thiis

“If the day should ever come when we must go, if some day we are compelled to leave the scene of history, we will slam the door so hard that the universe will shake and mankind will stand back in stupefaction…”- Joseph Goebbels

 

“I’m playing on Friday, my name is Big Space, real name Montle Moorosi, and my name should be there”. Why does every story begin like this?

 

“Ja, well, but it’s not cause I’m looking here and I can’t see it” said the brunette with bad hair. She looked like the type of person you just assume enjoys it when the water splashes into her ass when she poo’s.

 

“Oh, ok. Here it is, but it doesn’t say you’re an artist” says her auburn haired colleague who crosses the fine line between a burp and a fart.

 

“Please just have another look or call up Mentos” yes, there is a man named Mentos because his white colleagues refuse to call him Mcendisi or maybe he just like mints a lot. Who the fuck knows.

 

“Who’s Mentos?”

 

“It’s the guy who I’ve been talking to with my booking, are you serious? There aren’t too many people working here named Mentos is there?” She stares at me. All she needed to do to complete the moment was throw a hot turd in my face.

 

“Is it cause he’s black yeah? Is that it bruv?” The mouth that these words came from was unmistakably those of Josiah, a friend and fellow artist from Cape Town via London. You see, Josiah is half black but his features are more on the white side, so in his world he can say almost what he wants.

 

The time is now 17:06, I am sitting in my office in the centre of Cape Town, there’s a rubber chicken lying on the floor for some reason and I’m supposed to write this article about Oppikoppi. But all can do is keep thinking about stuff I’ve just read on the internet, who is collaborating with you, who is the hottest coloniser in town but the only thing that sticks in my mind about Oppikoppi is solidarity, isolation. I want to talk about race, I want to talk about how silly black people look with red dust on their faces, and I want to call people cunts. But I won’t. Instead I will talk about myself because I find that a lot more interesting. For example, it got so cold at night in my tent I woke up at 5 am and then tried to jerk off in order to generate heat, and fall back to sleep. This didn’t work. Nothing worked. But at least I have a job.

 

So it turns out the brunette with bad hair is the wife of the organiser of the festival, I just found this out two minutes ago. Well, my dad was one of the first black pilots in Southern Africa, they called him the “duke of the sky” I love that nigga. My great forefather Moorosi was the first person to bring horses into Lesotho, which he stole from neighbouring white farmers in the Free State, and I felt like him at one point at Oppikoppi. Just a nigga looking for a horse. I was looking for some heroin.

 

The only music I listened to at the festival was my own set, which was pretty amazing. I thought I’d take this opportunity and time to say that because most journalists, magazines, promoters are idiots and don’t know a good thing when it’s even giving them a free hand job underneath the table at Nandos. “It can be done but only I can do it” is what Omar- S said. But he’s wrong, because I did it too.

 

Andrew Weiner. Andrew Weiner is the keyboard player in the reggae band 7^th son, he also used to be in 7ft sound system but got relegated when he went full retard at the last Oppikoppi.  7ft sound system is now just Yves Adler, Yves Adler and myself then made an album together and we called it Big Foot. I once almost got relegated from Big Foot when I went full retard at a Big Foot show at Zula. I like Andrew. Why do retards like each other?

 

Roger Young is an idiot. But he is my idiot. Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character.

 

Miles Keylock looks like he eats mud clots. I remember when I was a bit younger and my writing made a little bit of sense and everyone kept saying I should try being like Miles Keylock. I was like “dude, I don’t dig eating wet sand” I hope this doesn’t mean I won’t get a review in the Rolling Stone magazine because I really like Miles’ hair and the way he throws around the word “tollie” so brazenly.

 

Whoever thought that after all the foul things I said about Noeleen that her son would end up confiding in me? What right do I have to just take on some stranger’s luggage? I absolutely have no right, but don’t you dare tell me that. My opinion is that his father should have never given him so much money, I feel like his dad dressed him in a jacket made from snoek fish and just left him in Hanover Park for the vultures to eat. Don’t worry, I will stay out of your business, I’m bored of it now anyway, I will go back to trying to understand the deeper meaning behind in-grown hairs.

 

I know for a fact that Eve Rakow and Justin McGee have aids. But at least they’re honest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All images © Sydelle Willow Smith