The Ebola virus is spreading across Africa, taking fear with it.
“They say Ebola has no cure. The unknown has arrived. Nobody knows how to deal with this Ebola, not even the government!” John-Thomas Mensah, an Accra-based taxi driver tells FORBES AFRICA in the Ghanaian capital.
The Ebola scourge has spawned new social rules, with people being told they are not allowed to hug or shake hands. New superstitions have arisen, with some believing that drinking or bathing with salty water and eating the West African plant, bitter kola, will treat the disease. Some businesses are cashing in on the rush for disinfectants, soaps and hand sanitizers.
In August, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the West Africa Ebola outbreak a public health emergency. It triggered global alarm as countries stepped up precautions and testing. It is the largest Ebola outbreak to date and began in Guinea in March. Liberia has been the worst hit, with 70% of the casualties. Ebola has infected nearly 5,400 and claimed 2,630 lives, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nigeria recorded eight deaths as at the end of August.
Beyond medicine, the epidemic has dampened business and left the informal economy, that fuels West Africa’s cross-border commerce, in a coma. Millions of West Africans are traveling traders and workers who crisscross the region’s porous borders for their daily bread.
Nigeria, which accounts for around 168 million of West Africa’s 260 million people, has not shut its borders, but almost every other country in the region has stopped border traffic, all in a bid to restrict the spread of Ebola. In late September, Nigeria declared itself Ebola-free.
Airlines discontinued flights to and from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and neighboring countries. Freight rates to West Africa are expected to rise as ship owners avoiding the region are choosing to berth at alternative ports. In mid-August, a Chinese-flagged ship heading out of Sierra Leone to Cape Verde had its crew quarantined in Sao Vicente.
The Ebola scare has also reared its ugly head in South Africa. The most worrying was a patient in August who displayed low risk symptoms and was admitted to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital as a precaution. Luckily, the patient tested negative for Ebola at the special diseases ward at the hospital.
“The patient is in isolation and there is no need for the general public to panic. He will not be put in contact with another patient. He is in isolation, in a special ward that deals with hemorrhagic fever,” says Joe Maila, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.
Eleven hospitals across South Africa were issued with protective gear in readiness for any possible outbreak, says Maila.
East Africa is also taking precautions.
The health sector there is poorly funded and all member states agree that they need to coordinate efforts to keep Ebola at bay. Little of this is evident on the ground.
Uganda has suffered from Ebola in the past and claims it is well prepared. Together with Rwanda and Burundi, Uganda borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has confirmed strains of the virus.
The region is on high alert and any slight indication of the virus in these countries may lead to the type of isolation experienced in West Africa. Business, including East Africa’s fledging oil and gas sector, will be hit.
WHO classified Kenya as a high-risk area because of the number of flights from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to the infected countries. Kenya Airways, the third largest carrier on the continent, is feeling the pinch after suspending some of its flights to West Africa. RwandAir and Ethiopian Airways are yet to follow suit but promise stringent surveillance.
Help has come from far and near. The United States’ (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has about 60 disease detectives and other health experts in the region. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has reportedly committed $14.5 million. The Wellcome Trust and Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) have also announced a joint $10.8-million emergency research fund.
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, through his Dangote Foundation, has given $3.2 million to the Ebola Emergency Operation Centre in Lagos, where the nation’s first case of Ebola was found in Liberian-American national Patrick Sawyer who died in a Lagos hospital four days after arriving from Liberia.
Despite these measures, and assurances by the WHO and local authorities, sections of the international community continue to fear that Ebola could spread across the vast African continent. With multinationals placing travel restrictions to West Africa, trips to Africa are either being postponed or canceled. The tourism sector in East and Southern Africa has been the hardest hit.
Ebola is not going away in a hurry.

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Africa’s Worst nightmare

It’s a typical Friday afternoon for comedian Simmi Areff. He sits across the table in the Joburg Theatre Canteen, South Africa, with a hookah pipe in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. Every ten minutes his phone vibrates as his manager tirelessly tries to track him down. Areff is surprisingly calm for someone who is about to go on stage in two hours before the withering stare of a hard to please audience. It’s even more surprising when he says hasn’t got a clue what he is going to say.
“After tonight I’ll be able to tell you if I was ready or not, but the only thing I can do wrong is disappoint them. I have about 30 minutes of the show, but it’s that last 15 minutes. I don’t know if I’m going to talk to people or what. Lots of people say that talking to people is not part of a one man show, but it’s what I’m good at. It’s what I’m known for, so why not. So I’m going to talk to people, I don’t know who yet but I’m going to do it,” he says through a cloud of mint-flavored smoke.
Areff grew up in a Muslim part of Durban. He moved to Johannesburg in 2011 with $2.80 in his pocket and a dream of being a stand-up comedian. He spent his nights telling gags for his dinner, moving from bars to clubs in Melville, a trendy suburb in Johannesburg known for its comedy scene. Sometimes he did them for free merely for exposure. It was a hard time for him and his flatmates; especially as they are also struggling comedians. Once, they were so poor all they could afford for supper was a lollipop.
“That was many years ago. We didn’t have any food. We just had a Fizzpop. So we broke the lollipop and someone ate the stick,” he says.
“Our industry in this country tells you the game. You must go to clubs and do 500 open spots. You must then do intermediate spots. Then you must become a headliner. When you are a headliner you must start doing corporate gigs. You make all your money on the corporate circle then you do one man shows. I said no. I don’t do comedy to do corporate gigs. I do comedy to make people laugh,” says Areff.
“I miss home every day; I miss my mom irritating me and my dad trying to tell me jokes thinking I am going to use them.  Durban is a small town but once you move to Joburg you can go anywhere else in the world.”
Three years on from the day of the lollipop, Areff makes $1,800 a show.
As his name grew, so did the shows. Although he hated them he charged outrageous prices for corporate gigs and he was shocked that people were willing to pay.
<div id="attachment_31312" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31312" class="size-medium wp-image-31312" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/20131122-IMG_9439-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20131122-IMG_9439-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20131122-IMG_9439-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20131122-IMG_9439-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20131122-IMG_9439.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Simmi Areff</div>
“I had R30 in my bank account, and then that night I had R6030 in my account. Things change very quickly in Joburg,” he says.
Backstage, Areff sits in a corner with a pencil and paper writing out jokes for his first one-man show ‘Strictly Makrooh’ which opened in November. The comedian spent $760 to book the venue for his show. Areff sold out without spending a cent on advertising. He just tweeted about it. He even stopped the show for fans to take pictures to tweet about him.
Under a cool blue light the audience of 300 waits for the show. Areff emerges in to rapturous applause. His jokes take a swipe at a Muslim growing up in South Africa; the days of dodging jellyfish on Durban’s main beach, the days of having to shave his beard to avoid being looked upon as a terrorist.
Then he turns on the crowd. He targets a fashionably dressed man in his late fifties in the front row.
“Wow it’s so nice of you to come to my show. It’s so nice of you to bring your mother,” says Areff.
“It’s not my mother, this is my wife,” says the man.
The audience flinches. Areff looks up.
“Oh well sorry for you, I don’t know why you would married someone so old,” says Areff.
Off-stage controversy follows Areff like a bad joke. In 2012, Areff offended two Muslims so badly they waited for him backstage. Security arrested the two.
It is not the first time his jokes have been taken the wrong way. The South African National Halaal Authority (Sanha) threatened to sue Areff for using their logo for ‘Strictly Makrooh’. The logo read ‘HAHA-laal’.
“A lot of people ask if I got tickets sales for that, but the truth is I didn’t. Maybe during that period 40 tickets were sold but I had already sold 150 tickets. It was great publicity. Apparently I was even on TV in Australia,” says Areff.
“I was inundated with hate mail. My phone was off the hook with private number calls. It was here in the Joburg Theatre, October the 18th, a Friday. I knew I had to go face a few thousand people who might hate me or love me. I was sure they heard the news. I walked onto the stage and thought, wow this could go really bad. I went out and said ‘so I think you’ve heard about me this time. These guys just tried to take me to court.’ They all giggled. Then I knew I had nothing to worry about. My fans didn’t care.”
Areff has had his fair share of deaths on stage. His most recent in 2013 was on tour in the small town of Mafikeng, 300 kilometers North West from Johannesburg, with Riaad Moosa, who played Ahmed Kathrada in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (2013) and the lead role in Material (2012).
“It was the first time that I had performed in front of Muslims in a long time. I was very nervous and I died on stage. They [the crowd] were very conservative. They didn’t get me. But then Riaad also went on and he also died. I felt much better,” he says.
Areff also wrote jokes for comedian Trevor Noah and Late Night News’ (LNN) Loyiso Gola. One of his first skits on LNN was a female Muslim in a Chador singing a parody to Puff Daddy’s I’ll Be Missing You. The video is still on YouTube.
It’s an incredibly hard market to break into, but it’s desperate for new talent says Areff.
“Loyiso Gola told me ‘you know what your problem is? Your ego is bigger than your comedy. But once your comedy is bigger than your ego you will see how things change’. This year my comedy has been the same level as my ego,” he says.
When it comes to the funniest jokes he has ever heard, Areff says it’s hard to keep track.
“I hear so many every day. But the funniest one I heard last year was when Eugene Khosa said that Mac Maharaj [the official spokesperson of the president of South Africa], was the autocorrect of Jacob Zuma. I remember I laughed out loud for days after that.”
The comedian has learned to roll with the punches; and has dodged a few. With $2.80 in his pocket Areff’s journey as a comedy entrepreneur has led him to the wild side of life. What a journey it has been from a man who wanted to share a lollipop.   FL

