Okmalumkoolkat, image: Chris Saunders

‘Siyasebenza, afta five we come alive’ (Dirty Paraffin – ‘Download Part 2′)

It’s now 17:17 on my clock. Will you be getting alive tonight?
I do not work a nine to five anymore. I work around the clock but I am focused on my passions so I’m always alive. You pass time until you knock off if you are doing something you’re not really interested in as your day job.

Where does your moniker come from?
The moniker, Okmalumkoolkat, was inspired by DJ Cool Cat on UKhozi FM. From as far back as I can remember, this guy had a kid’s request show on Saturday mornings. Kids would call in and sing their favourite songs and give shout-outs. I thought this was a really cool concept for a radio show. I have never come across any other DJ with a show similar to this. The man was also heavily involved in Ukhozi FM radio drama, which is also a big inspiration in my storytelling.

 
Dirty Paraffin – ‘Papap! Papap!’

For someone who’s never listened to, or had the chance to get familiar with Dirty Paraffin or Okmalumkoolkat, how would you describe your craft?
It’s music that should be made in the now but be inspired by the future and the past.

We aim to trigger a new world mindset in those who dare to listen and understand.

What would you say is the biggest difference when it comes to Okmalumkoolkat performing as part of Dirty Paraffin vs. personal projects?
When I play Dirty Paraffin shows I play Dirty Paraffin tracks only. When I play Okmalumkoolkat shows I can perform tracks from Dirty Paraffin, tracks from Sebenza and tracks from my unreleased projects. I am a mixtape.

 
LV and Okmalumkoolkat – ‘Sebenza’ ( Hyperdub July 2012)

 

In an interview with Dazed & Confused, LV describe you as ‘a unique and amazing artist who makes us laugh and bowls us over.’ Any words for them?
Yebo. LV is one of the freshest production teams to come knocking at my door and I guess we met [so that we could] dent a little of ourselves into music history.

For the album, Sebenza, you didn’t get to meet Will & Simon of LV, but only Gerv. What was the process like, any major hiccups?
I had met Gerv way back in 2010 when we did ‘Boomslang‘ and I had started communicating with Will and Simon around about that time. So by the time we started on this project I was comfortable with the guys.

There were no hiccups at all. We were sending tracks back and forth like we had planned. They respect my song writing skills and my music direction and I trust them with the projects we put out so there were no major misunderstandings.

behind the scenes of 'Sebenza', image: Frances van Jaarsveldt

What did you and Gerv get up to in your spare time (if there was any)?
Whenever Gerv is in South Africa (he usually comes down because he has family out here). We meet up, rehearse, play shows and record tracks. It’s been like that since day one.

I met Will and Simon in Amsterdam a couple of months back and we did exactly the same thing. We met for the first time at round 14h00 at a festival and played their show around 17h00. We went for a young rehearsal afterwards and played my show at 22h00 that same night. We recorded a couple of tracks at their hotel room the very next day.

Some of your lyrics for ‘Sebenza’ are: ‘Since a way back they’ve been trying to silence us…/ Rubber bullets.’ Do you think people are still being silenced?

I guess there are other ‘rubber bullets’ used today. It’s always a struggle with ‘the powers that be’ to adhere to the ‘freedom of speech’ stipulation that comes with democracy.

You mentioned that the first time you saw street racing go down was in Umlazi early ’90s. Have you been back there and what are people doing now to pass time? Is it still car racing?
I was in Umlazi [just over] a week ago. People are really in party mode in Durban, they are very involved in the Durban kwaito movement. It’s a lifestyle. There are a thousand beat producers and there’s a new dance move every two months or so. People also look good in Durban, it must be the tropical climate.

So I saw you busting the ‘Taxi Driver’ in a video – Have you ever done any train surfing?
I was an only child till I was 11, so train missions with my friends were a no-go. Hell, I wasn’t allowed to go to the beach without my mother’s supervision up until I was a teen. Some of my friends did train surf but we all ended up in dance groups in the ’90s. It was a good exercise and the girls loved it.

