An in-depth look at investment in some of the continent’s most promising entertainment industries reveals areas of growth, challenges and what the future might hold.



Africa’s heartbeat is in rhythm with the passion, culture and creativity of its people. On a continent of 1.4 billion people according to estimates by the United Nations (UN), there are effectively 1.4 billion stories to tell, each one unique and brimming with potential.



The question is: what is the narrative, and who is telling the story? 



Africa’s prospects in creative industries like art, fashion, film and television, crafts and architecture, among others, are well-documented. An oft-quoted fact comes from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) 2021 report African Film: A Booming Industry. It illustrates the potential in the film and audio-visual industries, which could result in generated revenue of $20 billion per year.



Speaking on the outlook for entertainment and media in Africa over the next few years, Charles Stuart, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) South Africa’s Entertainment and Media Partner, says to FORBES AFRICA:



“We look at consumer spend in terms of what’s covered from a cinema perspective. [It] is growing; it’s just taking longer to recover to where it initially was. Is cinema dead? No, we are not seeing that.”



But where is investment for this forecasted to come from? With the growth of video-on-demand (VOD) and over-the-top (OTT) services, and a burgeoning appetite for authentically African media and content, venture capital (VC) is poised to be at the forefront of development on the continent, for film and television in particular.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center" id="h-show-me-the-money-jerry-maguire-1996">“Show Me The Money” (Jerry Maguire, 1996)</h4>



The African Private Capital Association (AVCA) indicates that 58 private capital investments, with a total reported value of $346 million, were recorded in Africa’s creative industries over the last decade (2012-2022).



“Starting from a low base of only four investments in 2012, private capital investments in Africa’s creative industries more than tripled, reaching a total of 13 in 2022,” says AVCA.



Notably, VC investments attracted the largest share of these. They accounted for about 67% of the total number over the 2012-2022 period, followed by private equity investments at 33%.



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:36% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="429" height="522" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-59059 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-1.png 429w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-1-247x300.png 247w" sizes="(max-width: 429px) 100vw, 429px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
“WE LOOK AT CONSUMER SPEND IN TERMS OF WHAT’S COVERED FROM A CINEMA PERSPECTIVE. [IT] IS GROWING…
<cite>Charles Stuart, Entertainment and Media Partner, PwC South Africa</cite></blockquote>
</div></div>



“These investments spanned various sectors, including the development of online gaming platforms, music and video streaming developers, operators of music websites, live broadcasting, film streaming platforms, providers of advertising and marketing services, and clothing designers, among others,” says AVCA.



Jeff Schlapinski, Managing Director, Research, at non-profit, independent membership organization, Global Private Capital Association (GPCA), echoes these sentiments. 



“Africa’s VC investments in media and entertainment companies reached $31.2 million across six rounds in 2022, a new record in terms of deal value.”



However, Schlapinski notes that investments into this sector have, historically, represented a very small percentage of investment activity in Africa’s venture ecosystem (~1% of the $2.75 billion invested in VC in Africa in 2022, according to GPCA).



“The significant growth of the venture capital asset class in recent years, along with the increased allocation of capital towards technology or technology-enabled businesses, has contributed to the growth of investments in this sector as well,” says AVCA.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">Economies In The Spotlight</h4>



According to AVCA, the increase in the number of investments in Africa’s creative industries strongly indicates investors’ increasing interest and recognition of the sector’s potential. A handful of countries attracted the biggest chunk of that investment over the 10-year period (2012-2022).



“In terms of their geographic distribution, South Africa has attracted the largest share of private capital investments in Africa’s creative industries at 24%.” Following South Africa is Egypt, accounting for 14% of these investments. The country has also emerged as a significant technology hub on the continent in recent years.



“Nigeria and Kenya, two of Africa’s largest private capital markets, have each accounted for 10% of these investments,” says AVCA. Speaking on 2022, in particular, Schlapinski notes that the markets that led VC investments in media and entertainment – in terms of deal value – were South Africa with $22.5 million, Nigeria with $5.7 million and Egypt at $2 million.



They represent three of the four most active countries for overall VC investment with Kenya rounding off the top four.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">The Redefinition Of Main ‘Stream’</h4>



Regarding three of sub-Saharan Africa’s emerging economies, namely South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, streaming service, Netflix, released its Socio-Economic Impact Report earlier this year, where it reveals its impact since entering the market.



Over the 2016–2022 period, it invested $175 million in content and in the overall creative environment in these countries specifically.



South Africa received the bulk of this investment, accounting for at least $125 million. In addition to that, over the same period, it invested in upwards of 425 licensed titles in these economies, further opening up the market to a host of proudly African films and television series.



Expanding on PwC’s outlook for Africa, Stuart says that success for OTTs necessitates an understanding of the type of content you put out there.



“You can have a wonderful distribution platform [but] if you’ve got nothing good to show – which is part of cinemas’ challenges over the last while; some of those big titles and also the lack of big titles has worn out in terms of what we’re seeing.”



He emphasizes the fact that content is always going to be king.



“Coming back to Africa, the culture and the richness and the heritage that we have, if you drive around, you’ve got Shaka [iLembe], there’s Rosemary’s Hitlist (both documentary series) advertised on billboards. You’re seeing the importance of local content to the success of your streaming platforms. Initially, when a Netflix entered Africa, it didn’t do really well. All it was doing is, ‘here’s the international content’. People were familiar with it but we like our African stories as well,” says Stuart.



With streaming platforms, the cost base is mostly fixed, so, in reality, he says that it’s the subscriber base that drives the growth.



“How do you really translate things into profit? It’s getting more people to subscribe to your service. What they were lacking a lot in the early days was this local content – that really resonated with it. What many of the streamers have learned is that it is about finding that balance between your international content, supplemented with your local content. When you look at a lot of the communication coming out of Apple, Netflix, Amazon, there’s continued communication around the fact that they are investing in local content.”