Simmi Areff

Hate Mail And  Death On Stage

One of the major highlights for the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in 2013 was the launch of the X-Gen. It is a new trading platform that was introduced in a bid to improve and deliver a first-rate technology platform. The system will also enable the NSE to host other exchanges across the region and acts as a great impetus for new market participants to enter the African capital market space.
The NSE was established in 1960 as the Lagos Stock Exchange and as of December 2013 had 200 listed companies with a market capitalization of around $80 billion.
The NSE closed the year with two new equity listings on the main board, while the bond market recorded 19 new listings with an uptick in the value of new issues.
The bourse also had a re-launch of its Alternative Securities Market (ASeM) for small and medium companies. It introduced a new market structure for trading equities and Fixed-Income Market Making.
“In 2014, the Exchange’s primary focus will be on growing the capital market in preparation for achieving emerging market status. The NSE will facilitate access to and participation in the market; increase our footprint on the continent and deploy a risk framework to safe-guard the market venue,” said Oscar Onyema, the CEO of the NSE, at the exchange’s yearly review for 2013 and outlook projections for 2014.
“Our goal is to get promoted to the emerging market index,” he added.
The NSE started operations in Lagos in 1961 with 19 securities listed for trading. Data on listed companies’ performances are published daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually.
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The Floor Worth $80 Billion

It was nine days of hell that Ray Choto will never forget. Live electric wires were pushed into his genitals; it was so excruciating that he snapped the chain of his handcuffs. With his editor, Mark Chavunduka, he was stripped and blindfolded at a military base in Cranborne, a suburb of Harare. Their captors shoved their heads in drums of water. They were forced to do push-ups in the rain, in between beatings, and afterwards their torturers kicked them through the wet grass to clean off the blood.
It all began because of a news story the now late Chavunduka, founding editor of The Standard, Zimbabwe’s independent Sunday newspaper, and Choto, the newspaper’s former chief investigative reporter, wrote in January, 1999 that 23 soldiers, including seven officers, were under arrest for inciting their comrades to overthrow president Robert Mugabe. The authorities wanted to know who leaked the story. The two young African men suffered at the hands of their own people but never revealed their sources.
“As a journalist, my responsibility is to protect my sources. Even if it meant that I was going to be thrown into jail or killed. I was ready for it in defense of ethical journalism,” says Choto, 15 years on.
“The torture was very barbaric. I was handcuffed, put in leg irons, and tortured by way of electric shocks all over my body. They also hit me with wooden planks, clenched fists &#8230;”
Their crime? According to Choto, it was allegedly contravening a section of the Law and Order Maintenance Act. They challenged the constitutional validity of the controversial colonial law and the Zimbabwe Supreme Court declared the provision null and void and the case fell away.
Both were flown to London for psychological and physical treatment. In May 2000, Choto received further treatment in Australia.
Contrary to reports that he fled Zimbabwe, Choto explains that he went to the United States (US) on September 6, 2000 to take up the prestigious John S. Knight Fellowship for professional journalists at Stanford University in California. It was during his first year at the university that Mugabe’s government introduced strict laws that made it difficult for journalists to work.
The program appointed Choto as a senior fellow, extending his stay in the US for another year. This came at a time when Zimbabwe’s government news publications labeled Choto an enemy of the state. He cites an article that detailed a press conference, held by the military and the police, in which they warned the independent media that they were ready to treat those that write negatively about Zimbabwe the same way they treated Choto and Chavunduka.
Choto went home on the first of day of 2002 and planned to be in Zimbabwe for eight days. A senior source in the military agreed to secretly meet him at a hotel in Harare. Choto had called him to tell him that he was in the country and asked if he had time to meet for a drink. The military source sounded hesitant, but agreed. They communicated in code in case the phone was bugged. When they met, the military source asked Choto why he came back in dangerous times and told him to leave the country.
Choto got on a plane and left. He then telephoned family and friends to ask whether he should return. All, including his mother, said no. Choto, now 13 years in the US, says he will not go home as long as the ruling party, Zanu-PF, is in power.
“The loss of my mother in May 2010 was, and remains, a thorn in my heart. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to Zimbabwe to see her laid to rest.”
Now a senior editor at the Voice of America (VOA) in the Africa Division in Washington D.C., Choto says that it is challenging to work on stories from a distance.
As Mugabe begins his seventh term, Choto clings on to hope.
“The solution lies in the hands of the people of Africa. They have to elect democratic leaders and reject undemocratic leaders who come to power through chicanery.”
You have to listen to a man who shed blood for his beliefs.   FL

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Bloodied But Unbowed:  The Journalist Prepared To Die

