The success of the genre, especially that of boy band BTS, subverts the archaic notion that only English-language music can have worldwide appeal and that celebrities need to appear on pedestals
music
Posted inGeneral, Health, Lifestyle, Tech
‘Pictures at an Exhibition:’ Mussorgsky, painting and Virilio’s ‘grey ecology’
In my previous post, I pondered the work of Paul Virilio on the ‘accelerated’ lives we lead in the early 21st century, and tried to explain what this has to do with the never-ending stream of images bombarding one on a daily basis. What I did not have space to do, was to draw attention […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, Media
Literature, art, space, and the secret of life
It never ceases to amaze me that the arts – foremost among them literature, sculpture, architecture, music, painting and cinema – are able to capture in their respective medium(s) virtually everything that makes life worth living; in a phrase, the ‘secret of life’. My recent re-reading of all my favourite John Fowles novels is what […]
Posted inLifestyle
Yes, I’m brown and I listen to rock music
I am a rock music writer and photographer and while in the photography pit recently, I was asked “what does an Indian chick know about rock?” Aside from being called “an Indian chick”, which is an argument for another day, I was taken aback that in this day and age, someone could seriously still racially […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality
Death by sokkie musiek at corporate functions
Yet another award ceremony, yet another corporate weekend away. So, what shall be my mask this time? The history of power in corporate SA still looms large in the boardrooms of present-day South Africa. The black face needs to be masked by fluency in an institutional culture which, it is assumed, is ahistorical. That is, […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Is Radiohead really a cheap version of Coldplay?
It really gets me upset when people tell me this. That Radiohead is a cheap version of Coldplay. I don’t understand it. In fact, it makes my blood boil. No, they are obviously not as iconic as Coldplay. I will give you that. They will never fill a stadium like Chris Martin. But not everyone […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
I love and hate Mitchell’s Plain
By Kirk Krotz This has been one of the most interesting weeks of my life. I posted a music video on YouTube last week about my experience of growing up in Mitchell’s Plain and, for reasons unknown to me, the video has gone viral with over 200 000 hits. For the first time in my life […]
Posted inLifestyle
Oppikoppi: A field of stars
This is how I used to feel: Whenever someone told me that he or she wanted to become a musician, or a singer, or a new Afrikaans songwriter, something inside of me died. This is what I wanted to say to people who told me this: “I know you think that you are unique, and […]
Posted inGeneral
Exposure to music can help
In 2007 Philip de Villiers started his own music school, Born to be Famous. The school aimed to foster the talent of young South African musicians and help them achieve greatness. As part of their goodwill the school also awarded scholarships to talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds. “I felt a strong sense of duty and […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
There simply is no space
I find it odd that people today will log into various platforms of social networking to ”consume” new music yet you ask them what their favourite band is and they draw a blank. Look at your twitter timeline or go onto Facebook and just study for a day or so the amount of new music […]
Posted inGeneral
Musing on music
“Korean flamenco” might appear to be an oxymoron, and in a sense it is. After all, flamenco is as Spanish as one can get in the realm of music … and indigenous Korean music is nothing like it. But last night we – the delegates to a conference on English literature organised by the English […]
Posted inGeneral
Turkish delight too
It was like entering a futuristic cave, where a culture’s history washes over visitors in a ceremony of initiation, making it a pleasurable sensation of assimilating its distinctive perspective on the world. It was dark when we entered, but only momentarily, before a feast of colours cascaded, as if from nowhere, dappling faces and surfaces […]