Category: Interviews

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Interviews Music

Johnny Clegg: great spirit, great heart

Elephants march in unison. Giraffes gallop across the plains. A hippo yawns. A lion sleeps. And intercut between the music video’s stock wildlife footage, a brighteyed and curly-haired young white man with an acoustic guitar performs traditional Zulu dances, shows off his stick-fighting skills and sings of his search for the spirit of the great heart.

“There’s a highway of stars across the heavens / The whispering song of the wind in the grass / There’s the rolling thunder across the savannah / A hope and dream at the edge of the sky / And your life is a story like the wind / Your life is a story like the wind.”

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Interviews Music

Shadowclub step into the light

From recording and launching their fiery debut album ‘Guns And Money’ to supporting Kings Of Leon on their South African tour, 2011 was a busy year for blues-rock trio Shadowclub. And they couldn’t be happier.

“It’s feeling amazing,” admits frontman Jacques Moolman backstage at Synergy Live in late November. “We’re working really really hard and we’re riding the wave that came when we signed our record deal at the beginning of the year.

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Interviews Music

Toya Delazy pumps up the volume

‘Pump It On’ isn’t just four minutes of pop genius. The irrepressible summer anthem also heralds the arrival of Toya Delazy – as if from nowhere.

But it’s been a long journey from a convent primary school via Howard College’s Jazz program to the South African pop charts.

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Interviews Music

Hugh Masekela: blowing with the wind

‘Never forget where you came from,’ Louis Armstrong once told Hugh Masekela.

He never has.

Hugh remembers growing up in the KwaGuqa township outside Witbank, where women ran alongside the coal trains with tin cups to collect the nuggets that fell from the cars. He remembers playing soccer with a worn tennis ball in the gravel street, occasionally losing a big toenail when he kicked a concealed rock.

But most of all he remembers the music.

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Interviews Music

Yoav: escaping the plan

Born in Israel, raised in South Africa, a resident of New York, first successful in Denmark, Yoav knows no borders. Nor does his music – combining elements as diverse as acoustic folk and hip-hop – which has seduced people everywhere from Russia and Turkey to Tunisia and Iran.

“It’s like a Risk board,” the 36-year-old musician jokes of his songs’ global penetration which – three years after his international breakthrough – have even caught on in South Africa. That’s largely thanks to a hugely successful 2011 – his second album, ‘A Foolproof Escape Plan’, won a SAMA, ‘We All Are Dancing’ topped the 5FM charts, and he supported Tori Amos and Imogen Heap on their local tours.

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Interviews Music

The Dirty Skirts turn on the dark

“Strike the match and light the fire/ whole word burns/ a funeral pyre,” sings Jeremy De Tolly on the lead single from The Dirty Skirts’ new album, ‘Lost In The Fall’. “It’s all gonna burn, it’s all gonna burn”.

Bit of a change then for the band best known for wanting to punch a hole in Saturday night (‘Homewrecker’) and describing dads who don’t dance (‘Daddy Don’t Disco’).

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Interviews Music

The Script are breaking even

“It’s pretty crazy at the moment,” says The Script’s drummer, Glenn Power, with just a hint of understatement. In the past month he and bandmates Danny O’Donoghue and Mark Sheehan have been as far afield as Australia, The Philippines, the Netherlands, and the United States.

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Interviews Movies

Terry Pheto: snapped up

‘I’ve always had big dreams, but I’ve been blessed beyond my expectations,’ says Terry Pheto, actress, role model, face of L’Oréal and … storyteller?

‘My grandmother was an amazing storyteller and, because we didn’t have TV at home, she would tell stories every night. I would recite them to my friends the next day and I think that’s where my love and passion for storytelling started,’ recounts Terry.

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Interviews Music

Watershed survey the road ahead

Watershed frontman Craig Hinds takes a break from rehearsing for the band’s upcoming summer shows to talk road trips, getting nervous before shows, Jock of the Bushveld, and reimagining ‘Indigo Girl’.

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Interviews

Pieter-Dirk Uys: don’t cry for me, Bapetikosweti

Pieter-Dirk Uys doesn’t get nervous before his performances. He gets excited. It’s a subtle difference, perhaps, but one that highlights his approach to life.

‘I am a terminal optimist,’ he confirms. ‘My definition of optimism is: expect the worst, hoping it will never be as bad as you imagine. And I have never been disappointed.’

His choice of words is ironic. The man who’d gone to university to become a teacher only to fall in love with the theatre instead doesn’t actually believe in disappointment.

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