The international buzz around contemporary African art has never been louder.
African art has always been celebrated on the African continent, but has singularly failed to be regarded as collectible by most Western mainstream collectors and museums. The most important art works created in Africa have long been considered to be antique and traditional.
Modern African art’s exclusion from the Western mainstream has been controversial, so the pace of change in 2013 has been exhilarating. Major museums in London and New York have showcased leading African artists and have been buying their work enthusiastically.
Dramatic installation art pieces—three-dimensional works that are often created in exhibition spaces—by Ghanaian artist El Anutsui are being displayed by major museums both sides of the Atlantic. And London’s Tate Modern, a leader in art trends internationally, has recently set up an African Art Acquisitions Committee to purchase works by contemporary African artists, an acknowledgment that the Tate’s permanent collection was too focused on Western European and North American art.
The Venice Biennale, possibly the world’s most influential contemporary art exhibition, had record attendances from African countries last year, with the leading prize, the Golden Lion, going to the Angolan pavilion, a major boost for African contemporary art.
It all adds up to a sneaking suspicion that this is the age when African art truly becomes collectible.
Ask Bonhams, the only international auction house to specialize in contemporary African art, and they will tell you the African market is booming. Buyers include international museums and private collectors from Europe, the United States and particularly from Nigeria. And Bonhams deny that it’s a bubble.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-31298" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2014/10/Lot-129-Enwonwu-Mirror-300x150.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="150" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Lot-129-Enwonwu-Mirror-300x150.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Lot-129-Enwonwu-Mirror-600x300.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Lot-129-Enwonwu-Mirror-768x384.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Lot-129-Enwonwu-Mirror.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
For the last five years, Bonhams have held their annual Africa Now auction.
“Five years ago it was difficult. We didn’t know who our prospective buyers were, we had no mailing list, and it was a daunting prospect,” says auctioneer Giles Peppiatt, the director of contemporary African art at Bonhams.
“Contrast that with our latest sale in May last year which was our most successful yet, we smashed 20 world records for prices made by an artist and we sold 91% of items up for sale. In total we achieved £1.3 million ($2.1 million),” says Peppiatt.
“We sold seven wooden sculptures, made by Ben Enwonwu for the Daily Mirror newspaper in 1960, for £360,000 ($580,000) against an estimate of £80,000 ($129,000) to £120,000 ($194,000).”
Bonhams most notable moment came in May 2012 when an El Anutsui wall hanging made from bottle tops welded together with copper wire sold for £542,000 ($890,000). It is the highest price yet paid for African art at auction.
It’s not surprising that prices for El Anatsui, a celebrated Ghanaian artist living and working in Nigeria, are rocketing. His massive sheets of shimmering bottle top installation art have been bought by major galleries, and last summer he won a major art prize, the Charles Wollaston Award, for his giant installation draped outside the Royal Academy exhibition in London.
Major events in Africa focusing purely on contemporary African Art have been building interest for years. The Joburg Art Fair is well established and has been dedicated to selling living African artists’ work since 2008. The Dak’Art Biennale goes back to 1992, providing a creative platform in Dakar, Senegal for more than 20 years.
International art buyers with deep pockets descend on London during Frieze Week in October, and the auction houses and exhibitions compete to take money from them. This year they are joined by 1:54, a new art fair that was launched in Europe, to take the unique energy from the current African art scene and to sell directly to global collectors in London.
1:54 is the brainchild of Touria El Glaoui, the daughter of respected Moroccan artist Hassan El Glaoui.
“By hosting this fair in Somerset House in central London our intention is to foster exchange between artists, curators, collectors and the public from all backgrounds and nationalities,” says El Glaoui.
The fair has been named after the 54 nations that make up Africa, and aims to represent all countries and styles, as well as artists from the African diaspora.
Edson Chagas, the Angolan photographer whose work became the basis for the winning Angolan Venice Biennale pavilion, is one of 70 artists represented at 1:54, as is Abdoulaye Diarrasouba, known as Aboudia, from Cote d’Ivoire.
Several of Aboudia’s large-scale acrylic on canvas paintings have been bought by the Saatchi Gallery and are soon to appear in a Saatchi exhibition. His style is inspired by graffiti and depicts street life and the traumas of war.
Aboudia was born and worked in Cote d’Ivoire’s capital Abidjan until the most recent civil war in 2010. Now he moves between Abidjan and New York.
“I’m exhibiting at the 1:54 fair because I feel it’s important to show my work to people abroad and to venture beyond the Ivory Coast,” he says.
Aboudia thinks others should follow the example of Charles Saatchi, the owner of the Saatchi Gallery.
“He has the courage to search for new things and nurture them. He doesn’t wait until [artists’] careers have already been developed. Life is about taking risks. Emerging artists benefit from being brought to the world’s attention,” he says.
The fact that quality African art is being widely bought by leading galleries is music to the ears of Oba Nsugbe, a leading Nigerian barrister working in Britain. He is a member of the Tate Modern African Art Acquisitions Committee, which is responsible for delivering a detailed strategy to purchase world class African art.
“This would have been impossible to conceive 10 or 15 years ago. We are placing African art alongside other world class art where it belongs—to be conserved in a world-class forum. What more do you want?”   FL

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The Smart Money is  on African Art

<h3>What is a budget deficit?</h3>
A budget deficit occurs when a government’s expenditures become more than the revenue it has collected. It is common for governments to run a deficit and to use debt (bonds) to finance them. The interest from the debt needs to be paid out each year. If debt is too high, creditors’ concerns about a country’s ability to repay its debt rise and will hence demand higher interest rates. It becomes harder for governments to raise funds as their debt levels rise too far.
Faced with this problem, a country can either default or restructure its debt.
<h3>Defaulting</h3>
Argentina defaulted in 2001 on $81 billion worth in bonds and opted to devalue its currency to be able to pay its debt.
In 2012, Greece experienced the largest restructuring in history. After years of living beyond its means, high budget deficits and the poor economic climate made it difficult for the country to make payments on its bonds and led to downgrades and high interest rates on new debt. It eventually became too expensive for the country to roll over its debt, leading to the Greece debt crisis. The country is moving towards recovery.
<h3>Another route</h3>
Much closer to home, in April 2009, Liberia bought back $1.2 billion in commercial paper from its private foreign creditors. The debt, twice the country’s GDP and a quarter of the foreign debt, was bought back at an almost 97% discount of the face value. This was achieved after two years of negotiations and with the help of the World Bank, Germany, the United States (US), Britain and Norway.
In 2007, Liberia’s debt totaled $4.9 billion, 700% of GDP. That year the World Bank and African Development Banks reduced the country’s debt by $400 million and $250 million respectively. The previous default was in the mid-1980s.
Last year the world saw the US government’s shutdown. The financial year ended and a new budget had to be agreed upon by the House and Senate; without this, non-essential services were put on hold. The second issue was that the government had run a large budget deficit and its repayments were due. The Democrats wanted to increase tax while the Republicans called for a reduction in spending. A deal was struck and disaster averted.
In the first couple of months of the new financial year, the government’s deficit was reduced by 22%. Federal revenue climbed by 10% in the same period.
<h3>South Africa’s deficit</h3>
Rising debt costs and below target tax receipts are not helping ease South Africa’s debt. The 2013/14 budget deficit is forecast at 4.6% of GDP. Public sector borrowing increased to 7.4% of GDP in 2012/13. The country’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, has already vowed to maintain spending limits curbing wage growth. For the 2012/2013 tax season the South African Revenue Services collected R814 billion ($75 billion). Lower economic growth rates in recent years have made it hard to continue using tax revenue to reduce the budget deficit, and there has been an increased reliance on foreign investors to help finance budget deficit.
The South African government adopted a counter-cyclical fiscal policy to shield the country from the recent recession, which worked. On the flip side, the country moved from a surplus of 1.7% of GDP to a deficit.
It is clear, that unlike the general public, governments have a lot more options available to them when they fail to pay their bills. The lights won’t get shut off and the furniture repossessed.   FL

