Among the most dreaded
personages of my childhood were those old toppies my mother called oSkhohlela.
That common, hard
core, scar ridden face stud with a single arm who rides an ungreased bicycle every
day selling mogodu on credit, in
company of whining monstrous green flies.
Yeah, that brother. uMpukane.
Then, there are those
who seem to always throw phlegm like pennies into a pond. More so when fucked
on some hostel brew stewed from KING KONG
Mthombomela mixed with battery acid or other delicacies.
I heard in Klerksdorp
they call it Skipa’seantekana.
They can otherwise be ‘your
common sip-thieves at every stokvel - aboMaminya;
or those ones who incessantly suck their teeth long after that holy communion
of iSkobho – aboMavungula.
Hilarious names when
one comes to think of them, but an epithet like Makhafula - the spitter - is quite a glaring approximation to one
overtly vulgar gesture common down any township street.
aBomakhafula.
I mean, these guys can
spit.
Every time they spat
was like a grand moment at some spitting Olympics.
We used to joke that
some of them could hit a bird dead perched on any branch with their bullet spit,
without exhausting a glance.
There is however, a
lure of the vulgar that each mind seems to possess; an inclination towards the
depraved and even a psychotic yearning for decay.
However, ukuKhafula always remaining an
exclamatory gesture of disgust, repulse and a rejection of that which is not
palatable in any sense, also can be an acknowledgement of the event of contact
with the unpalatable – therefore an equilibrial response in essence.
We spit out that which
feels like a sordid memory, a sort of mandatorily wiped memory; discarded due
to decay or a burning sensation that requires release – but a memory whose
existence we affirm nonetheless.
The act becomes a
removal of any contamination that inhabits our prime faculty of speech - the
mouth; an end to halitosis – all fumes that drench our garbage verbatim of
social conditioning and drone responsibilities.
Still I wonder, what
fuels Makhafula Vilakazi’s regurgitative demeanour, considering that the mouth
is associated with a furnace?
What burns within him?
Or rather, what is he
attempting to set ablaze?
Why the implicit
leniency towards profanity?
Profane speech or
obscene words, being reliable disgust elicitors curiously tend to cluster
around body-related subject matter, interestingly so that even psychologists
have been grappling with the science behind this human inclination.
And obviously Makhafula is not inventing swear words,
but merely utilizing an existing lexicon of language developed by an entire
species to relate ideas of disgust.
Profanity seems to be
a way of sentencing certain undesirables to death.
Some writers argue
that this semantic field that spawned taboo words across the world's languages
is death and disease, and the human reaction to death and disease; and also the
perpetual belief in the vice that the ‘body’ is damned evil.
But, I am curious to
know why does Makhafula swear?
Maybe this will help
me understand the high appreciation of his expressive poetry throughout the
country, and mostly among urban youths.
Maybe I will
eventually understand why people are drawn to that which they cannot exclaim
themselves, especially when bound by self-inflicted moral constraints of a
religious nature.
By some dark luck, I might discover that profanity is 'the magic fuel' that ignites minds into frenzied
furnaces of resistance and rebellion.
Or maybe, just maybe,
I will be treading that ecclesiastical path of commodifying South African
swearwords, the beginnings of patenting languages and dialects – like the
Americans have done with words like nigga, bitch, hoe and all the like.
So, seriously, will we
be hearing the word ‘Sfebe’ on the
airwaves from now to eternity, weaved within baritonic slurs sheared against a
fossilised race’s scabby skinned ears?
I guess it is true
that ‘Crazy, is a good uniform’.
Makhafula Vilakazi, who is in fact a character from of Matodzi Ramashia’s earlier poem of the
same name, has lived and breathed township air since his birth.
He admits to write
about what constitutes the existence of the depraved, ‘heavily influenced by
the pathetic state of my jobless people languishing in townships without
dignity.
And perhaps Zunglish
and Tsotsi-taal are best suited linguistic devices for telling such stories,
but he basically writes as he speaks.
In the language of uKulanzana or uKugwarana, he speaks on behalf of the insulted member of our
tattered social fabric, the rejects and losers if you may.
Much of the profanity,
although common place for kasie expression; still remains a subset of a
language's lexicon that is generally considered to be very impolite, rude or
offensive, but that is the language suited to emasculate the criminal Makhafula from every turn and line
written in his attack.
Matodzi recalls that,
‘the one writer who had a real profound impact on me was Oswald Mtshali. I read his poem "an abandoned bundle"
when I was still in high school. I really connected with that poem. As time
went by I got to know of other legends of the word, Sipho Sepamla, Wally Serote, Chris van Wyk, bra-Ike Muila (this is
where I learned that poem can also be written in tsotsitaal), Vonani Bila, Lesego Rampolokeng, Keorapetse
Kgositsile.
And all these poets have
been dubbed ‘dissident poets’ by literary critics and scholars.
I think Makhafula fits that bill, somehow.
Even though grossly
unnerved by new trends of poetic expression in South Africa where ‘young poets
these days are really ignorant of the great literary tradition that they should
fit into’, Makhafula seems confronted
by cloned expressions from the American literary tradition.
‘Rather than being
inspired by South African writers to write South African stories a lot of young
poets are really just mimicking Americans. As a result you get a lot of Saul
William accents, Saul William dramatic pauses, basically a lot of flowery
meaningless bombastic bullshit that say nothing about who we are, about our
struggle, our triumphs...
But why does offensive
expression seem to draw more attention than the floral language of contemporary
poetics?
One might say Makhafula not only revels in the relationship
that he have with words, with language, with writing, but he also do not
privilege "standard" English over more colloquial or vernacular
language.
In a conversation we
had at The Afrikan Freedom Station
he revealed that he is not interested in ‘message poetry’.
‘I write poems based
on how I feel at a point in time. I am inspired by people, their struggles,
their pain, love, anger, betrayal, hope and despair. I do not have a specific
agenda’.
A seasoned performer
who has graced stages from Poetry Africa
and Day of The Writer to name a
few, he still prefers performing ‘ekasie’ because his poetry feels immediate to
the vulgarity of township existence.
Though he has enjoyed
impressive collaborations with musician Sumthing
Soweto, vocalist Khany Magubane
and a number of Jazz outfits from Soweto, his musical influences can be said to
be vastly rooted in jazz.
His poetry is fast
becoming that chronicle of lives in disarray, a testament of the assault on
romantic unions and turbulent family dynamics that characterise ‘the lives of
black folks’ in an age of material gratification and disregard for human
dignity.
Those who acquiesce to
his expression of truth about township life remain his most staunch fans, and I
hope you can also join the movement to demystify an overly romanticised life of
depravity which he so laments.
And maybe even the
puritanical will also listen to his album I’m Not Going Back To The Township and
decide on a course of action to change the tide of obscurity shrouding young
hopes through a life of deferred dreams.
You can follow Makhafula
Vilakazi on
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