Stuart adds, “There’s still opportunity for your local players but it’s not an easy industry. For every bit of content that ends up on Netflix, there’s probably 10 pieces of content that doesn’t end up on Netflix.”



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">A Continent Up For The Challenge</h4>



The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) recently took an in-depth look at the continent’s Culture and Creative Industries (CCIs) in its African Trade Report 2022: Leveraging the Power of Culture and Creative Industries for Accelerated Structural Transformation in the AfCFTA Era.



It noted that some of the obstacles hindering the growth of CCIs include policy frameworks, finance, infrastructure, intellectual property rights, standards and norms in the area of cross-border trade, accurate data, language barriers, colonial legacy and an extroverted model.



Furthermore, it states that “a positive outcome of the pandemic has been the necessitated shift to digital solutions and online streaming, which has helped boost the performance and resilience of creative industries underpinned by digital models and platforms”.



While Africa does have its fair share of challenges, PwC’s Africa outlook for 2023-2027, which is expected to be released in September, sheds light on infrastructure investments, particularly in the telco space, which has a fundamental impact on streaming platforms, data consumption, and the growth of mobile gaming on the continent.



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:39% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="333" height="420" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-59060 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-2.jpg 333w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/venture-capital-2-238x300.jpg 238w" sizes="(max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
“AFRICA’S VC INVESTMENTS IN MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT COMPANIES REACHED $31.2 MILLION ACROSS SIX ROUNDS IN 2022, A NEW RECORD IN TERMS OF DEAL VALUE.”
<cite>—Jeff Schlapinski, Managing Director, Research, GPCA</cite></blockquote>
</div></div>



“For the first time, in this year’s entertainment and media outlook, there’s a telco outlook that has gone with it. One of the aspects that has been covered as part of that telco outlook this year is telco capex spend – how much are the telcos actually looking to spend from a capex perspective in the various markets,” says Stuart.



A glance at the numbers in the assurance, tax and advisory services provider’s Perspectives from the Global Entertainment &amp; Media Outlook 2023–2027: Resetting expectations, refocusing inward and recharging growth for the three aforementioned sub-Saharan African regions seems to indicate an appetite for investment. This includes the convergence of the creative and technology industries.



“When we look at capex spend – and there is some further breakdown in terms of broadband, mobile broadband – in Kenya in 2022, there was $470 million worth of spend in the capex space and that’s going to grow each year at around 2.2%. By 2027, telcos are forecast to be spending around $520 million on their capex infrastructure in Kenya. The vast majority of that – about 85% – is going to be in the mobile space. That probably comes as no surprise given the strong mobile- first characteristics that the market has.”



Stuart adds: “Nigeria is going to be spending more than three times that, so almost $2 billion by 2027. There is a lot of investment in Nigeria. You’ve got your big players – Glo, MTN – they’ve been spending in terms of upgrading the network. They’re already sitting at about



$1.8 billion and it’s going to be a bit above and below that over the forecast period; fairly consistent with that level. Again, the vast majority of that is sitting in the mobile space. South Africa is spending $1.6 billion and that’s actually going to drop a little bit over the forecast period. It makes sense in a way because a lot of the 5G stuff is already in progress. There’s a lot of spend happening at the moment but over time, that does mean it will slow down.”



Data consumption is expected to continue its increase, leaving telcos with solutions to find from an economic and infrastructure perspective. “The challenge that telcos and, particularly, the content providers have is the monetization of that because [it’s] very expensive to upgrade this. There’s obviously downward pressure on data prices but money needed to be spent to upgrade the infrastructure to cater for the increasingly data-heavy world that we live in.



About 80% of data consumption is sitting in the video space, and there are various other categories around communications, music etc. Does it mean that people are watching more than listening to music? Not necessarily. Video [is] just much more heavy from a data usage perspective,” says Stuart.



<h4 class="wp-block-heading has-text-align-center">African, Tech Savvy &amp; Proud</h4>



Another notable point in the report is the impact of the continent’s youth on the growth of the mobile gaming sector.



“The fastest growing segment of video games we’re seeing is in what we call casual and social gaming. That’s your Candy Crush, it’s mobile games that people either play on a free-to-play model or ‘freemium’ where it’s free to start but then you might start paying for things down the line. A lot of that is also funded potentially through advertising that appears in those games so that’s where a lot of that growth is coming from,” says Stuart.



These developments have also opened up an emerging avenue in the cinema space and he adds that this could create opportunities in emerging economies that are primarily tech and mobile-focused.



“Video games are seen as one of the access points to the youth. [They] engage in it and we’re seeing things expanding. During Covid, the Fortnite platform, which people access from a video games’ perspective was used to host music concerts – Travis [Scott], I think, was who appeared on the Fortnite platform and had thousands and thousands of people watching his show, whereas you previously wouldn’t have seen it. There’s a bit of multi- functionality within the video games space.



“What we are seeing in the cinema space is interesting. We’ve always had, traditionally, other sorts of areas like Lego, and then you’ve got Lego: The Movie. We are now starting to see video games that have movie titles and movie franchises attached to them. Why? Because you’ve got this audience that’s already engaged with your content in the video games space and how do you try and stay engaged with them but in a different media format? It could be a series on OTT or it could be an actual big screen film. Maybe that’s some sort of element of opportunity within Kenya and Nigeria – as video games continues to grow, that could help to spur some growth as that content is repackaged into the cinema space,” Stuart concludes.

singer on stage with crowd reaching for him

Where Does Venture Capital Feature In Africa’s Entertainment Sector?

Nicola Kavhu is serving up a new menu of realities and possibilities in the 21st century African diet, promoting healthy eating while respecting and protecting the creatures that share our planet.