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Deficits And  Debt Ceilings

Last year, in the shadows of the Zimbabwean elections were whispers of a man who took risks by challenging people to question Robert Mugabe’s 26 years of power. At the click of his mouse he passed out classified information that spread like wild fire. They call him Baba Jukwa.
Jukwa, who calls himself a disgruntled Zanu-PF insider, agreed to an interview with FORBES LIFE AFRICA via Facebook to protect his identity. He has one clear mission: To see Zimbabwe rise to its former glory.
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“Zimbabwe is falling, but its people are not, and these same people shall lift it up as they express themselves through the spirit of freedom… But I will tell you without mincing words, even Mugabe himself is possessed by this same spirit of freedom, only that he suppresses it daily,” he says.
Jukwa’s posts included a prediction of a former Zanu-PF member of parliament, Edward Chindori-Chininga’s death, who died in a car accident after revealing corruption in the diamond sector. Jukwa also posted the HIV statuses of Zanu-PF politicians.
In November, reports accused Jukwa of being Zimbabwe’s information minister Jonathan Moyo. Others believe Jukwa is more than one person because the blogs betray a number of writing styles. Whoever it is, they are certainly an insider.
“I have over the past 33 years worked in a place where everything is naked and bare, so it is not uncommon at all for me to know everything and anything.”
Jukwa says he has no fear because he is a dead man already. All he wants is for the country to be free.
“On that day, when the people have finally freed themselves from the chains of oppression and once again Zimbabwe is a shining nation as the ancestors would have had it, it shall be a great day of celebration, mark my words.”
Across the Atlantic lives a social media guru who could be considered Jukwa’s brother in arms. At least he is unafraid to use his own name. Dressed in torn jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers, he looks like an average Joe. His red beard and large earrings may be the reason you give him a second look, but there is more to him than meets the eye.
In 2011, Harper Reed took the job of technology chief for Barak Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. His job was to gather voters with the use of social media. The strategy was a gem and Obama made history again, this time for becoming the first president to be re-elected with the help of his social media campaign.
Although Reed was working for one of the most powerful people in the world, it was not enough to get him into a suit and tie.
“This one time [Obama] walked out of the office on the campaign and walked up to my buddy Dillan and I and the first thing he said to us was, ‘Ah, you guys must be the tech team.’ I think it was our beards that gave us away.”
Flushed with the success of Obama’s re-election campaign, could Reed consult in the tricky politics of Africa?
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31291 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-300x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-300x300.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-100x100.jpg 100w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-600x600.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2011-10-23-22.29.00.jpg 640w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“Probably not. For me, if I really supported the person, then yes. The thing is, you must do this because you want to do it and not because you want money. Because it’s politics, you have to treat it that way,” he says.
Reed says it is important to fight media censorship. He speaks of the importance of a transparent government to avoid having the same people in power over and over again.
“In my time in South Africa, I talked to a lot of people about politics and there was this fear of continuation of a single government for a long time without change… If people feel like it really matters to them, they need to step up and solve the problem.”
Unlike Jukwa, Reed lives in comparative freedom.
“People talk a lot of shit on the internet, as you can imagine. It’s just how it works on the internet. People are mean and they can do crazy things. But for the most part, there’s a lot of work done in the United States to make it so that people don’t feel intimidated. I’ve never felt like I had to hide.”
With elections around the corner for some African countries, perhaps it is time to adopt a word that was significant on Obama’s road to victory. A word both feared and revered: Change.   FL

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Guerilla Bloggers

When Vivian Kleynhans grew up in the remote fishing village of Paternoster on South Africa’s West Coast, not in her wildest dreams did she think that one day she would sign a major export deal with the world’s largest discounter, Walmart.
Last year, that happened.
Kleynhans, 49, shipped four 40-foot containers of her Seven Sisters wines to the United States (US), where Walmart has been selling them in more than 500 stores countrywide since September.
“We are hoping to ship this amount every three months from now on, if sales go well,” says Kleynhans.
Although she’s not allowed to disclose the size of the contract, Kleynhans is certain of one thing: “This deal will change our lives.”
Even before Walmart discovered the Seven Sisters wine brand, Kleynhans had made a success of the label that she launched in 2005 from scratch.
After growing up with six sisters and a brother in a poor village, survival was difficult. Straight after graduating from high school, Kleynhans had to take a secretarial job at a construction company to help her family financially. When she didn’t get a promotion a few years later, she started working for a real estate agent, then moved into human resources and soon thereafter joined an insurance company.
She slowly worked her way up, gaining business experience with every new employment she entered.
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“Throughout my career, I was working towards owning my own business that could provide a legacy for my family. Eventually, I felt ready to set up my own company,” says Kleynhans.
She launched African Roots Wine Brands in 2005 after the South African government set up a trust to help formerly disadvantaged people enter the wine industry. Her idea was to sell wines that would represent her family and her cultural history.
For a year, Kleynhans searched for the right wine farm to partner with. She wanted a farm that could provide her with seven different wine styles—one for her and each of her six sisters. She eventually teamed up with Swartland, a winery located in the region where she grew up.
“My vision was to build a company that my sisters could be part of. Because we are seven, I wanted to partner with a winery that could provide us with a wide range of styles,” she says.
Each sister personally helped create their own varietal. The result: a Bukettraube Odelia, Rosé Twena, Moscato Yolanda, Sauvignon Blanc Vivian, Pinotage Dawn, Merlot June and Cabernet Sauvignon Carol.
That same year, Kleynhans took the Seven Sisters range to the Soweto Wine Festival near Johannesburg. It was the first trade fair she had ever attended. As luck would have it, she met an American importer, Selena Cuffe of Heritage Link Brands, who invited her to present her wines in the US.
It was a tough start. Without an advertising budget to speak of, Kleynhans had to market her wines by doing road shows across the US, garnering customers one by one. It was a tedious strategy, but it paid off over time.
The first container of Seven Sister wines left South Africa in 2007. A year later, Kleynhans shipped four containers. In the third year, she sent nine. By early 2013, African Roots Wine Brands was selling 110,000 bottles a year in 42 states to supermarkets, wine stores, specialty stores and discounters. Buyers included major chain stores, such as Whole Foods, Super Value and Disneyworld.
“Over the years, we managed to become an established brand in the US. Our drive is to grow a household brand,” says Kleynhans.
She also landed a four-year contract with American Airlines, which served the Vivian Sauvignon Blanc on all of its flights.
“It was one of the first big business deals we signed. It helped us a lot to stay in the game,” she says.
Ironically, it took Kleynhans longer to enter the wine market in her home country.
“South Africa only woke up after we made a name for ourselves in the US. We’ve been trying for some years to get into the South African market. But it’s so saturated, we struggled to gain entry,” says Kleynhans.
When Walmart bought a 52% stake in South African chain Massmart in mid-2011 for a whopping $1.59 billion, South African antitrust authorities, concerned that the deal would lead to job losses and product domination, obliged the retail giant to set up a $20 million-fund to support small suppliers.
It was through this fund that Kleynhans eventually managed to place Seven Sisters on Massmart’s Makro shelves in South Africa.
A second Walmart development fund, this time aimed at providing $20 billion to small, women-owned suppliers, represented the jackpot. Kleynhans had been supplying Seven Sisters to American retail warehouse chain Sam’s Club, one of Walmart’s sister companies, for a while.
“Walmart was looking for companies all over the world to find suppliers that met the criteria for the fund. The buyer from Sam’s Club hooked us up,” says Kleynhans.
From there, the deal snowballed. In December 2012, Walmart’s global sourcing manager visited Kleynhans at the nine-hectare farm she had just bought in Stellenbosch, one of South Africa’s top wine regions. He invited her to spend a day at Walmart’s headquarters in Arkansas in February last year. A month later, Kleynhans was invited to Walmart’s global supply summit. Shortly thereafter, she sealed the deal.
For Kleynhans, this is just the beginning. She recently planted her own cultivars—a Shiraz and a Chardonnay—which are tended by her brother, John Brutus, a viticulturist. The first bottles of the new label, to be named after her brother, will be sold from a boutique cellar on the estate by 2015.
Kleynhans is also opening a restaurant on the farm. Like all her ventures, the eatery will stay in the family and be managed by all seven sisters.
“It will be run like my mother’s dining room.”   FL

