Ntone Edjabe

 is a Camerounian-born Cape Town-based writer, DJ, musician, and  founder and editor of Chimurenga, a pan African publication of  writing, art and politics has been in print since March 2002.

 Interested in meeting this Abramowitz Artist-in-Residence? He'll be on  campus April 14-30, 2008

  Public Program: “Chimurenga, Felasophy and the quest for lightness   in the new SA”

  Date: Monday, April 28, 2008, 7pm

  Location: Joan Jonas Performace Room , N51 (third floor)

 co-presented with VAP

"A conversational revolution" is how Mark Swilling describes South Africa’s transition from apartheid – it was talked out of existence (Codesa) and swiftly talked back into existence (TRC) with a lexicon wrestled from Senghor. Beyond this constitutionally ushered propensity for talk, however, the country remains ambivalent towards pleasure, unable to strike a balance between the cheerfully celebratory and the depressingly interrogative, between shadow and act. How to speak beyond book-ready narratives of victimhood and superheroism? It is a struggle (or Chimurenga); a struggle to speak for and from oneself – and which cannot be separated from thinking about and from the world. We call upon Fela to lead the way.

Ntone Edjabe is a writer, publisher and DJ. He’s the founding editor of Chimurenga, a pan African publication of writing, art and politics. His writing has appeared in Politique Africaine, L’Autre Afrique, BBC Focus on Africa and various South African newspapers and magazines. He is also co-editor (with Edgar Pieterse) of “African Cities – a reader” (forthcoming). As DJ, he co- hosts “Soul Makossa” a weekly show on Bush Radio 89.5 FM in Cape Town (since 1997), and regularly performs his “Felasophy” DJ sets in South Africa and abroad. He’s also a founding member of the Fong Kong Bantu Soundsystem, a collective of DJs and musicians. He is co-curator (with Neo Muyanga) of the annual “Spier Pan African Space Station”, a music festival in Cape Town. During the day, he co-runs the Pan African Market, a trade and cultural co-operative in Cape Town.