BY ALASTAIR HAGGER



AFRICANS LOVE THEIR MEAT. AT LEAST that’s the reductive, persistent narrative, even when the data tells a more complicated story: according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), average meat consumption in African countries per capita is around 20kg annually, compared to approximately 70kg in South America, Europe and the United States, and a staggering 100kg or more in Australia. On a planet where the mass of animals raised for slaughter outweighs wildlife by a factor of 15 to 1, associated FAO data also reminds us of the environmental impact of these industries and the related threat to the ecosystems of developing countries: meat and dairy production now accounts for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. One young African chef is serving up an appetizing alternative: a new menu of realities and possibilities in the 21st century African diet, a way of promoting healthy eating while respecting and protecting the creatures that share our world. Nicola Kavhu, aka Chef Cola, is the creator and owner of African Vegan on a Budget, a brand based in Zimbabwe and South Africa that “focuses on spreading the word on veganism through entrepreneurial projects, collaborations and content creation”.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Akashinga-rangers-with-Chef-Cola-photograph-by-Kim-Butts-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50399" width="709" height="473" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Akashinga-rangers-with-Chef-Cola-photograph-by-Kim-Butts-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Akashinga-rangers-with-Chef-Cola-photograph-by-Kim-Butts-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Akashinga-rangers-with-Chef-Cola-photograph-by-Kim-Butts-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Akashinga-rangers-with-Chef-Cola-photograph-by-Kim-Butts-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Akashinga-rangers-with-Chef-Cola-photograph-by-Kim-Butts-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 709px) 100vw, 709px" /></figure></div>



A Zimbabwean raised in the heart of New York – “my palate danced when I was growing up!” – Cola then trained at the renowned PLANT café in Cape Town, South Africa, where she rose to become head chef before striking out on her own to create African Vegan on a Budget in 2016.



“The idea was to actively promote the reality that people can thrive on a healthy plant-based diet on a budget,” she says. “To prove that a nutritious plant-based meal could feed an average family for less. Over three years, I repeatedly showcased this by hosting dinners in Harare and Cape Town for twenty to thirty people, with three courses and dessert, on a budget of between two and three hundred US dollars. This became my business model. It is about unlearning and re-educating people, especially about their myths and beliefs when it comes to veganism.”



The Instagram-nourished success of these suppers caught the attention of Damien Mander, founder of the International Anti-Poaching Foundation (IAPF), and its all-female vegan anti-poaching unit Akashinga (‘The Brave Ones’).



Cola and Mander subsequently established the Back to Black Roots Kitchen and Garden, which provides three vegan meals a day to over 170 rangers stationed in the IAPF camp in Nyamakati, Zimbabwe. 



“So first day, walking into the kitchen, change was not really wanted,” Cola says. “But I didn’t give up. It took me about a year and a half to balance the reason why I was there as a trained chef, and the reason why I was there for them. Our job is to fuel the rangers so that they are able to do their job effectively. They prefer eating indigenous ingredients, so I made an effort to find out what ingredients are available in their community at that particular season, and made sure we incorporate that into their diet.” This patience and co-operative vision is beginning to pay dividends, and developing into a rubric that similar organizations might be encouraged to emulate. 



“We have a lot of work to do yet, but we’re getting there,” she says. “I have a team of six chefs, all trained by African Vegan on a Budget on how to prepare plant-based nutritious meals. The project we are creating is a business model I feel you should follow if you are in the anti-poaching industry. It’s contradictory to go and protect animals in the bush the whole day and night and then come back to the camp and eat one.”



Like those of the bulk of the food service industry, her other ambitions have had to become adaptive and agile in this pandemic-ravaged economic climate.



“It’s changed my operations in ways I didn’t realize I would experience at this stage of my business,” she says.



Like those of the bulk of the food service industry, her other ambitions have had to become adaptive and agile in this pandemic-ravaged economic climate. “It’s changed my operations in ways I didn’t realize I would experience at this stage of my business,” she says.



This enforced reflection has also reinforced her determination to value and nurture the team that has joined her on this transformative journey. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chef-Cola-at-work-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50400" width="491" height="327" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chef-Cola-at-work-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chef-Cola-at-work-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chef-Cola-at-work-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chef-Cola-at-work-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Chef-Cola-at-work-2048x1365.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 491px) 100vw, 491px" /></figure></div>



“Operations and plans change every day. I’m literally on my toes, still trying to build a team, and take care of them,” she says. “So this pandemic has taught me to be selfless. In business! That’s so weird!”

Chef Cola photograph 2 by Sasha Musa

The Entrepreneur-Chef On A Mission To Protect The Planet

London-based Ghanaian entrepreneur and computer science specialist Patrick Adom is inducting children into the fascinating world of jigsaw puzzles while teaching them about African culture.



AS COUNTRIES begin to grapple with the second wave of the Coronavirus pandemic, rapid adoption of activities outside the traditional content- streaming platforms is now beginning to gain traction.



The puzzles market is one such. Focusing on jigsaw and 3D puzzles as well as board games, it was estimated to be worth a staggering $11.88 billion globally in 2019 and on track to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.6% from 2020 to 2027, according to Grand View Research.



The lockdowns implemented the world over spelled disaster for many who lost their jobs and livelihoods.



But Patrick Adom, a computer science specialist, saw a silver lining. Inspired by his daughter, the IT professional decided to see it as an opportunity and take a chunk of the lucrative puzzles market with his African-inspired creation, Very Puzzled.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large">“Africans are patriotic and want to pass down their heritage to their family. So, our sales have grown..”</blockquote>



Known for its success in improved visual and enhanced cognitive skills, Adom wanted to create a jigsaw concept that not only helped people learn more about Africa and the African diaspora, but also something that was fun and engaging for the whole family.



“I wanted children to be able to also learn without realizing that they are learning anything, and [offer] something the family can do together and start a conversation and use that to do further exploration on their own,” says Adom.