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Stateside  Sisterhood Success

Beer to brew and dragons to slay—it’s the top of the to-do list for South Africa’s small but growing brigade of microbrewers.
Brewers may have the dream of creating the perfect amber liquid and the business savvy to unleash it on the world, but the bureaucratic and legal hurdles to get their product to market are nothing short of a Kafkaesque nightmare.
South Africa has around 90 operational microbreweries at present and dozens more backyard brewers regularly making their appearances at brew-offs and small beer tasting events. But more than staking a claim on local palates, they want to capitalize on the craft beer revolution and become major players.
To brew, to distribute and to sell beer requires licenses and here lurks the untamed, fire-spewing monster. The licensing process is a notoriously clunky and costly process by the time paperwork and the attorney or consultant fees are thrown in. Worst of all, there are no apparent reasons why it should be this way.
Ndumiso Madlala is the founder of MadMead, the company brewing Soweto Gold. Madlala is a former master brewer for South African Breweries (SAB). In 2011, he decided to go it alone to become as he calls it a mini-SAB that is able to target the rising black middle class in Soweto.
“People in townships are getting robbed because they’re not getting to taste the beer styles that craft brewers are putting out there,” says Madlala.
Madlala is a 51% majority shareholder of his company. He had to secure private funding from a Swedish investor and get sponsorship from the Independent Development Corporation (IDC) to plug huge financial gaps before he even got started. It cost in the region of $790,000 to get his brewery on target to brew three million liters a year when they opened for business at the beginning of the year.
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“The license process has cost us R12,000 ($1,184) and we had to use a liquor license consultant too. We had to go through the usual things like tax clearances, police clearances and all of that but we had to wait month after month with no developments,” says Madlala.
Eventually MadMead struck a deal with established microbrewery Nottingham Road in KwaZulu-Natal to piggyback on their license to start brewing.
“You have to secure premises for brewing in a certain area, away from schools and churches and you have to have a lease agreement before you apply, which means you end up paying rent for months and not using it for brewing,” he says.
It is a frustrating wait and a blow to business innovators who are chipping away at a market previously cornered by the giants of SAB and Brandhouse.
Natalie and Stephen Meyer, the co-owners of the Clarens Brewery in the Free State, applied for their license in 2006, which she says may have been a time when licensing was a little easier.
They started out as seasonal home brewers making the most of windfall produce on their cherry and apple farm. When they decided to get into the industry to sell their brew, it cost them around $1,184, including lawyer fees and a four-month wait. When they moved to a more prominent location in the tourist town a few years later they had to reapply for their license. This time it cost them $1,677 and a nine–month wait.
“The typical process is that you have to eventually get a lawyer who starts legal proceedings against the liquor board, giving them 28 days to respond. Only then will the board get into action,” she says.
Meyer is frustrated that as a small business, an entrepreneur and an employer in a sector that ticks many boxes for success, they are not better supported.
“I know guys who have had to wait anything between two and four years and then eventually have to get lawyers on board, which of course costs money, to get a license,” she says.
“It makes no sense,” says Thea Blom, owner of Oakes Brewhouse in Modderfontein, west of Johannesburg.
It is an all-woman microbrewery that is a perfect addition for the historical village within the suburb.
“Craft beers are really on the map right now and we knew this would be a great fit for the village,” says Blom.
But they were forced to brew under court interdict until their license was finally approved, 18 months later.
“With the liquor boards making licensing processes so impossible, it just means more people will simply operate illegally. It’s crazy because the more people you have properly licensed the more people they could have on the tax base and they can audit them anytime,” she says.
Marius Blom of Couzyn Hertzog &amp; Horak attorneys, who does licensing applications in all nine provinces, says the long delays are stifling start-up businesses and tying up the liquor boards in court cases. Costs are ultimately passed onto taxpayers. These numerous failings have left the entire licensing process a sham.
“There is a lack of knowledge of the law; a lack of administration, which can be as basic as proper filing; and a lack of capacity or plain inefficiency,” says Blom of the majority of the provincial boards as well as the National Liquor Authority.
Blom says, in the years after 1994, the National Liquor Authority was decentralized into provincial boards with the intention of making licensing simple and cost effective.  The opposite has happened. He adds that while alcohol has been regarded a dangerous commodity for the last 100 years in need of regulation, 90% of all alcohol sellers in this country today do so illegally in unlicensed taverns and shebeens.
Microbrewers though must still face off the dragon of licensing and are left wondering why they are the ones left to put out fires.

