Making use of our digital magazine features, we have been able to breathe new life to previous print content – and everything has truly come together, just how we always envisioned! Please take your time to go through this magazine (all at once or a little bit each day) as a lot of work went into producing every edition and every page, since we first launched in 2005. This issue is a superlative balance of content, comprising of traditional and contemporary art, photography, fashion editorials, exclusive interviews, videos, feature articles, music, and the best of one small seed TV.
 
So, without further ado…
 

 
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Every action is creative and every passionate action is art

– Matthew Stone (I.D. Magazine)

So, for every passionate action there should be a passionate reaction, right? From planting a seed to forming a movement, here’s a look back at first thoughts on one small seed, first encounters with the magazine and some first ‘creative seeds’ by singer/songwriter Lindiwe Suttle, zef rapper Jack Parow and photographer Sam Norval as part of the Vodafone Firsts campaign, which encourages people to do things for the first time.

one small seed logo Ⓒ Giuseppe Russo

When one small seed was first ‘sowed’ by founder/editor-in-chief Giuseppe Russo, the idea was to encourage a South African creative movement that could compete with the world. Nine years on, it’s grown into a creative network (onesmallseed.net), various online platforms – including two new initiatives called ‘Cult of Self’ and ‘We Love Sexy’ – and we’re excited to re-launch as a digital magazine.

Blood, sweat and tears went into nourishing the growth of this ‘diversely branched tree’, yet its seed would never have sprouted without the ground-breaking content contributed by artists, photographers, models, musicians, architects, designers, writers or – as the umbrella term neatly summarises – ‘creatives’. The Vodafone Firsts campaign thus seemed an ideal opportunity for us to touch base with some of ‘the creative influencers’ who have featured in past issues. Lindiwe Suttle, Jack Parow and Sam Norval shared their ‘one small seed firsts’, ‘creative firsts’ and current projects that might inspire further firsts for aspiring creatives.

LINDIWE SUTTLE – Singer/Songwriter

Lindiwe Suttle – Image Ⓒ Diane Ducruet

Lindiwe Suttle’s ‘first’ with one small seed goes all the way back to the first issue – that’s when she saw the magazine for the first time and found it ‘immediately intriguing’. In issue 02, she was featured in it and, according to her, it was the first shoot she did before launching her music career. ‘It inspired me to make change through my art. It was such a refreshing magazine to have in SA because, from the start, it focused on artists that were true artists – non-conformist artists who didn’t follow any rules,’ she says.

Produced in Berlin by Ivan Gregoriev and mastered by Dave Clutch (Alicia Keys, John Legend, Foo Fighters) in New York, her solo debut Kamikaze Art just won her ‘Songwriter of the Year’ and ‘Best Female Artist and Composer/co-composer’ at The Wawela Music Awards 2014. In the same vein, but different creative field, as her talk show star mother Felicia Mabuza-Suttle, she’s an ambitioned young lady ready to take up any challenge thrown her way. Currently, she’s working on Enough (Set Us Free), a girls’ and women’s rights campaign that makes use of a song she wrote the lyrics for, and her partner – German rock legend Marius Mueller-Westernhagen – composed. ‘I hope it inspires other artists to use their music to speak out for others that have no voice’.

It was an honour to be in the magazine. I loved that they never chose the most popular artists like other magazines. They made you aware of art that might not have had the chance to shine were it not for one small seed – art that the underground scene knew and not the masses. I’m so proud that the publication is still producing great work. Viva one small seed, viva art!!! – Lindiwe Suttle

JACK PAROW – Zef Rapper

Jack Parow – Image Ⓒ Wouter du Toit

Jack Parow is known for his pep-store broek style and general anti-coolness. So uncool that – according to his recent single ‘Bloubek’ – ‘he eats fucking hipsters and shits out fixie bikes’. Cool enough, however, for sexy swimsuit model girlfriend Jenna Pietersen, he somehow made it from Boerewors curtain-protected Bellville to dangerously trendy Cape Town – he says it’s ‘overpopulated by the hip graphic design crowd’.

His first with one small seed was ‘somewhere like Mr. Pickwicks’ and – according to him – it caused him ‘great social anxiety and overall discomfort because people originally from Joburg or some other country like Italy were acting like they’re Capetonian’. Once his nervousness was overcome, he was inspired to write ‘Cooler as Ekke’, which further ‘established his feelings on what he thought about one small seed and all the ‘cool’ people’. So much that he references the mag in the song. ‘Jy dink jy’s cooler as ek, omdat jy die nuwe issue van one small seed het.’ Shortly after its release he was featured in issue 18 of one small seed magazine.