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="alignright size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-50050" width="357" height="237" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Very-Puzzled_9-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 357px) 100vw, 357px" /><figcaption>Photo supplied </figcaption></figure></div>



After graduating from Kingston University in the United Kingdom (UK), where he studied Computer and Information Systems in 2000, Adom continued his further education with an MBA in general management from Liverpool University before working in various roles within the IT industry.



But throughout his career, the entrepreneurial bug which bit him when in secondary school, where he would buy and sell hip-hop posters to his fellow classmates, was always looking for an awakening.



“I saw that there were not a lot of things around my daughter that focused on her cultural heritage and I thought jigsaw puzzles were an innovative route that nobody was doing. I found an illustrator and it so happened that the illustrator had a map of Africa that was very bright and colorful that resonated with me and so I reached out and asked if it could be customized for me.



“They agreed and I paid them and they delivered the customization I wanted. I then looked on a platform called Alibaba and from there, I was able to secure a manufacturer in China. I made 100 pieces to test the market and reached out to black-owned shops in London to generate buzz about the products and also using Instagram and social media to let people know about the product,” says Adom.



His hard work paid off. Very soon, the products were out and people were buying it.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large">“I made 100 pieces to test the market and reached out to black-owned shops in London.”</blockquote>



Now, Adom has his eyes set on raising further investment and funding to expand the company’s unique offering. He began drilling down and creating puzzles for other countries like his hometown Ghana, South Africa, and Jamaica. 



“Africans are patriotic and want to pass down their heritage to their family. So, our sales have grown and we continue to add more stockists to our list and that helps grow the business as well. We reached the bold decision to approach a number of premiership clubs to make their own jigsaw puzzles for them featuring their intellectual property and we got licensing agreements with four premiership clubs so that was a huge success for us,&#8221; says Adom. 



The move comes at a cost as Adom has to pay licensing fee to the clubs, a risky move but one he needs to make to help broaden the appeal to a wider pool of consumers, the key to draw in the ever-elusive tranche of investors who will eventually help his business scale, and he can make his own indelible mark on the map of Africa.

Patrick Adom

The Entrepreneur Who is Piecing Africa Together One Puzzle At a Time

Born in Tanzania, living in South Africa, and dressing the world, Anissa Mpungwe, is difficult to pin down.
In the end, we manage to do it online.
I look for her on Google Maps, and set out to seek her home address, with nothing but the online search tool. I travel with FORBES WOMAN AFRICA’s layout artist Lucy Nkosi. Luckily for us, just outside her home, which we eventually locate, we bump into one of Mpungwe’s two sisters, a student of architecture, leaving for her classes.
She helps us get in touch with the designer and set up an appointment with her at her Kyalami studio in Midrand, north of Johannesburg.
Around Mpungwe is a melange of color and couture, as she shares her story.
<div id="attachment_35909" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35909" class="wp-image-35909 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2691.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Anissa Mpungwe. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
Mpungwe has been in South Africa since she was 10, attending junior school, high school and university in the Rainbow Nation. Until the age of 19, she was just another foreigner in South Africa. 
But her career took off after that.
“After graduating in South Africa, getting my degree in fashion and marketing, I went to do my post- graduation in London. They have a good network there, so you get to work with different spaces and [get enough] work experience for you to know what you want to do; and I didn’t know which part of the fashion industry I wanted to be in. So I had to do all those different [types of] work experiences to know I definitely didn’t want to work for a magazine, [and] definitely not in a factory,” says Mpungwe.
Her career kick-started in South Africa in 2008 after winning the Elle New Talent competition, when she had the opportunity to work with fashion retailer Mr Price (MRP). Thereafter, she showcased her creations at fashion weeks in South Africa; however the biggest jump was in 2010 when she showcased at the prestigious New York Fashion Week in the United States.
“For me, it was an odd jump,” she says.
From being a student overseas, coming back home to South Africa trying to figure out where her career was going, to winning a competition, working with MRP to have her range out and then off to another country representing her home country, Tanzania.
That was in 2010 in New York City that she believes was the year that launched her career and the Loin Cloth &amp; Ashes brand.
Her first store opened in 2012 in Maboneng Precinct, a trendy art hub outside Johannesburg’s Central Business District.
Visitors to her store have included international musicians such as Swedish singer-songwriter Yukimi Nagano from Little Dragon, and American singer-songwriter Amel Larrieux.
She has over the years also had the opportunity to dress American singer-model-actress Solange Knowles for the cover of Elle as well as local South African stars such as Lira, Anele Mdoda, Bridget Masinga, and Simphiwe Dana amongst a slew of other celebrities.
In 2013, Mpungwe won Emerging Designer of the Year Africa awarded by African Fashion International.
She worked with MRP producing ranges reaching countries from Nigeria to Namibia, Botswana and stores across South Africa.
Mpungwe was also chosen to gift one of her designs to former American First Lady Michelle Obama during her visit to South Africa in 2015.
<div id="attachment_35910" style="width: 693px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-35910" class="wp-image-35910 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/TLH_2450.jpg 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />Mpungwe dresses a model with one of her designs. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
“That for me was a very proud moment because of who she is, how she operates as a female. I [received] a little letter from her to frame to put next to the accolades. As much as those things excite me, to be honest with you, I think it is the everyday people that make me feel good about what I do,” she says.
Over the last few years, she has worked with corporate brands such as Maserati, Converse and Nestle among others.
Mpungwe operates out of two studios in South Africa and one in Tanzania employing 17 people.
“It has been great, a good learning curve. I’ve learned a lot, in such a short period. I’ve learned the business of fashion and the construction of clothing, the product itself,” says J K Khoza, one of her fashion interns.
Mpungwe is now sharing her experiences and showcasing her creations in the hope of seeing more young Africans traverse the globe spreading the beauty and bounties of African fashion.

Anissa_2066

Designs For Africa, And Michelle Obama

An art exhibition is a confluence of creative minds and the perfect opportunity to understand the current thinking of a country’s intelligentsia.
Lebohang Kganye and Nandipha Mntambo are two of 13 female artists – from Ethiopia to Egypt to Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa – we meet showcasing their work, at the historic Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg on May 10, for the exhibition, Being her(e): Meditations on African Femininities, examining what it means to be “a female body in contemporary Africa”.
<h2>Searching for mother</h2>
Lebohang Kganye
<div id="attachment_32579" style="width: 296px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32579" class=" wp-image-32579" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Lebohang_Kganye-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="429" />Lebohang Kganye (Photo supplied)</div>
“I am excited to be part of the exhibition, because it is not a show overseas, about Africa, but it is an exhibition in a historical space in Africa. I have no reservations about the future of women in arts across Africa, and this exhibition emphasizes that,” says South African photographer Kganye.
Her first piece of art, B(l)ack to Fairy Tales, in 2011, explored her memories of a fairy tale world by Walt Disney.
“I identified with fairy tale characters – the white skin, long hair, blue eyes, perfect figure&#8230; My black skin and location became an increasing disjuncture with the fantasies I believed in. Hence, I paint myself excessively black for B(l)ack to Fairy Tales”.
For her collection, Kganye uses photographs from her 2013 series, Ke Lefa Laka, dedicated to her mother.
<blockquote>“Her death sparked the need to trace my ancestral roots. I initially began navigating my history through geographic mapping, attempting to trace where my family originated and how we ended up in these different spaces that we all now call home. I visited the different locations where my family lived in South Africa and found old family photo albums.</blockquote>
“I began looking for pieces of my mother in the house. I found many photos and clothes which had always been there but which I had ignored over the years. There she was smiling and posing in these clothes. My re-connection with her became a visual manipulation of ‘her-our’ histories. I began inserting myself into her pictorial narrative by emulating these snaps.
“I would dress in the exact clothes that she was wearing in these 20-year-old photographs and mimic the same poses. This was my way of marrying the two memories; mine and hers. I later developed digital photomontages where I juxtaposed old photographs of my mother retrieved from the family archives with photographs of a ‘present version of her’ – she is me, I am her, and there remains in this commonality so much difference, and so much distance in space and time,” says Kganye.
In 2011, she completed an Advanced Photography course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, where she displays her self-portraits. She is now busy with a new collection of photographs, Reconstruction Of A Family.
<h2>The Cowhide Chick</h2>
Nandipha Mntambo
<div id="attachment_32580" style="width: 296px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32580" class="wp-image-32580" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Nandipha-profile-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="429" />Nandipha Mntambo (Photo supplied)</div>
It’s a gloomy day in Johannesburg when we meet with South African sculptor, photographer and videographer Nandipha Mntambo at her apartment-cum-studio in New Doornfontein but around her are bursts of color. Mntambo is surrounded by her paintings and sculptures. Art has always been in her blood.
Mntambo was born in Swaziland and grew up in South Africa. She graduated with a master’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town (UCT), in 2007. Her father was a bishop, so it was a nomadic childhood.
“We moved around the country because of my father’s job and at that time it was still under apartheid because of the neighborhood that we lived in there were certain schools that didn’t accept me so I ended up studying at a Jewish school, then a Catholic and a Methodist school, the different cultures and religion had an influence on how I deal with things,” she says.
Mntambo, 35, wanted to study forensics pathology but couldn’t deal with dead bodies.
“I wanted to be a scientist; the Stellenbosch University had a good department and I was even job-shadowing but then I thought seeing dead people every day wouldn’t necessarily be the best thing for me.
“Luckily, I had a portfolio from high school, I sent it to UCT and then they accepted me into their art program. At the time, I didn’t imagine I would be a full-time practising artist. I was just happy to create work and learn more about art history,” says Mntambo.
In her work, Mntambo focuses on the human body and the organic nature of identity, using natural materials and experimenting with sculptures moulded from cowhide. For this, she is known as the ‘cowhide chick’.
She uses her own body as the mould for these sculptures and does not intend to make statements about femininity.
<blockquote>“One of the challenges I’ve had was to have a language that would help me explain to somebody that because I am a black female within a particular context, the issues of lobola, women, cows and culture are there but it’s not what my work is about,” she says.</blockquote>
One of Mntambo’s favorite materials is the skin of the cow. Her art works explore the similarities and differences between animals and humans; men and women, and attraction and repulsion.
“I was really interested in mythology when I first started and the fact that throughout many civilizations there are stories of animals and humans and how they inter-relate.”
The job wasn’t always easy.
“I work with organic material that gets insects and had to deal with cow fat. Because at first I didn’t understand the material enough, it felt like a bit of self-punishment; dealing with flies and losing studio mates. There was also a time when finances were a problem and the work wasn’t selling,” says Mntambo.
“In South Africa, we have few female black artists and sculptures. It took a long time to be accepted in certain circles in terms of how people interpret my work, and how they view me. You’re not allowed to exist as just as an artist or sculpture, you exist as a black female artist, so there all these preconceived ideas that people either put on you or their interpretation of the work. There are also strange limitations that people put on you,” she says.