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Hopping Hurdles

Stephan Meyer and his wife, Natalie, sold their computer business to move to Clarens, a quaint tourist town nestled in the foothills of the Rooiberge, in the Free State, South Africa.
In 1999, they bought an apple and cherry orchard of 13,000 trees for the export market. Then Meyer did something unexpected, he became a brewmaster. Since the taps began flowing in December 2006, the Clarens Brewery remains the only microbrewery, or brewpub as he calls it, in the province. Meyer began brewing 450 liters a month; today, he brews 8,000, has a selection of three ciders and six beers and thousands of thirsty customers.
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“It’s a very nice career change,” says Meyer.
But why did they do it?
“We always wanted to come back because I’m from this area. We always spoke about vaporware, where nothing is tangible […] It’s something that doesn’t exist, it’s like an empty hole. We always dealt with computer software, it’s something that you can’t see. Now, everything that we do—we’ve got the farm and we make the beer—you can touch and feel and see,” he says.
At first, Meyer battled to perfect the cider because he used culinary instead of cider apples. So, he joined Worthogs Brew Club and two years later began selling apple, cherry and pineapple cider. Soon after, he became a certified beer judge and began to brew.
“Seven years ago, we got a small 50-liter brewery in town. Currently, we are brewing on an 800-liter system.”
Meyer outgrew the brewery and relocated to a bigger premise on the corner of Clarens town square. In early 2012, he moved to a prime position on Main Street. While his rent doubled, his turnover quadrupled and so Meyer encourages business owners to invest in the location of their business.
“These premises actually pushed our sales up from 2,000 to 8,000 liters a month. We just moved 200 meters, now we’re a lot more visible,” says Meyer.
Today, Clarens Brewery serves 2,500 customers each month, many of whom are attracted by the free tasting. It helps one settle on a favorite—whether it’s the flagship Blonde, with a biscuity aftertaste; the award-winning Red, the amber ale with a fruity aroma; or the Stout with its coffee aftertaste. All this, while watching the brewmaster at work.
Meyer is active in the beer community, he attends craft beer festivals and enters his hand-crafted brews into competitions.
“The last time we won something was at the SA on Tap Festival in Randburg, Johannesburg in March 2012. Our IPA [Indian Pale Ale, 7% alc.] came first. It’s very bitter but it’s quite a balanced beer.”
Business is flowing—now is the time to open a brewery. A small brewery with second-hand or reconditioned stainless steel vessels and equipment can be established for around R300,000 ($27,600), he says.
But just like barley and hops, opportunity needs to be harvested.
“There is a lot of growth in the industry. We were very lucky with the industry that we’re in, but for now anybody that gets into this micro-brewery industry, it’s the right time to do so […] Your profit margins on these types of businesses are very high. You should be able to produce a beer for about 30% of the cost that you sell it for,” he says.
And one needs a sober business plan. Meyer sells directly to his end customer, 50 meters away from where the beer is brewed.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31276 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DSC5816-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC5816-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC5816-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC5816-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DSC5816.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
“Sixty five percent of our sales are bottles that are bought here. The guys come in over the weekend and have two or three beers. When they leave, they take a box. Nobody can take our business away because they can’t take our customers away. And there is no middleman, so we take most of the margin.”
While 95% of his customers are tourists, locals keep the demand high. As artisinal products are becoming popular, he has witnessed a move away from mainstream lagers.
But it’s not easy running a business in a remote town. The brewery uses reserve tanks when there is no water and dumps beer if there is a power outage.
“All the raw materials, our malt, hops, everything, we have to transport here and the transport cost is quite high. All the specialty malts are imported from Germany, we collect them in Johannesburg,” says Meyer.
Regardless of the challenges, his kegs empty—a sign that beer remains the world’s most popular alcoholic beverage.   FL

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Money On Tap In The Slow Lane

David Martin works in the mines during the day; but at night puts away the hard hat and blue prints to tackle his passion with pipes, hops and malt.
Martin, an industrial engineer, his brother Andrew, a communications manager and Grant York, an aeronautical engineer, are trying to live their dream. The three entrepreneurs have opened up their own brewery, SMACK! Republic, a bright new addition to the ballooning craft beer market in South Africa that has already won an award.
All three chipped into the brewery in the hope it will be their lives.
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“Beer has been part of our lives for many years, since late school days. The passion started when we started home brewing. What’s nice about beer is it gives you the opportunity to brew awesome beer in your garage at your house. Wine is a bit more sophisticated and spirits need some distillers. The ease of getting into the hobby is why we developed a love for it,” says Martin.
“We started with kit brews in little plastic fermenters and then moved up to all grain brewing. We then started experimenting and decided to take it to the next level.”
That experimentation makes their beer stand out from the rest. The three are not afraid to use strange ingredients: black pepper, coffee and naartjie; a South African citrus fruit, in their brews.
On the morning of our interview, SMACK! Republic launched their latest offering, a brew of rooibos tea and honey. The flavors may sound odd but the first customer seemed to approve at 10AM.
“This is the perfect breakfast beer,” he remarks with a grin.
Getting to this point has been difficult. The initial cost to set up the brewery and obtain a license took its toll.
“The capital required to start a brewery is generally quite a lot. A lot of the equipment is imported because local suppliers aren’t yet at a stage where they can supply this because it is a fairly new industry on a micro scale,” says Martin.
They also had to vault bureaucratic hurdles. The license delayed their launch by two months.
“The liquor board claim it is a three month turnaround to claim a manufacturer’s license. It took us eight months and that was with an agent who facilitated the process. We had to set up this brewery in a building that was not built for a brewery. We needed to change a few things inside to get through the health inspection and other legal issues.”
Besides the steep expenses and administrative nightmares, the lack of sleep took its toll.
“We opened in March [2013]. Up until recently all three of us had day jobs. We work from 8AM to 5PM, come to the brewery at 6PM and then go home at 2AM. Doing that for six months is hectic. You have to be passionate about beer to do it. It is seven days a week of something that is a business but also a passion at the same time,” says Martin.
As of September, Martin’s brother, Andrew, started working fulltime. This has taken a lot of the pressure off as he can now brew during office hours. It allows the other two to focus on selling beer at their brewery and at events on weekends.
“It is more fun now because we have normal hours during the week,” says Martin.
As fun as it may be, opening a microbrewery in a market that is dominated by South African Breweries (SAB) is risky. A lot of money has been invested into the business and failure will be equivalent to pouring their painstakingly crafted beer down the drain. To avoid this, SMACK! Republic did their homework before opening.
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“We did research in the local market and spoke to other brewers for around 18 months. We then came up with a business plan,” says Martin.
“There is a risk but we based ourselves in an area, in Maboneng, which is very open to craft beer and the people that come here want something different to drink. We get a constant supply of thirsty customers, especially on the weekends.”
The Maboneng Precinct is an arty area, full of galleries, sidewalk cafes and trendy restaurants which attracts the young, the restless and the affluent.
“They want something a little bit left of center and craft beer fits that mold perfectly. They come for a connection with the inner city. This building is over 100 years old. It is old Joburg but with life breathed into it. What we are doing is beer that has been around for thousands of years but we are providing a fresh twist. That paradox is what complements the area quite well.”
The names of their beers are drawn from the inner city: the Braamfontein Brawler; the Maboneng Maverick and the Bree Street Belle. Is it too close to home?
“It won’t affect national sales. It’s a Jozi brand and we are known for that now. We wanted to tie our idea into the city and the urban vibe. People understand that,” says Martin.
The rapid growth of the craft beer scene in South Africa means that consumers are no longer solely drinking the mass-produced SAB products.
“For years SAB have run a monopoly. At the moment they are supporting local craft breweries and supply the local hops and malts at cost. They also support most of the festivals. Craft beer is such a small segment at the moment. They are trying to understand the new beer movement. They had a reputation for being against anything new or small but their attitude has definitely changed,” he says.
Compared to the international trend, SAB does not have to look over their shoulder any time soon.
“At the moment they shouldn’t be worried. If you compare the market in the United States (US) with that in South Africa, the US market has been going for 20 years and only takes a 5% share of the overall market. They have over 2000 breweries,” says Martin.
Roeks Griessel, the organizer of the South African Microbrewers Association and Guild, also thinks that SAB should not be worried.
“It is a different market. We provide beer for a premium market, while SAB cater to the mass market,” he says.
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According to the beer enthusiast, it is the wine farms that need to be concerned. Consumers could now be leaving their bottles of chardonnay in the cellar to gather dust so they can test their palates on the various flavors that craft beers are offering.
How South Africa’s major beverage companies view microbreweries is unclear. Both SAB and Brandhouse were not available for comment.
Is it the perfect time to open a micro-brewery then?
“We are right at the start of the curve. The demand from restaurants, bars and bottle stores is incredible. It’s in line with the craft beer booms around the world. In the next 15 to 20 years there will be a lot of growth,” Martin predicts.
SMACK! Republic are on their way to proving Martin right. In November, they were winners of the best beer from a new brewery at the inaugural South African National Craft Brewers Championship. It shows small beer can go a long way.   FL