Nag van die Lang Pette (2014), available at South African music stores now, is his most recent project. He worked very hard on this album so he hopes that it’ll inspire more people to work hard for the first time. Cool or uncool – his rhymes will continue to piss off conservative mense due to the raw wit, side-splitting humour and (true!?) portrayal of culture. Jack Parow is SA’s ‘zef darling’ and will be in the Rainbow Nation’s hearts forever.

It (one small seed) triggered the first time I really felt, fuck, people are idiots and shit, trying to follow the trend doesn’t pay off… Btw, is one small seed still being printed or do they give it away at the robots (traffic lights for the international people who will obviously never read this) like those little joke things that you get if you tip the beggar? – Jack Parow

SAM NORVAL – Photographer

Images Ⓒ Sam Norval

Photographer Sam Norval lives in New York and has photographed celebrities such as Clint Eastwood, Flea, Norah Jones, Billy Joel and B.B. King. Yet he says that the first time he was allowed to explore his own style was when he did his first shoot, after he got back home to South Africa, for one small seed. Deep into that Darkness Peering… for issue 13 was an homage to Tim Burton that perfectly accentuated Sam’s ‘dark and moody style’. According to him it was the first time ‘I was really allowed to explore that genre. I was allowed to be as creative as I wanted to be’. Further ‘photography firsts’ were to follow as he shot:

Just for Kicks for Issue 14

It was a first for me to shoot six girls in one editorial, it was a first for me to shoot on a construction site and it was a first for me to shoot in 40 degrees heat. It was a first for me because I was able to explore different styles.

Sam Norval house party just for kicks from one small seed on Vimeo.

South Beach Featuring Bryce Thompson for Issue 17

It was a first because we played on people’s perceptions of metrosexuality, homosexuality and heterosexuality. Taking somebody out of that comfort zone and really exploring that space with them – that was something unique and something first.

South Beach Fashion Shoot from one small seed on Vimeo.

The Self-Made Shoot for Issue 23

It was also a first in a sense because I was exploring very new lighting, a very new concept – it was very self-reflecting I think. The subject matter, how we were achieving it – it was all kinda a first for me. The lighting was very bright, it was very washed out, it was very clean as opposed to my typical work, which tends to be a bit more dark and moody.

Self-Made Shoot from one small seed on Vimeo.

Right now, Sam is working on yet another first. It’s a big project for VH1 for which he’s shooting a big cross-section of hip-hop artists, such as Lil John, Waka Flocka, Future, Russell Simmons and many more. ‘It’s also a first for me because we’re looking to make a book out of it. It’s really really exciting,’ he explains.

one small seed was the first publication to allow budding talent to be a part of the new voice of creativity in South Africa. I think that’s the most important legacy that one small seed has had. If you’re an aspiring artist or creative, you have an outlet, you have a vehicle to really explore your creativity and are encouraged to do so. It was the first publication to allow its readers to submit. – Sam Norval

Image Ⓒ Sam Norval

Image Ⓒ Sam Norval

The Butterfly Effect has been inspiration for endless pop culture storytelling – such as the 2004 movie with Ashton Kutcher of the same name or 1985’s Brazil by Terry Gilliam – but more often it’s used to explain what appears inexplicable. As most of us know, the theory states that a subtle action can cause a catastrophe. Creativity, it seems, works under similar principles. A simple thought, a fleeting comment, a blatant discovery – even a mistake – can trigger the most ground-breaking ideas. Therefore, as creatives, we need a platform to constantly inspire and be inspired.

In South Africa, one small seed set out to do exactly this. As Giuseppe Russo said in issue 16, ‘The seed, which means the vision to believe in yourself and in who you are, had to be planted in South Africa first.’ Today ‘the South African creative movement’ – with Cape Town being Design Capital 2014, major international music festivals such as Sónar gracing our shores and more and more SA artists present across the globe – is truly ready to compete with the world. It’s no longer ‘creativity in a wheelchair’ that needs help up the success stairs, SA is up on its legs and ready to conquer. If all goes well Cape Town and Joburg will soon be mentioned in the same breath as New York, London and Berlin, so there’s no longer a need to focus on one country specifically. Our re-launch as a digital magazine is about to kick-off and we’re now no longer presenting South Africa to the world, but the world (South Africa being a part of it) to the world.

When was the first time you came across one small seed?

Leave a comment below or tweet @onesmallseedSA and @VodafoneFirsts to share your #first!

Special thanks to Lindiwe Suttle, Jack Parow and Sam Norval for their great work and getting back to us so quickly! Further influencers who featured in one small seed are, for example, Dominic Peters of Goldfish, Bryce Thompson, Sean Metelerkamp, Andreas Waldschuetz, Lungelo, Dylan Culhane, Anton Kannemeyer, Spoek Mathambo, Pieter Hugo, Hendrik Vermeulen and JD, Teargas or The Blackheart Gang. Watch out for a Part II!