The Future Of African Women In Art

African literature cannot be completely told without a mention of one Can Themba. This was the kind of journalist he was. In defiance of racist laws, Themba attended white church services; he was yanked out of church, beaten and arrested for trespassing.
Canodoise ‘Can’ Themba was born in 1924 in Marabastad, a township outside Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa. Themba wrote for the South African black magazine called Drum, in Johannesburg, in the 50s, a publication that spawned a generation of talented young black journalists. Because of his man-about-town manner Themba was popular among thugs and educated alike in Sophiatown, the now defunct suburb where both black and white lived. Themba called his abode, at 111 Ray Street, the House of Truth where his friends gathered to carouse and debate. They called him the ‘shebeen intellectual’.
Essop Patel, the late South African judge and poet, wrote about Themba’s house of truth and drink in a book he edited, The World of Nat Nakasa. Nakasa, a Harvard graduate who later died in exile in America, was Themba’s colleague from Durban; Themba welcomed him to Johannesburg.
“For those with the Karamazovian lifestyle led by Can Themba and his ‘pards’ in a room called the ‘House of Truth’ in Sophiatown, Nat’s initiation must have looked like leading a lamb to the slaughter-block. The curious and interesting thing is that while Nat conducted himself as something of a dilettante from the word go, there was plainly nothing bogus about him. He cheerfully sank into the Bohemian life with Can Themba and his crew in Sophiatown and later drifted into the twilight world of ‘mixed gatherings’ and ‘mixed parties’ in Hillbrow,” writes Patel.
Siphiwo Mahala, who has never touched a drink, is a scholar of Themba’s work and African literature. He wrote a new play about Themba, along with veteran actor Sello Maake kaNcube. He of all people knows that Themba would have chuckled at the thought of a teetotaller writing play about his life half a century after his death.
Last winter, Mahala premiered the bio-play The House of Truth at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Maake kaNcube depicts the little known story of talks Themba had with Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu while they were students at the University of Fort Hare – a cauldron of African nationalism, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. The politicians asked him to rally his journalism colleagues behind their movement, the African National Congress, but Themba made it clear he would choose alcohol over politics.
“I am a student of African literature. I remember distinctly when I first encountered Can Themba it was obviously his most popular short story – The Suit. I read it from an anthology by different South Africans called To Kill A Man’s Pride. What struck me about the book, until that moment I had not read a book that depicts a township life like I know it. In the same book I read The Music of the Violin by Njabulo Ndebele. I was probably in standard eight or thereabout, around about 1992. Ultimately, when I finished school I wanted to study literature, because when we grew up most of these writers’ work wasn’t available in our school syllabus,” says Mahala.
Mahala’s interest and devotion to the work of Themba was by chance when he was a master’s student in creative writing at the University of the Witwatersrand, in 2002.
“I presented my short story called Mpumi’s Assignment in the creative writing course. During feedback people kept on saying it reminded them of Can Themba’s The Suit. At that point, I wasn’t sure whether to take it as an offense or take credit. Somewhere it felt like they thought I have plagiarized. There’s a scene there where a woman finds an earring that is not hers in their bedroom. So, she asked her husband whose earring this is, he says it’s his and he is trying to be hip. So, she says okay put it on. And this guy happens to be a teacher and is forced to wear the earring to school. So, they took that and associated it with The Suit.”
Mahala reread The Suit to examine the similarities. In the process of reading, he thought the story needed a conclusion.
“We last heard of the adulterous man when he ran away clad only in underwear. That’s where I thought of writing The Suit Continued, which was published in 2002,” says Mahala.
The Suit Continued didn’t only become the introduction of the introverted Mahala in Johannesburg’s literary scene, he made it his academic project, uncovering Can Themba’s oeuvre. It bothered Mahala that the story of Themba was largely told from the time he worked for Drum.
“Now we have established this connection between Siphiwo Mahala and Can Themba. There are so many academic papers and reviews linking us. So, I felt obliged to know better about Can Themba, the person. I spent a lot time with ‘Bra Willie’ Kgositsile who used to regale me with stories of his own upbringing and life in Sophiatown and encounters with Can Themba,” he says.
Mahala, the author of a novel When A Man Cries (2007) and a collection of short stories African Delights (2011), said the late professor and vice chancellor at the University of Fort Hare, Mbulelo Mzamane, challenged him to immerse himself in Themba’s work.
<div id="attachment_31488" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31488" class="wp-image-31488 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Siphiwo-Mahala-172-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Siphiwo-Mahala-172.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Siphiwo-Mahala-172-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Siphiwo-Mahala-172-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Siphiwo-Mahala-172-768x511.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Above: Siphiwo Mahala with actor, Sello Maake kaNcube</div>
“He had been pushing me to go back to school to study towards a PhD on Can Themba. In 2013, he said to me: ‘You already know so much about Can Themba, and chances are, your supervisors wouldn’t know as much you know about Can Themba’,” he recalls.
In 2014, Mahala enrolled for a PhD at the University of South Africa. His research sent him back to where it all started, at the University of Fort Hare, and Grahamstown, where he was born, in the Eastern Cape. From the university Mahala retrieved Themba’s correspondence with the Transvaal Department of Education. Themba, who studied English but wanted to teach, had a long and miserable run-in with the education department. He was refused promotion because he lacked a teacher’s qualification. There’s a rich archive on Themba’s life at The National English Literary Museum in Grahamstown, lying just 20 kilometers from Mahala’s home in Joza township.
“Fortunately, I didn’t struggle so much. Now I am depicting a real character as opposed to crafting a fictional character. I had to reflect on Can Themba’s life as much as possible, this including the kind of music he listened to, his behavior in general. The play goes beyond the carbon character that has been created about Sophiatown. You see Can Themba in love, you see Can Themba as a family man, you see Can Themba frustrated. The issues of his troubles with the education department were never written about. I didn’t have to be creative that much, the creativity was demanded mostly in packaging the story,” says Mahala.
The idea to have the story of Themba in film was hatched in those interactions with the poet and professor of English, Kgositsile. The film A Teacher in the Newsroom features the scholars and writers; Kgositsile, Pitika Ntuli, Don Mattera, Nadine Gordimer, Joe Thloloe, Muxe Nkondo, wife Anne and daughters Morongwa and Yvonne Themba.
Mahala thought it would be unfair to compare Themba to his privileged contemporaries like the prolific Nadine Gordimer, a friend of Themba.
“Nadine in many was ways was privileged as a white person despite identifying herself with the struggles of the black people. The major distinction here is that fact she lived until her nineties, Can Themba died at 43, she had over 30 years to write after Can Themba had died. She could establish herself even further. I think for a man of his talent, his capabilities, his potential wasn’t fully explored.”
The Suit was published in 1963 in the inaugural issue of The Classic, a literary journal founded by Nakasa and Gordimer. Three years later the politically-charged story was banned after the apartheid government declared he was a “statutory communist”.
The following year, Themba died in exile in Swaziland without a book to his name. Thanks to his friendship with Italian catholic priest, Angelo Ciccone, Themba was the first non-priest to be buried at St Joseph’s cemetery in Swaziland.
Playwrights Barney Simon and Mothobi Mutloatse adapted The Suit to theater production which Maake kaNcube performed at Johannesburg Market Theatre at the dawn of democracy. A French adaptation followed in 1999, and the play toured the world between 1999 and 2014. Former President Thabo Mbeki posthumously bestowed Can Themba with the Order of Ikhamanga, in 2006.
The 50th anniversary of Themba’s death will be celebrated with his stage work The Suit, Crepuscule, and The House of Truth, around South Africa.
“I think from 1993, during the South African transitional period, more and more people started knowing about Can Themba. During that period, many of the exile people were coming back and many of them knew Can Themba,” says Mahala.
Mahala had merely expected Maake kaNcube to lend his theater expertise.
“But the wonderful surprise was that he didn’t only like the play but wanted to perform it. So, the full-cast play had to be changed to one-man play per his advice.
“So, when I wrote this, I knew Sello is the real person that feels and knows Can Themba. I have dealt with so many academics and people who are related to Can Themba, but they don’t feel him as much as Sello does,” says Mahala.
“Can Themba, if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be the actor I am now,” says Maake kaNcube.
You can be sure the man himself is raising a glass to Mahala and sees the irony in the playwright teetotal chronicler – wherever he is.