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Smack In The Eye Of A Brewing Storm

Two days before last year’s Grammy Awards, the prolific South African jazz musician and activist, Hugh Masekela, arrived in Los Angeles. He had been nominated in the ‘Best World Music Album’ category for Jabulani, a collection of South African wedding songs, some of which are more than a century old.
Although it was the second Grammy nomination of his long career—his song Grazing in the Grass was up for best contemporary pop instrumental in 1969—Masekela didn’t seem too preoccupied with the possibility of winning.
“Awards are not really my thing,” he says with a shrug.
At the time, the 75-year-old artist was content to catch up with his son Sal Masekela, who is best known as a TV host for ESPN’s X Games coverage and the E! Entertainment celebrity gossip show, The Daily 10.
Sal’s latest endeavor was an album of his own, The Sound of Alekesam, a blend of hip-hop, jazz and R&amp;B that wafts over the speakers at his production company office, where he and his father had just completed their first ever photo shoot together.
“The album sounds good, Selema,” Hugh says, slapping his son on the back and calling him by his full name, as he always does.
It’s no small compliment from a musician who has released more than 40 albums and performed with Dizzy Gillespie, The Byrds, Fela Kuti, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Miriam Makeba.
Sal smiles sheepishly and says, “Thanks, man.”
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Sal is 42, and over the course of their relationship there has at times been distance between the two men, both physical and emotional. It was not always easy having a father who was constantly touring, who lived in exile from his homeland for 30 years while speaking out against South Africa’s apartheid, or who once struggled with substance addiction. But their bond is a strong one.
“The great thing about my relationship with my dad is that we’ve always been able to pick up where we left off. We’re two guys running on one track with a baton, and we’ve each sometimes had to go in different ways, but we’re there to hand it to each other,” says Sal.
Today, both father and son find themselves looking forward, while also embracing their roots.
Hugh is committed to restoring African heritage. Born in the town of Witbank, east of Johannesburg, he has always drawn inspiration from the music of his country.
“The music I make, I don’t call it my music. It is based on my township and indigenous rural roots in South Africa. That’s what brought me fame all over the world,” he says.
Hugh first started playing the piano when he was five years old.
“I didn’t go into it for notoriety or fame. I just went into music because I love it,” he says.
At the age of 14, he was given his first trumpet by Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the late British anti-apartheid activist. Hugh began to develop his signature sound in the late 1950s, melding jazz with African influences.
He left South Africa in 1960, aged 21, beginning a 30-year exile. Settling in New York during a golden age of jazz, he attended the Manhattan School of Music and watched legends like Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong firsthand. His first album, Trumpet Africaine, was released in 1963.
In the ensuing decades, Hugh became an international star and an outspoken political voice with songs such as Stimela, Soweto Blues and Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela), which became an anti-apartheid anthem.
Sal was born in 1971 and, like his father, grew up immersed in music.
“My earliest memories of my father are being with him in jazz clubs. Hanging out in studios and being around music and around artists that talked about the world,” he says.
As Hugh divided his time between the United States (US) and Africa, living in Zaire, Liberia and Nigeria, Sal was raised by his mother, Jessie Lapierre, a Haitian immigrant, and his stepfather, Manny Gonzalez.
“I’m a unique first-generation American. I borrow from all of it. I’m lucky in that I get to take the influences and the principles of my different cultures and shape them into who I am as a person,” says Sal.
As a young man, Sal marched to the beat of his own drum. Upon moving from New York to California in 1988, he took up surfing, which sparked his love of action sports. One of the tracks on his album alludes to his individualistic nature and his love of the ocean, as he sings: “I’m a black cowboy riding a dolphin”.
In 1990, after the release of Nelson Mandela, Sal joined his father on his homecoming tour in South Africa.
“It was really crazy. While Mandela had been released, apartheid itself was having a very hard time breaking down. I think people were starting to see that it was going to take a long time to put this car in reverse. There was a lot of violence and it was a tense time,” says Sal.
“It was very fulfilling for me to be able to bring him home and for him to see the other side of his heritage,” Hugh says.
In 2010, the two traveled throughout South Africa during the Fifa World Cup for ESPN’s 10-part video series titled ‘Umlando—Through My Father’s Eyes’.
“I took him to the poorest places in the country, to see the other side of it, and also the beauty of the country. It was just wonderful to watch him take it all in,” says Hugh.
For Sal, it was a different South Africa than the one he had visited previously.
“You could pull up at a red light and there’d be a car full of white people at the red light next to your car, and they might wave to you or smile. That might sound minute but the texture of the way people dealt with each other was different—especially among the younger generation,” he says.
The experience gave him immense hope for what the next 20 or 30 years could be like in South Africa.
When it comes to their own futures and those of Africa, Hugh and Sal are both ambitious and optimistic.
In the past year, Hugh has been busy performing in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the US, Canada, Europe and throughout Africa. He also spent five weeks in Trinidad and Tobago working on an album with Siparia Deltones, a steel band. The album is expected this year on Hugh’s record label, House of Masekela.
Sal has been equally busy covering surfing and mountain biking, writing new songs, and developing Art of Craft, a line of limited-edition T-shirts. The shirts are created in collaboration with artisans and a portion of the proceeds is donated to a charity of each subject’s choosing. Hugh was the first artist to be featured.
Sal was due to return to South Africa in March to ride in the Cape Epic, an 800-kilometer mountain bike. He also had plans to work with the South African surfer Jordy Smith, a good friend who does charity work in Durban to promote the sport to youth.
“I’ve always said that the first surfer of color that will have a real shot at the World Tour is going to come from South Africa,” Sal says during a recent phone call.
His optimism echoed that of his father during their earlier conversation before the Grammys.
“There is no society that has as much diversity and wealth and a reservoir of music and other things than Africa. We’re looking at Africa in its embryonic stage as far as I’m concerned,” says Hugh.
Hugh did not win the Grammy but when you are a legend, who cares?   FL