Words: Christine Hogg

Image Ⓒ Sam Norval

Image Ⓒ Sam Norval

For more ‘first times’ on one small seed click here

source: YouTube
Arjen de Vreede (DJ DNA)
Kytopia Records.
Jack Parow

“EJ von LYRIK is at the top five of all time female Emcees ever; she blew my skull off last night with her performance.” Chuck D, Public Enemy. With a recommendation this strong, ignoring this songbird is a mistake.

Capetonians have a lot to be proud of, beautiful beaches, glorious Table Mountain and of course EJ von LYRIK. This South African singer, songwriter, studio producer and freedom fighter continues to blaze a trail around the world with her lyrical genius. With the ability to switch from silky smooth to raw power, her vocal versatility is up there with the all-time greats. EJ von LYRIK’s messages are positive and inspire, but without coming off pontifical and will leave you enlightened.

Currently touring the world, just having completed a performance at the Sakifo Festival on Reunion Island, EJ von LYRIK is much anticipated to return to our shores and blow us away with her dynamic stage presence. We can expect her to return at the end of her current and very successful European Tour set to end at the end of July 2011. Recently she stole the show in Amsterdam at the Open Air Roots Festival with Mr. Sakitumi and continues to impress international producers and artists.

With collaborators like Indidgius, Afropunk, Kolektif Sud and our own Jack Parow lining up around around the block, we can expect even more from EJ von LYRIK who will continue to grow in strides. You can get her sound on her second album recently released entitled, “The Human Condition.” Don’t miss out the opportunity to hear one of the greats coming out of Mama Africa.

She is a fireball going from seductress to angry young woman to over the top wildness and fun…. She is strong without falling into the clichés – Cape Argus Tonite

 

They look like mannequins; dystonically catatonic robots with Tourrette’s syndrome; their animated twitches are infectious… the blotched, syncopated ilk of their music is calming, in a strange yet effective, systemic way…

Twitter is deceiving in how it flashes sound-bites across one’s screen; its soundbites somehow tragically morph into recursively cancerous formations, each iteration building upon the last one. It – Twitter – is conspiratorial, in very much the same way that conspiracy theorists argue that news networks intentionally program people to believe certain things. Such as was the case after 9/11; ‘terrorism’ became the word to fear because, argues Michael Moore, the news networks said it more than ten times per minute in their bulletins. It could have been a hundred. Or a thousand. I couldn’t care less!

I blame Twitter for bombarding me with the name Bittereinder on a constant basis, yet failing to remind me to Google its origins. Is it a group? A song? A new-age H1N1 virus incarnate? I decided to take matters into my own hands; I made a conscious effort to ‘cross over’ to yet another social network – though I always find that classification odd in a WTF kind of way – called YouTube. As an aside, a friend once posted on another social network that rather ironically has a movie named Social Network dedicated to exploring its initial machinations. Anyway, the bite went: ‘Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook are going to combine in order to form a new network call YouTwitFace‘. Lol? Not! Rather, lqtm – laughing quietly to myself – a new phrase for an aloof social networker. Boom!

Back to my Youtube escapade, ‘Bittereinder’ was what got typed into the search box; I ignored the suggestions on the drop-down box… I wanted the atomic, the real and raw! What followed were two videos: Ware Verhaal (the title track whose visual on-goings I tried to capture in words above), as well as A Tale of Three Cities, an homage to the 012, 011, and 021 area codes featuring  Tumi and Afrikaans rap artist Jack Parow.

The insane attack of raps and bass that is Bittereinder’s music all begun with an innocent post on twitter: ‘I want to have a chat to one of the guys in Bittereinder‘. ‘Chat away, I’m all ears. and a bit of mouth…‘ came back a tweet from one @ajaxrap. One more twitter exchange and a couple of SMSes later (one sent the morning of their Ramfest performance, and three just before the interview), I found myself chatting to Jaco who, along with Peach van Pletzen and Louis Minnaar, forms the trio that is Bittereinder. Prior to listening to their album I would have classified their music as hip-hop; however I am a little conflicted as to how to classify their sound, and so shall abstain from so doing.

Me: So yes, chilling here with Jaco from Bittereinder

Jaco: Rrrr…yeah, people always to leave out the ‘r’ at the end.

Me: Dope performance by the way. Um, what I want to know is, like, where does the name come from. I know about the historical significance, but in terms of the group, how does the name relate?

