10/07/2021
Join us for another evening of experimental music and images. Connecting music and architecture across the globe, from Soweto, Toronto, Kelowna.
XX Last Century/Eric Khathide and Thabang Nkwanyana/Douglas MacLeod
The second event in the OXM Series will be heldo online over Zoom on Friday, October 8th at 7 pm PDT (Vancouver)/10 pm EDT (Toronto)/4 am (October 9th) SAST (Johannesburg)
This event will include performers from Toronto, Soweto and Kelowna.
RICO & THABANG
Eric Kathide aka Rico
Eric is a Kwaito artist. He was born in Soweto in 1982 and raised by his single mum Momsa Khathide in the small mixed race community of Kliptown. Since early childhood he played his music in school and on local stages and concerts around Soweto and surrounds. He says, ‘Music (Kwaito) is how I survived and established myself in a community with high crime rate and drug abuse’. He now shares his music to reach and teach youth in the community, inspiring them to challenge the obstacles they face. In 2010 he established Gobla Entertainment to identify and produce local musicians in different platforms of Kwaito, Amapiano, Hip Hop and House. Career highlights include 2018 opening the stage at The Dome for late Kwaito legend Mshoza [Nomasonto Maswanganyi] and sharing the stage with international Kwaito/House artist Winnie Khumalo. Rico was recently nominated for the Bolt Best Newcomer Kwaito combination album for 2021.
Thabang Nkwanyana
Thabang is a passionate visual creative in photography, filmmaking, drone imaging and stencilling. He is South African born, in Bharagwana Hospital, Soweto in 1983. He stays in Kliptown in Freedom Charter Square squatter camp, a mixed race community with diverse cultural spaces. Growing up, Kliptown was a community with rich history and culture yet underprivileged, he was surrounded by poverty, crime, drugs and unemployment. It was through art that he found himself and became a voice or inspiration of positivity within Kliptown’s neglected heritage. Today he is the Director and co-founder of 1955 Creative Collaboration, a grassroots Kliptown social enterprise addressing socio-spatial issues with creativity and innovation. He teaches young underprivileged kids photography at Sifikile School of Photography in Soweto.
Kwaito
Kwaito is a Soweto based genre that grew out of the Black township sound of Bubblegum Soul in the early1990s. The Kwaito sound slows down the House beat and overlays the stories of the Black democratic nation of South Africa emerging out of apartheid. It was the time of Mandela, of hope and violence, of Black South Africa finding a liberated voice. Kwaito is a sound that defined a generation. This gig will highlight Rico’s own Kwaito music alongside a discussion of the history and future of Kwaito as musical genre and as a subculture lifestyle. The music will be accompanied by Thabang’s images of the place, dance, dress code and lifestyle inspired by and that is this genre.
XX LAST CENTURY
Beatnik improvisation. Dissonant. Consonant. Grooves and anti-grooves. Embracing latency.
Since February 2020 XX Last Century (XXLC) have been creating improvised electronic music. XXLC is a transcontinental, experimental, sonic collaboration between Owen Burgess, Ross Edmunds, Chris Terry in Toronto and Douglas MacLeod in Kelowna. These veterans of the Toronto alternative music scene had their one and only live XXLC gig at in Toronto just before the pandemic lockdown shut down music venues across the globe. Since then XXLC have been meeting in a virtual space they call where they continue their quest to find perfect and imperfect frequencies over the Internet via Zoom.
Owen Burgess
Loops, guitar, shortwave radio, acoustisonics
Ross Edmunds
Loops, grooves, samples, sequencers, vocals
Douglas Macleod
Electronic perscussion
Chris Terry
Loops, sequencers, percussion
A curated collection of XX Last Century’s virtual electronic transmissions can be enjoyed on SoundCloud at: studionowhereannex and https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/sJjwxhc8Qz1uP4Gy7 XX Last Century on the internet: https://oburgess.wixsite.com/xxlastcentury
DOUGLAS MacLeod
Douglas MacLeod is an architect and musician based in Kelowna. His work combines music and drawing to sculpt soundspaces from lines and notes.
To register for this free event, please visit: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwsceipqTMqG9NAqjwpiEtAar4fnGBsvoq7
The OXM is presented with support from SoundON, Creative BC, and the Province of British Columbia and is a collaboration between The Okanagan Institute, the Okanagan coLab, the music series Skin and Bones, Rebellious Unicorns and Athabasca University’s Global Studio.