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Strong and Together in Song

Glistening black feathers of a swan’s tutu gently float to the Russian dance floor as I glide dreamily across the stage in this cold and curious country. I feel the first sight of dark brown skin dancing this Russian classic is met by warmth, as strong as the theater lights, by the Moscow audience.
I arrived at the birthplace of my dreams where I was the first black ballerina in history to perform The Dying Swan to Mother Russia, a ballet first presented in St. Petersburg in 1905. I followed in the glorious and deft footsteps of the legendary Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova. It is a death, choreographed by the great Mikhail Fokine, I relived a hundred times in 40 cities and five time zones, over two months.
Russian ballet impresario Ruslan Nurtdinov invited me to perform in a Russian gala, based around my Dying Swan, titled Black Swan Gala. This dance became the symbol of the new Russian ballet in the early 20th century and is now a symbol of the new African renaissance. I was hoping to change minds and win friends with a powerful performance during a long journey.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31250 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/photo-by-Susanne-Holbaek-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/photo-by-Susanne-Holbaek-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/photo-by-Susanne-Holbaek-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/photo-by-Susanne-Holbaek-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/photo-by-Susanne-Holbaek.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
As an African ballerina on the road, I had to face the difficulties of this marathon, touring the length and breadth of the largest country on Earth. In my 30 years, I have been lucky enough to travel the world with my dancing, but I have never experienced anything like Russia. In a few words: Russia was bitter-sweet. My sense of humor and internal strength pulled me through the tough 20-hour train rides, 15-hour bus rides, constant jet lag, ever-changing casts of dancers and a brick wall-like communication barrier. I was blown away by the complex language. In crucial times of urgency: I could not understand, I could not answer and had to rely on a bizarre form of sign language to get by.
I was as foreign to the Russians as all of Russia was to me. From the first steps off the plane to our first performances in St. Petersburg, to the backwaters of central Russia, everyone looked at me strangely. I was assured by the tour managers that I was not suffering from paranoia and that as a black woman I am an oddity in the eyes of many Russian people. A dedicated, focused, hardworking and steadfast nation at first glance, Russians fulfilled all my pre-conceived stereotypes of a tough country. This all changed once I started socializing with the dancers and different communities during the tour. Warm, loyal and kind-hearted are characteristics that I now associate with a Russian personality. There is a strange comfort in being unfamiliar to the unfamiliar. It leads to cultural exchanges that allow for growth, development and tolerance.
The journey was the fruit of Joburg Ballet, the company I work for. I owe thanks to the CEO, Dirk Badenhorst, who always supports and encourages South Africans to take advantage of these international opportunities. Dirk believes in a term called ballet diplomacy, a concept that is central to the vision of Joburg Ballet. As a black African ballet ambassador I believe that the art of dance acts as a tool to strengthen the ties and friendships between nations. Ballet diplomacy works towards defining dance as a universal language that breaks down borders and boundaries and unites different cultures, languages and backgrounds.
With parts of Russia still fixed within the old fashioned Soviet ideals of the 1963 James Bond movie From Russia With Love, my tour to this magnificent country was certainly a learning curve. I was blessed to perform before thousands of ballet-hungry audiences in a culture that has a rich and traditional love affair with the art form. It took me on a journey back in time to the age of the Russian dynasties of tsars and queens.   FL

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To Russia With Style—From Russia With A Headache

Africa continues to grip New York and is not likely to let go of its tight hold anytime soon. 2013 was an exciting year of celebration and progress for all things Africa and there is no doubt that this will continue well into 2014 and beyond. It has been impressive to hear policymakers, entrepreneurs and media so willing to talk about Africa in a new and different way, so much so that some commentators are now complaining that they are tired of hearing that ‘Africa is rising’. Some people are never pleased!
It is not just in New York, however—other parts of the East Coast, such as Washington D.C., have also been highlighting African progress. In October, I was honored to moderate a panel on African technology and entrepreneurship hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus at their annual Africa Braintrust event. The Braintrust, hosted by Californian congresswoman Karen Bass, who has been deeply passionate about the relationship between Africa and the United States for many years, also featured the presidents of Somalia and Burkina Faso, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Blaise Campaoré respectively.
The annual United Nations General Assembly was also well attended. British fashion designer Ozwald Boateng appeared with a throng of his celebrity friends including actor Jamie Foxx, Nigerian oil tycoon Kola Aluko, millionaire Tony Elumelu, and a number of key people from the African Development Bank. Boateng introduced his latest non-fashion venture, the Made In Africa Foundation, which aims to lift 200 million Africans out of poverty through infrastructure projects and the new Africa50 Fund. They had the privilege of ringing the NASDAQ stock market opening bell to mark the launch of the fund. Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, also paid a visit to the New York Stock Exchange to ring the closing bell, making history as the first Nigerian to do so.
The African diaspora in New York has been getting a lot more attention from the media lately. One of these is Amini Kajunju who is the president and CEO of the Africa-America Institute. She will be honored in 2014 as the Advocate of the Year. And who can forget that yet again an African—Geoffrey Mutai from Kenya—won the New York City Marathon in an incredible time of 2:08:24. In fact, eight of the top 10 placed athletes were from Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. Impressive stuff.
Another New Yorker making waves is Derrick Ashong. The television presenter and musician is the first African with his own show on American network TV. He is an anchor of Latino TV channel Fusion’s new show, where he covers politics, cultural events, the day’s big headlines as well as the entertainment and social media trends that matter most to young Hispanics and millennials. Although he is not covering African topics directly, it is important that someone like him represents the continent in this way.
An exciting arrival for 2014 is the New Africa Centre, based in an upscale part of Harlem. The institute is spearheaded by Mo Ibrahim and his daughter Hadeel and aims to showcase the best of African art and intellect. The Ibrahims will be raising up to $60 million to renovate the center and host an art gallery, museum, theater, policy institute and executive club. It is expected to be a magnet for Africans, Afrophiles and investors. Guests at the opening included Bono, Harry Belafonte and the reverend Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren, musicians Youssou N’Dour and Angélique Kidjo and basketball legend Dikembe Mutombo.
“There is no African institute in this city where we can exhibit our art and culture and hold debates about African issues,” says Hadeel, who is to be the co-chair of the new center’s board.
African business continues to thrive with New York private equity groups, such as Blackstone, KKR and Pinebridge Investments, investing in the continent. Such companies believe that there is much more to come in terms of Africa’s growth and development and that there are huge economic opportunities available. This is a good sign, particularly as the Obama administration and other vested parties desire an increase in foreign direct investment.
Here’s to Africa, onwards and upwards!   FL

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Onwards And Upwards In New York

Sicilian-born Silvio Zaccareo says most Italian recipes only have four or five ingredients.
“The French are probably our prime rivals when it comes to food. But where they use more exotic ingredients in their dishes, we like to keep it simple.”
Silvio, 36, is a civil engineer by trade but a chef by choice. In between risotto and pasta preparations at the Villa Rosa Kempinski’s Lucca Café and Deli Ristorante, he shares an interesting career story spanning 16 years of cooking and in the process reveals some secrets behind the art of Italian cuisine.
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“We take a lot of pride in preparing and enjoying food. It is not just to fill the stomach. It is a way of life.”
Another tip is using ingredients in season. Even though technology makes it easy to find products all year round, it is important to use seasonal vegetables. Silvio explains there is a distinct difference between a tomato harvested from a greenhouse in February and one ripened under the European sun in August.
After a two-year stint at a fine dining fish restaurant, this self-taught chef moved on to a trattoria where he picked up quite a few secret family recipes.
“Italian recipes are selflessly guarded. Most often it’s about the number of ingredients—the original ragù for example only contains beef, bacon, celery, carrots, onions and tomato sauce—and the rest is left to the cooking process.”
At Lucca you will find Silvio easily interacting with patrons and getting their feedback. To him it is important to integrate the local palette to that of authentic Italian dishes.
“With our cooking at Lucca we are trying to get as close as possible to the original Italian kitchen. We don’t want to be just another Italian restaurant abroad,” he says as he rushes off to prepare another order.

Category: Life

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