The artist/musician, who’s known by several different names, is now bigger than he ever imagined he’d be. “This whole thing is like a dream,” he says. What can Tasmania look forward to? “The show have plans,” he says. “It’s crazy. I say it’s like a guy who grew up in South Africa in the ’90s and the 2000s, all that kind of shit, all in one show. I dance, I rap a little bit. The whole thing is for the world to get a gist of South Africa.”
Okmalumkoolkat’s music videos are full of images and sounds from all over South Africa, along with apocalyptic references, religious iconography and bits and pieces of popular culture. It’s all mashed into a veritable cult of self. “I’m Zulu so there’s a lot of Zulu language,” he says. “Basically it’s about me and my life. Me as a poet, my life as a project, what I would like the other kids behind me to see. For Tasmania I’ll do some Holy Oxygen tracks, some crazy house music from Durban, like JQUM tracks. It’s rave shit crazy.”
Okmalumkoolkat says he represents the generation of young South Africans who grew up with the dream of a united country once Mandela came to power. His work is political by sheer virtue of his place and time. “I was born in 1983. I’m lucky to be alive in this era,” he says. “Mandela was coming back. That era was so hopeful, with talk of a rainbow nation. Mandela came back and now he’s gone… But what we’re trying to do is create a united South Africa with all the different races. My son is six and at his school it’s a rainbow nation for real, with different races, different languages, the attitudes are different.
“Growing up we had the Jesus story and the Mandela story. They were both coming back. Mandela came back, now he’s gone. We’re still waiting for Jesus. We listened to Mandela’s speeches and he said ‘just make sure you’re educated’. We’re keeping the struggle alive, really appreciating everything that happened while Mandela was alive.
“As an artist and a creative I’m packaging those ideas, all those things, testing the youth; it’s the easiest way to get to the next level. We’re still following all his stuff.”
According to Okmalumkoolkat, the picture of a truly unified South Africa comes down to some simple social realities. “Instead of being segregated, an African guy can be looking at an Indian girl or an English girl and he can think, ‘Yes, she could be my girlfriend.’ Being alive means really representing yourself as a Zulu or Xhosa or Tswana or Pedi. If we don’t represent ourselves in three or four years we won’t exist in the scheme of things.”
The references to African religion in his work are important to Okmalumkoolkat to express his Zulu identity. “I was brought up as a Catholic but I’m not a Christian anymore. At some point I started searching and found that African religion was pushed under African tradition, it wasn’t being taken seriously. My religion looks like voodoo but it isn’t, it’s just religion, it’s Isintu. There has been a little bit of backlash. Some people say ‘Why do you sacrifice a chicken on your video, why you got to do this?’ Basically Holy Oxygen is about me telling the world about African religion, about what it is.”
So what is it, really? “I’m writing a book on it so I don’t want to elaborate more,” he says. He is willing, however, to elaborate on what he’s trying to communicate with his music. “I’m saying ‘move on to the next step’. A lot of people get stuck. People don’t know half the shit that I’m doing. What I’m doing is very new. In ten years’ time people will get it. I want to have impact, make that vibe where somebody who belongs to the future will get it. The future is now. Now it’s 2016 and that’s the vibe. Get on with it. You don’t have to hold on to the ’90s or the Y2K or anything.”
He’s able to see his influence on the state of electronic music in South Africa as a whole. “Before I came through a lot of the rappers were trying to sound the best American or the best Jamaican. I always wanted to be part of the future. I love that my people in South Africa are listening to what we’re trying to do. Now in Jo’burg everyone’s trying to do something new.
“Rap is poetry in a capsule. I want to push the whole Africa thing out to the world, show you where I’m from. I’ve been to Europe, to Switzerland and France. This is my first time coming to Australia. I want to take a selfie of me in a kangaroo pouch. And I want to see the Aboriginal situation, meet up with those guys and talk to them, see what they’re doing. I’m kind of a diplomat in a way. A lot of my work is sociopolitical but I’m not talking about parties. I’m not saying ‘fuck those guys’, I’m saying ‘understand that you’re part of a community’.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