The Literary Bon Viveur  Who Drank,  Fought  and  Wrote  Furiously

African jazz legend Thandi Klaasen saw and sang through it all; many years of hunger, oppression and an acid bomb thrown into her face.
When she surrendered to life, her memorial drew the finest of the last 50 years – many of whom listened to her rich voice as children.
On a chilly afternoon in Johannesburg, a hall of mourners – musicians, politicians, family and supporters of Klaasen – gathered at the Germiston City Hall, to tell her stories. Strangely, there was not even a single tear. It was a hall filled with clapping and laughter.
There were rows of chairs, in the middle front seated the family wearing white t-shirts with Klaasen’s face printed on them. Baroque floral arrangements flanked the stage, and scores of reporters filled the hallway.
Klaasen died of pancreatic cancer on January 15, at the age of 86 after being admitted to Thelle Mogoerane Hospital in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg, on December 9, 2016.
To the world, she was known as a music giant with a golden voice, a sense of humor and Tsotsi Taal, a township slang, the language of Sophiatown, where she was born. To her children, she was a mom who loved sharing her stories.
Her daughter Lorraine, also a musician, took to the podium sporting a hat and black and white brogues. The clothes were her mom’s favorite.
She started her five-minute eulogy by greeting the audience: “Sanibonani, dumelang, hoe gaan dit, hoezit?”, a way that Klaasen greeted people.
“My chest is so tight and it’s like somebody put a rope around my throat,” said Lorraine.
“Music made my mom very happy. It was not about how she sang the songs but how the audience reacted.”
Lorraine likened her mom to a rose that looks pretty, but if not watered, wilts and dies.
“Every time my mom visited me in Canada, I took her to schools, senior citizens’ homes and HIV/AIDS foundations; every place where my mom could speak and inspire people I took my mom and so she became alive. But when we came back home, I noticed she was withering away musically.”
It was the end of a story that began in 1931 when the world was in the throes of depression.
Born to a shoemaker father and a domestic worker mother, Klaasen started her career as a teenager, singing in churches for a handful of coins. She decided to become a singer after seeing a jazz group perform at her school.
Not many knew she was also a tap dancer.
Klaasen knew poverty, apartheid and hardship and poured it into her work.
&nbsp;
“I had no chance to say goodbye to romance
I had no time to leave it all behind
It was the place I knew
Where my dreams came true
Until they broke it down
Sophiatown”
&nbsp;
These are the lyrics from her popular song, Sophiatown, narrating a sad tale of how black people were removed from the cosmopolitan suburb of Johannesburg.
In 1977, the star was attacked with an acid bomb that disfigured her face and put her in hospital for a year. It is said that a rival hired thugs to assault the singer; to this day, no one knows who it was.
Klaasen used to say: “They have burned the face but not the voice.”
Sadly, the great voice is no more.
She was also well-known for her role in the international musical, King Kong, by composer Todd Matshikiza singing alongside great voices, such as Dorothy Masuka, Dolly Rathebe and Miriam Makeba.
Fellow musician Don Mattera, leaning on a stick, described Klaasen as a queen who never needed protection.
With a career that spanned over five decades, she has received a string of awards, including: The Woman of Distinction Award, in Canada in 1999, and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the South African Music Awards.
Many said they’ll remember Klaasen for her humor, feisty personality and conviviality.
“She had the special gift of making wine disappear in seconds,” said Nandi Ndlovu, a granddaughter, as the hall erupted in laughter.
Legendary musician Abigail Kubeka said Klaasen was a lady of style.
“I remember when she was still married to her husband, Lucas; she once told me that ‘hey Abi, I once cooked because Lucas had asked for a mutton curry’, and as you know she used to love her wine, so she cooked this mutton and it happened that a dish cloth fell into the pot and she wasn’t aware. So she dished up for the husband, so as he was eating with a fork, he noticed a dish cloth. He then asked ‘Thandi, what have you cooked?’.”
Her response was “Ag man, Lucas jy het gese jy soek mutton curry (no man, Lucas you said you wanted mutton curry)”, and then Lucas said “ja mutton curry maar die is ‘n dish cloth curry die (yes, mutton curry, but this is a dish cloth curry)”.
“Rest in peace, Thandi, and don’t cook mutton cloth or dish curry again,” Kubeka said, before getting back to her seat next to Masuka.
Kubeka described Klaasen as a courageous woman who stood up in the face of the apartheid regime.
“She was so brave you took her to London and she was Thandiwe all the way you like or not. She was never apologetic about who she was,” she said.
Zanele Dlamini, 38, who played a young Klaasen at the Market Theatre, a tribute to jazz legends, performed Sophiatown.
“When I first heard that she passed away I was hurt a lot. Playing mama Klaasen wasn’t easy but she helped me a lot even though she wasn’t fine health-wise. I last saw her in August, but before her death, I used to communicate with Lorraine, who told me she wasn’t talking anymore. I wanted her to see herself in me. Even though she was sick I wasn’t ready for her death,” said Dlamini.
“She lived her life; a life of tragedy and finally she’s in peace,” said Lorraine.
To these musicians, she lives on; her song will never die.