Your track – ‘Download This Part II’ (listen above!) – has the lyrics ‘VIRGIN EARDRUMS GET DEFLOWERED’ – What deflowered your eardrums?
I’d say listening to a guy named Johnny Dimba when I was young. He would take instrumentals from Motown and recite Zulu poetry/ stories over them. Mind blowing stuff. Also the first time I heard Kraftwerk I was taken aback, especially because I had just read about them in that book ‘Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: History of the DJ’.

What do you think of kwaito today, and the fact that it has more house influences now than back in the days of artists such as Arthur Mafokate, Zola and TKZee, where it had influences of hip-hop?
Kwaito was really house music slowed down to like a 100 BPM when it hit in the early ‘90s. Kwaito is influenced by what the world has been feeding us, so all these artists making kwaito will make it the best way they see fit. There is no one formula.

On LinkedIn you describe yourself as ‘A student in packaging and selling ideas’. What is the biggest idea you’ve ever been sold?
Biggest idea they sold to me at college was ‘ think outside the box’. I bought it so much that when they organized an internship for me I turned it down because it was contradictory.

Okmalumkoolkat Koolhunting Klub , image: Thanda Kunene

You’ve said that “Okmalumkoolkat’s Koolhunting Klub” is not a fashion label or a brand. So what differentiates a project from a label?
Well, it’s an on-going project because it’s developing still. I started the club as a side project where I could source and sell lifestyle products to my friends more than four years ago. Then I got really interested in remixing clothing so we started on denim jackets last year. This year, I went crazy and collaborated with people to make products for the club. What I have also realized is that I get to improve my design language with every collection we work on – it’s more exciting than a gallery exhibition in my opinion.

My label will come in the future. I am just gathering tools for now.

Also you mentioned that it’s a project you’ve been working on for as long as you can remember. Is there perhaps a certain memory/time that you do remember that could have led to this project?
The remixing was triggered by Dr. Romanelli and Taz Arnold in America. Then I remembered how I used to customize my gear. The fascination with denim really stems from the fact that I couldn’t afford it for a long time back in the ‘90s. Check out my blog for a more in-depth story on that (go HERE).

The OKMKK Kool Hvnting Klvb MMXII Kollezioni 2012 Part II

The parrot is a take on how people have different personalities online compared to their real life ones.–> Does this apply to you as well? What’s the main difference between your persona online vs. real-life?
There’s a big difference. Online, I can reTweet something you tweeted because I know I wouldn’t necessarily put it out there but I am still backing you up. There are many ways of saying something online. You can put up an image to show your mood and feelings. You can do the same with your daily outfits but only a couple of people catch those messages. I am also pretty shy in real life but I can come off as a loud-mouth on my blog and my music.

As an avid observer of everyday life – anything you’ve come across in the last few days that the general observer might have missed?
The climate and weather patterns have really changed, it’s not a joke. Stores need to stock jackets in summer and vice versa.

Is there anyone you would like to interview and what would you like to ask?
I’d like to interview Shaka Zulu and ask him if he knew his influence was going to last this long and also what inspired the empire concept.

What are you listening to right now? What’s your “go-to” track/artist?
‘Manage Expectations‘ by Cid Rim.

Dirty Paraffin X Paul Shiakallis, image: Paul Shiakallis

Apparently Pioneer Unit’s Damien Stevens considers you one of SA hip hop’s best rappers. Do you consider yourself a rapper?
I don’t know if I am a rapper. My style is more poetry, I play electronic gadgets and I tend to sing a lot so I consider myself a musician.

You worked with Spoek on his new album, Future Sound of Mzansi, with the track – ‘Skorokoro’. Have you owned one?
I am actually looking for a cheap cheap skorokoro next year. A Honda Civic would be ideal but I would settle for a station wagon Toyota Cressida any day.

What made you decide (along with Spoek Mathambo, Bra Solomon & Ayobah) to do a rendition of Brenda Fassie’s classic ’80s hit ‘Weekend Special‘?
‘Weekend Special’ had to be done. It’s a classic. It was Spoek’s project though so maybe he would satisfy that question.

What’s your favourite slang word/phrase?
Shambeez ( crazy ).

Ultimately, when it comes to Okmalumkoolkat (Smiso Zwane) there are no words better to describe him than his own:

‘I am the one. The 8bit champ! The member, the compadre, The Bigbootyholic, Booty Inspector, Duke of Casio. FutureMfana MfanaFuture. Zulu Compura. Smart Mompara. Super Tsatsatsa. International Pansula. Bhuti Yang’chaza. Bhuti Yang’ Washa. Boomslang. The Sjambok Ambu. okmalumkoolkat. Okmalumkillacombo. Holy Oxygen. Smiso’

LINKS:

Blog

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YouTube

Twitter

SoundCloud

interview by: Sarah Claire Picton, November 2012
images by: Chris Saunders, Frances van Jaarsveldt, Jamal Nxedlana, Paul Shiakallis, Thanda Kunene

Article featured in Issue 18 – The Original Fake Issue – of one small seed.

With hip-hop MCs People under the Stairs rhyming in my ears and change for a loose kept safe, the street is the place I catch myself smiling off-guard.  There’s a feeling of wonder. Dialogues I hope one day to understand hustle past in rising tones, and I find rhythm to gooey electro beats that resonate around me. Visual indulgence and sensory delight.

I fucking hate the word trend. I never have enough cash to buy them or the magazines that tell me what they are. In a society that finds solace in forecasts and structure, there’ll always be definitions and commodities of contemporary ‘cool’. But out on the streets, aside from high-end mass production, there’s something magical happening. People are starting to think for themselves again. The street is celebrating the carnivalesque, liberation and pleasure.

The youth, brazen and unpredictable, strut the new catwalk — the street. A reservoir of stimulation, the street is a show we’re all part of, you and I all part of the revolution of Concrete Couture. Before you cool kids start freaking out, this isn’t a piece about what we’re seeing on the streets. It’s about what the street represents. And who’s representing it.

I found four individuals, four friends, all collaborators who epitomise the liberation of raw aesthetic self-expression. Meet Jamal, Jade, Illana and JR.  Spreading their vision throughout the arts, they collaborate with various mediums, with each other, and with you. They’re a quartet that orchestrates controversy. Fun controversy that’s full of texture and form. Forgotten items are given second chances, and the Salvation Army skank to the wub wub wub of the underground.

Jamal

Jamal, Jade, Illana and JR are designing and styling, capturing and documenting fashion in ways that represent what, to me at least, the street is all about. Energy, colour, motion, surprise, shock and raw beauty. All these elements find form and integrity in their creative rendezvous.

Jade

Association, intertextuality and colour-coding, Jamal Nxedlana’s designs are lyrics of the city — construction sites, cultural strife, the illusion of the high life.  His concepts are bold, vibrant and visually enthralling. Think the beautiful flamboyant frenzy of Durban’s Warwick Junction turned wearable.

Jamal

Sarah Claire Picton:  Is there much androgyny in local fashion these days?

Jamal: There’s a fair share of it. Like the androgynous vagrants in Cape Town.

SCP: You’ve collaborated extensively with the other three, such as in the fashion/art website The Beard and on various London shoots. What’s your plan for 2010?

Jamal: I’m preparing for a trip to the Congo with Justin McGee and JR… we’ll be undertaking a few creative projects that side.

Early Kwaito and bad taste pulled off, condom beanies and 2010 forecasts of sleaze: time with Jamal is all pins and needles. And for his lady, Jade, it’s all needles through noses and brightly coloured hair. Bring back PVC, Buddha print tees and “those plastic chokers that look like tattoos” and they’ll both be smiling diamantés.

Jade

A Swiss at birth but Cape Town girl at heart, Jade’s been spending time abroad, assisting SA artist Mustafa Maluka in Berlin and collaborating with Jamal in London.

SCP: Where do you stand on the ideology of ‘trend’?

Jade: The pendulum always swings and the current liberal attitudes in our cultures look to daring individuals who break the rules.

SCP: Complete this sentence: ‘Out on the streets, we call it…’

Jade: Out on the streets, we call it shante! Or sashay away!

Another prolific girl shouting a big fuck you to fabrication and buying individualism from an over-priced boutique is Illana Welman. Forty pairs of sunnies, a 14 full-piece cossie collection, one pink fur coat and a girl named Illana. Coming from the Zulu Kingdom’s poison city, Illana moves gallantly through the realm of fashion, all teethy smiles in her cherry-smelling black-and-white Melissa brogues. A fallen angel, charmed and armed, she’s a femme fatale of fashion and has lots to say.

Illana

SCP: So, aside from your professional time spent with Jamal on shoots in London, talk to me about your time with our dear friend JR.

Illana: JR… well, we lived together along with Justin McGee, ‘the photographer’ (ha ha), and we all created creations (ha ha) every day. All the time. We had so many clothes it was easy just to have fun and create like that. I can’t even remember if we did anything professional together. It was great, it was fun. It kept us inspired.

Like me, she’s inspired by the street’s everyday heroes: “Like the local African at the shisa nyama shop. African brothers bust some crazy styles, and old grannies never fail me.”

And an African brother that really needs no introduction, and comes with no warnings, is Jene Rene Onayngunga. Born in Kinshasa DRC, JR aka Pacha aka DR Pachanga is possibly the only other person I know who is louder than me. I can’t keep track of him, and hope he can’t keep track of me. Except in summer, and on weekends.

JR

SCP: What you doing now, Kid?

JR: At the moment I’m pushing street photography and journalism. It’s basically a little memo of DR Pachanga on the streets of SA. (Check out elementofsuprize.blogspot.com)

He’ll come to my house, eat my cheese and trade a pair of sunnies for two Black Label quarts or a bottle of Tassies. And then we’ll both end up so wasted we’ll hustle off his other 12 pairs to a German on Long Street and spend the profit on tequila. Jozi’s red skies, Cape Town’s blue waters and Durban’s green poison — he’s all over the country, having fun testing people’s patience and pissing off all the original fake fucks.

SCP: The word ‘fashion’ — what does it mean to you?

JR: Fashion means the power to manipulate, dictate many floors by disguising and dominating the norm.

Street ‘style’ doesn’t exist for JR. Or for me. Trends and seasonal cools are fading as we begin to see the street as a space for free creative dynamism. “There is no such thing as High Street, Street Street or even Hippie Street. Street Fashion is what we see every day on the street, the outfit someone puts on the minute they walk out.”

Spaza Shop Boyz

Functionality and accessibility have taken over; it’s now about finding ways to implement expression in these two variables. And that’s what these kids are helping us with. Thank god.

A little bit of JR’s faultiness revealed…

SCP: What do you miss that isn’t seen much in today’s designs?

JR: Zoot suits!

SCP: Your favourite street to walk down?

JR: Grey Street

SCP: Do you sleep naked?

JR: Only when Justin and creepy Steve are not around.

Jamal

High-spirited and high-dressed, Jamal, Jade, Illana and JR are fresh, rough deviants of fashion. They’re part of the Concrete Couture subculture, crucifying the fake and resurrecting the new. B-boys & bergies, emos & pigs, a blur of kinetic energy… out on the street somebody is always somebody else’s muse.

“We’re taking it back to the concrete streets, [us original freaks, all fashion MCs]” Or maybe we’re not? What do I really know? I’m just another undignified street renegade you’ll pass on your way to buy a loose tomorrow. Just another everyday hero trying to find what she’s looking for.

“Out on the streets… I call it life”.

Photography: Justin McGee, styling and photography: Jamal Nxedlana, Illana Welman, Jene Rene Onayngunga, Jade Paton

words: Sarah Claire Picton