Indlulamthi, a giraffe in isiXhosa. A giraffe is, if not the tallest animal in the animal kingdom. It, by virtue of its height, possess the uncanny ability to see beyond trees- hence indlulamthi, which implies seeing beyond trees. A giraffe, therefore is able to see eminent danger quicker than the other animals.
Sizakele Gegana a Hip-hop artist from Cape Town calls himself Ndlulamthi, he possesses all the traits
of this beautiful creature except the ridiculously long neck. Sizakele (Ndlulamthi) is tall, gangly and meditative, most times, he is a vegetarian – indlulamthi is an herbivore, the affinities are easy to see. Whenever, before a performance he is introduced, people break out in fits of laughter, as they make the connection, between his height and his stage moniker. If blacks in an anti-black racist world are seen as seas of nameless darkies and kaffirs, as Frank Wilderson says in Biko Lives, then Sizakele is seen as the tall darkie, a minor cosmetic difference to the others.
Ndlulamthi is a painter, but unlike your usual painter, who uses a brush, paint and canvas, Sizakele uses words and beats to paint beautiful, pictorial representation of our gory living conditions after South Africa’s “miraculous” democratic dispensation. He works meticulously and diligently using words, to shape and re-shape what we see and experience as well as what we ought to see and ought to experience. His work is essentially about the ever present tension existing in this dichotomy or contradiction. And he is very good in handling this slippery eel of a problem!
After a long chorus of cries from fans for him to release a full length album, he has finally delivered, with his offering – Isibhilivana- the Love Letter.The first track called- Honey, the remix to MaXhoseni’s classic love joint also titled Honey. I find Ndlulamthi to be his usual conceptually gifted self as he “intrudes inserts himself like a concerned nosey friend in maxhoseni’s love affairs. In this he plays the role of the messenger with a sincere understanding of the situation at hand and its many complexities. But the let down in the song is Xabiso’s shaky unconvincing vocals on the chorus together with the nagging feeling that this song should not have made the album, as it sounds like an additional skip worthy mix tape track which does not go well with the overall feel of the album. But after this first misstep Ndlulamthi breaks free from what Common refers to on nag champa “a never ending battle to please magazine writers Emcees” which I think the Honey remix was made to do. After this he opens page after page of his very long love note, a note made long by its attendance to all the issues that characterize black life.
The track Idolophi is by far my favorite joint. A haunting meditation on the migrant labour system and how that system creates and sustains the break-up of black families, tensions between rural and cosmopolitan sectors of the black communities, as well as trying to trash out viable livelihoods in such difficult living conditions. This song takes care, of what Dr Cornel West refers to as the three aspects of time –past, present and future, and gives you a fleeting gaze into all three modes of time in a short space of time, sheer brilliance!. This work in conjunction with Imbawula and Isiqhamo represent height of his creativity in the album. These three songs are essentially about freedom, how it is conceived, understood and thought of, Ndulamthi seems to suggest that after 1994, we have not quite tasted the sweet nectar of freedom, but have gotten used to a dangerous GMO Monsanto type of sweetened taste. Another positive is his less than confrontational style in how he uses the Xhosa language. The usual in your face chauvinistic I’m more Xhosa than you tone is removed and replaced by a less force full more agreeable tone, even a non- Xhosa speaker can’t help but fall in love with his soothing voice an use of the language.
On the other hand I feel, the beats, delivery and CD cover could be of a higher degree. The beats or the canvass tends to be one dimensional, and one paced. This same problem shows its ugly face again with the delivery which can be a bit monotonous to the not so patient, uninitiated ear. But I’m mostly disappointed by the quality of the cd cover. The artwork seems to have done without any prior conceptual work to try to tie it with the overall theme of the music. You have just a random picture of the artist, standing there with no agency just looking like his trapped in a confused time warp with no strength, or agency. It is as if he took (the picture that would eventually become his cover photo and edited it on those picture editing applications on one’s phone, an artist of his caliber oughtn’t make such unforgivable errors, notwithstanding money problems that always afflict artist’s on the come up.
Another more problematic aspect is in how he understands the problems he raises and the possibilities of changing them or the underlying factors creating these problems. This is more in tune with how his ideology wrestles with the world he grapples with. Ndlulamthi’s body of work with all its attendant beauty and aesthetic complexity, only functions as a lament, a cry into a hollow hole where there’s no hope of help coming, except the internalization or sanitizing of that pain for it to surprise you some other day. It is in other words, putting a bandage in a wound without trying to understand who, or how did the wound come about in the first place. This then makes his call for justice for example in songs like idolophu to end up resembling the T.R.C, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a missed opportunity. Like any giraffe, Sizakele sees the danger coming but is unable to alert us in time as to when to react and how to react, why we should we react in the way we should in the first place?
But nonetheless isibhilivane is a must have. Up and coming musicians in the future will have to go through this body of work to understand the beauty that artists in the margins of the music industry unrepresented, represented post 94, especially in South African hip hop. Sout African hip hop is in need of more giraffes!
