Notes and Insinuations - Characters and Song Lives

Izolo Loku ...
Just Lastnight ...
I was ceased with an impulse or was it the compulsion? - To write something, anything and anyhow, about the Musical contribution and collaborations of Moses Taiwa Molelekwa. The title I had in mind was and still might be - Lets Talk About Barungwa
So when I arrived back home after taking a friend home to Kwa-Mashu, we had been listening to some Reggae by a sensational young artist named Chronixx, a little bit of Hip Hop by way of Mick Jenkins ( Trees and Truths ) among others; I embarked on a little search. . .
What I should have searched for was more about the meaning behind the world Barungwa or just some biographical stories about each of the artists involved in making some of those projects come together. The music was so rich and futuristic,the players/artists all sounded like intrepid mavericks really keen to turn the world of sound around to their own tunes. There was still some of that post-94, post-democratic RSA excitement and exhuberance yet tempered with a clear eye/ear/sense on what was curretly happening in the post-millenium world. The year 2000 set in ...
The digital-analogous Electronica -Reggae/Ragga,broken beats, drum and bass and Hip Hop and traditional indigenous music throwback references landed on fertile soil among the young world music lovers and more than a few seasoned conoissuoirs alike.

We all dug the music, but how well did we know the protagonists and instigators. The streets and the speakers were bleeding with fresh blood and new ideas and Capitalismo was ready to suck up all the spoils ...As usual, nothing new came out of the politicians and economists speeches. The poorer were getting more impoverished and the hustling and bustling were kept in the middle while the filthy were getting more nourished. Nothing feeds on discontent like great stories and great music. Great art has emerged out of the most tempestous of times.
"Can Anything Good Come Out Of Trenchtown, that's what they say ..." Wailed Bob Marley in his triumphantly defiant lamnetations and judgements agains Mystery Babbylon the Great harlot ....It was the sound of a human being born and thrust into a world of slim possibilities andd doomed to precarious pauperization at the bottom of the lowest rung of society - Black and wretched, Coloured and dejected.
Beautyful music arrising out of PAIN and utter disdain. "Up a clean river to wash my dread/upon a rock I rest my head / that's where I visioned through the seas of oppression/ Oh yeah, dont make my Life a Prison ...We come from Trenchtown ..." Wailed the Wailer singing the memory and the experience of millions of souls stranded in limbo in a world that slaves them and rejects them. Talk about utter oppression, what the Rastafari term DOWNPRESSION/downpressor clearly elucidates. Yet out of all that Misery, a JOYFULL NOISE.
Who can escaped untouched? "Only the Birds have their wings ..." Chants the Rasta minstrel ...
"This is not time to be deceived/ I tell you you show KNOW and NOt Believe/ They say this jusgement will never be with water/ No water can cool out this fire, this fire ...."*

Music like everything else comes from Somewhere and is usually Headed Somewhere to. There is usually an Aim, Objective and Structure even to the most freest of expressions. Like all cultural production, music is from a People to a people, from Soul to Soul, from Ear to ear and everything else inbetween.

Whereever we may find our Inspiration to do what we do, it isall just a matter of Communications. Intelligent life pivots around pillars and posts of information. If the delivery is clear, the sounding will be clear and the message will be Felt, that is sensed. The mission is only completely accomplished once a Spiritual or Transformative experience is reached. If the message does not transform or act upon the active part of the receiver and also the giver/sender, then that message would be incomplete.
Music ...
Music ....
Music ...

All narratives that are based on the transmission, transmitability and even the transcient elements of life require Deeper perception. One must not just listen to John Coltrane, Abdullah Ibrahim, Zim Ngqawana, Bheki Mseleku, Ali Farka Toure, Billy Holiday, Bob Marley, Sun Ra, Sa Ra, A Tribe Called Quest... music, the vibe has to transport you to as many dimensions as imaginatively posssible.
This need not sound like some kind of one diemsional view of the significance or even insignificance of music, for the world is made beautiful through our very diversity. What is important is that we try to channel our faculties towards progressive, innovative and Note-Worthy endevours. ..

The world is made up of animated and inanimate objects, yet beyond the material world there is always those factors that are unexplained. The various explainations and scientific investigations that have uncovered so much in terms of data-able, recorded evidence/material have not yet been acknowledged as ALL KNOWING.
While it is is important to ACKNOWLWEDGE fatcs, it is also just as vital to Life to acknowledge the Unknown without succumbing to complacancy and superstition.
There are Elements of Life that can only be Felt and Known by Way of Intuition, the Inner Knowing that is apparently supposed to characterise this AGE. But what we are ableto know seems to often not be equal to the quest to KNOW more.

It is like the child's question, lastnight " If Adam and Even were the only ones in the garden at that time, doesn't that make us all Brothers and Sisters?"
To many adults that may just appear as a simple if not just a rhetorical question, but if one seeks to Tell The Children The Truth, one has to be ARTFUL with the Adult audience as Well ...
But the Truth can be articulated in so many ways without musch alteration. Even beyond questions of levels of perception, the Method of Transmission as the Vessel also Bears truths about the Level Capacity of the Transmitter.

If it be true that All Nature hears and bears music, even the stillest entity is Vibrating with the Sound of Music. But Music can also come from darkest places; places of Unspeakable Pain and immeasurable cruelty.
Some of the most beautiful pieces of art have come from tragic and unpardonable sins - Humanity against humanity, Humanity against Nature and so on and so forth. Kodwa Ingoma evela emanzini acwebileyo kayifani nengoma ezwakala emaxhaphozini adungekile.