Jaco: Okay well, it’s a couple of things. The first is that we see our band as sort of an end to bitterness, you know like something that brings as end, like a ‘bitter-ender’. And then obviously, like you mentioned, the historical context. I…I am Afrikaans but I grew up in English schools. I was in Boy’s High and my friends were in Pro-Arte, so we always had this struggle between our English identity and Afrikaans identity. This band is like the first time that we…it’s like Afrikaans-101; like the Bittereinders, we didn’t give up. And then the third meaning is somebody who never gives up.

Me: So do you feel like your identity had been repressed? For me as a black person, there was a part of my history that I wasn’t taught in schools, and I’m only discovering certain things now. Do you feel that perhaps the group is kind of a ‘guiding star’ for you?

Jaco: I hope so, um, in the time that we were growing up, in the nineties, it wasn’t a sort of very popular thing to be an Afrikaner – a young Afrikaner. And we were kids, we had no idea of what was going on in this country you know, we were just growing up. So…it was like…some of us grew up hating our own identity, our own culture. And this project is something that happened, it’s like god showed me something about who I am and I embraced it. Now I’m okay to be an Afrikaner…not okay, I’m loving it! So it’s like you said, it’s a part of our history that we needed to deal with in a way.

Me: You’ve been emceeing for a while as Ajax. I just wanted to know how the switch was between your English stuff and the group stuff that you do. Is there a relation? Are  they two separate things?

Jaco: Yeah well, technically now…technically now I’m doing the ‘vernac’ because now I’m doing Afrikaans you know, that’s funny. Ja no, I rapped in English since I was fifteen; I’m twenty-eight now so it’s been thirteen years. Always the conscious underground stuff you know; I don’t freestyle, I’m not really an emcee, I’m a writer, I’m a poet. So…also in Afrikaans, it’s been the last four years now that I’ve been writing in Afrikaans. And I mean that had a…that’s a big part of my identity that came out. I feel most at home with my language, I guess everybody does…even though English…I still sometimes think in English, and flow in English, and even write easier in English but, when I write in Afrikaans, something holy happens, something beyond me. It’s beautiful.

Me: So is this band now a full-time project for you?

Jaco: Yeah, we worked for two years on the album and er, like you saw we collaborated with Tumi, we collaborated with Inge from Lark, we collaborated with Jack Parow, we collaborated with um…this guy from New York called Sev Statik, one of my favourite emcees. We rapped with a guy from Holland, Rotterdam…we did the first Afrikaans-Dutch collaboration. Ja, all of them are on the album.

Me: One of the articles from Huisgenoot tried to pan you guys against each other…

Jaco: …ah yeah, they tried to start some beef there. Jack read that and he was like ‘wassup with this’, you know?! And then we just chatted with him like no man, it was a misquote and out of context. That is what happened, we never said any of that stuff. But at the end of the day, we sorted things out. [*phone rings*]

Jaco had taken a detour from the band’s itinerary to squeeze in this interview, and his band members wanted to go. It felt great that he set aside the time, however short. I wanted to laugh at the girl who had been waiting rather eagerly for her turn to do an interview with Bittereinder, and was giving me ‘the eye’. The thought quickly passed – sort of like a twitter feed – as I hurried backstage to get my CD autographed by Louis and Peach. Life was back to normal. I headed back to the crowd in order to witness Mix ‘n Blend, whose set was just picking up momentum.

Website: http://www.bittereinder.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bittereinder

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Bittereinder7

words by: Biz-ark-human

ISSUE 18 FEATURES:

• ARCHITECTURE: FAT — FASHION ARCHITECTURE TASTE
• AUSTRALIAN DIGITAL ARTIST: BRIAN WALKER
• FRENCH ARTIST DUO: PIERRE ET GILLES
• AFRICAN LIFESTYLE: PIMP FACTOR —MATATUS OF NAIROBI
• BEYOND ORIGINAL DESIGN
• FASHION FEATURE: CONCRETE COUTURE
• ONE SMALL SEED NETWORK AWARDS 2009
• INTERNATIONAL CLOTHING BRAND: A BATHING APE
• CLASSIC STREETWEAR: FAUX FABRIC(N)ATION
• SA DESIGN AGENCY: THE PRESIDENT
• JOZI REALITY TV SHOW: CREAM CARTEL
• PUBLIC ART INTERVENTIONIST: STEVEN COHEN
• PHOTOGRAPHER | FILMMAKER: SEAN METELERKAMP
• JOHNNIE WALKER® CELEBRATING STRIDES
• INDEPENDENT SA RECORD LABEL: AFRICAN DOPE RECORDS
• ZEF-STYLE AFRIKAANS GANSTA RAP: JACK PAROW
• INDUSTRY DEBATE: PUTTING PAID TO MUSIC PIRACY
• ELECTRO GLAM ROCK: SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK