lunch pack,
a bottle of water and my not digital camera

And I would head to town, without even a guide book or map

I wud launch mesef into the city and started walking

I guess that’s where I developed mah hobby
of walking about with no specific destination in mind

It wud be a combination of intuition, luck and mah disoriented nature that I wud come across sum monument or ruin or church or something all so touristy

As is often the case, all those touristy areas will be full of tourists with their tour guides

People then used to do these cultural tours,
and what better place to do a cultural tour than rome itself

[Someone once remarked that rome is like a museum
You can walk from the coliseum to the Spanish steps to piazza venezia to piazza navona even to the Vatican [for the young and bold] And you can do all of this in one day]

The tour guides will be explaining historical things as to how did that ruin come about

Or who built that church and who commissioned it and when it was commissioned and how long it took to build it and all the orgies that goes with it

I would stand there and listen

And one by one the group would start noticing me

I was rather conspicuous, as much as I tried to be inconspicuous, it was impossible

Can you imagine, a group of elderly Americans, in their tourist shorts and caps
and water bottles and digital cameras

Mostly couples and all of them fair skinned!

But mah favourite group to join was that of Japanese

And I did not even understand the language, but it was jus so much fun to see their faces when they notice me trodding along

And trod along I would, until they start getting uncomfortable by mah presence

Then for sum reason, I would feel like mah job is done and I will change route

Only to land smack into another tourist group from another part of the world

and so it went....

in ya dis ya time

Tell it like it is

We mus tell our own stories
by any means necessary
as evidenced by Kudakwashe




and while yu at it
check out the chimurenga library here
yu will see that even befo the advent of this swavy high teck
we hav bin tellin it it like it is even befo befo
in ya dis ya time y'all