The Arts

Skoonheid and Inxeba broach previously suppressed discussions

Slavery, sangomas and sexuality

Artistic freedom was always tenuous in Kenya, but it’s become even less so since Uhuru Kenyatta became president in 2013. The political pendulum has swung against political dissenters, intellectuals and a handful of media institutions that still believed in objective journalism. Progressive gains made under the previous administration of President Mwai Kibaki (2002-2013), such as the freedom of press and speech, have disintegrated. In particular, Kenyatta and the men overseeing the country’s...

The sun has set on Oliver Mtukudzi

A poem for Steve Biko, Imam Haron and Farouk Asvat

South African theatre icon was a legend in his field

Ashraf Hendricks/GroundUp In Things we lost in the Rainbow, artist Athi-Patra Ruga tries to reclaim the spaces from which he and many others have been historically exiled. By Ashraf Hendricks for GroundUp. On a Monday evening earlier this month as part of the Live Arts Festival 2018, the Athi-Patra Studio took Capetonians on a two-hour procession with 35 performers through the city’s colonial origins. Using performance installations and psychedelic costumes, artist Athi-Patra Ruga was out to...

Cultural identity in a modern constitutional democracy

Fifty-nine years on, we still give thanks and praise to this album

A Stimulus of power to strength to power

Traditional Indian dance tackles rape culture and patriarchy

South African musician Philip Tabane, who died on 18 May 2018, hated being labelled. How he’d feel about the all official obituaries that confine him inside the jazz envelope is clear, "The jazz label – or any other label – has never worked in my case. Once, I went to play at a competition in Durban and in the end I was given a special prize because I could not be categorised. To this day, they still cannot categorise my music." That was from my second interview with the artist, in 1997 at the...

History has glorified men at the expense of women

Why South Africa’s DJ Black Coffee left a bitter taste by performing in Israel

On the limits of landscape art and the land question

Pulling off a festival with a dream and empty pockets

Reading rank and race in the Constitutional Hill’s Women’s Jail

A play. A remedy. A movement.

“Say No, Black Woman”: ‘The Giant is Falling’ and the erasure of Black women in
South Africa

A heritage philosopher and seer, a stylish man and raconteur par excellence 1939 – 2018

“For me songs come like a tidal wave”

Music is shared love

Honouring the lives of girls and women in South Africa

Exhibition investigates our overworked eco-system and the hope for repair