Thandi.jpg

Farewell To Romance

Africa’s Billionaires

A mother’s love for dressing her two-year-old daughter, Atlegang, in unique African clothing, inspired her to start a business.
Shweshwe Baby Couture is a clothing label offering vibrant outfits for infant boys and girls.
Gugulethu Kgongoane, a former digital and marketing coordinator for various magazines in South Africa, launched the brand with an online collection 14 months after the birth of her first child.
The 27-year-old realized she didn’t fit into the 9AM to 5PM work routine, so was even more determined to launch her business.
“When I started, I had about $221 start-up capital in hand and made a conscious decision to re-invest the money I got back [from her previous job] into the business. Our vision is to create a global fashion brand that will inspire the confidence, creativity and self-belief of children growing up and living in diverse, global cultures,” says Kgongoane.
The budding entrepreneur admits success for her means being able to wake up and go to bed feeling fulfilled, challenged and inspired.
“I admire a businesswoman who has faith and understands that while life can be hard at the best of times, faith is the knowledge that things will get better.
“It’s about taking the next step when you can’t see the entire staircase,” says Kgongoane.
The Shweshwe collection includes the Atli Dress named after her daughter and the versatile peplum set that can be worn with other items.
Kgongoane will prioritize innovation, and Shweshwe Baby Couture will be known for playing a role in the progression of kids’ wear.
Innovation certainly came in handy for Kgongoane when she decided to turn the simple activity of dressing up a toddler into a full-time business.

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Africa On A Bib

Where would we be without globalization? What if media was restricted to reporting within its own national boundaries? What if we all lived in isolation? It’s a scary picture and one where humanity would have not progressed as broadly as it has.
To fellow African entrepreneurs, I want to say one thing: the more you are exposed to, the bigger you can dream.
Industrialization progressed by further developing what had been done before. Only after working with renowned inventor Thomas Edison, could Nikola Tesla go on to create his own inventions.
Andrew Carnegie worked under the leading businessman, Thomas A. Scott. This mentorship allowed Carnegie to define an era by starting a generation of industrialists, pioneering the philanthropic movement, and becoming an epitome of self-development.
The key word here is exposure.
There are countless occasions where entrepreneurs only discovered their flair by observing other entrepreneurs or studying companies that transformed industries. Some even became competitors of their former employers.
Adrian Gore, the Founder of Discovery Holdings, was exposed to the dealings of the insurance sector early in his career. He worked for Liberty Life but resigned to build his own insurance company. Today, Discovery is the leading medical insurance company in South Africa.
Isn’t it surprising that many companies were started by entrepreneurs who thought they could do it better? Deciding to improve something can shape your destiny. Decisions like these act as the force that pushes us on in our lives.
Look at the former employees of PayPal – today known as the PayPal Mafia. After leaving the famous tech company, these individuals went on to found and fund other mammoth companies like LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Tesla, SpaceX and they are not finished. At the moment, they are investing in Artificial Intelligence.
These gentlemen were exposed to a revolutionary business and they now all share a drive to change the world as we know it to a better world, one that they see in their minds.
Exposure can give you something other than experience, it can also get you through certain doors that were previously shut. Let’s look at two entrepreneurs; both are looking to seal separate deals. Entrepreneur X closes a $1.8 billion deal, while entrepreneur Y gets a $274,000 deal.
Both worked tirelessly to get these deals but the rewards are not the same. It is likely that entrepreneur X has been exposed to certain levels, while entrepreneur Y was operating independently. They might have both known about the $1.8 billion deal, but knowing about it does not mean you have access to it. You need to run in certain circles to get exposed to deals that involve other entrepreneurs in those circles.
What led Aliko Dangote to manufacturing? While trading commodities, he took note of the huge market in Nigeria and decided it was better to manufacture what he was importing.
Before founding Apple, a 12-year-old Steve Jobs landed a summer job at HP and the rest is history. It is this type of exposure that allows entrepreneurs to gravitate towards their destinies.
If you look at the rain, you will never plant. Get out there; attend conferences, travel to various countries, network with successful business leaders and read as much as you can. Whatever you are exposed to can only broaden your current view on the world around you.
By exposing yourself, you also expose your company to other markets and greater opportunities.
You can’t afford to stand idly by and wait for everything to fall in place. Business, and life, is a fight for territory – the moment you stop fighting for what you want, is the moment you will have lost.

Nothing was Achieved  by Being Idle

They say ideas can strike at any moment. For South African Robyn Smith it was a London beauty store that inspired her to start a R41–million ($3-million) online African business.
“I was looking to buy a night cream for myself. I’ve got a background in marketing, so I didn’t want to be duped into buying the best creative agency advertising it; I wanted to buy the best product.”
“It was the first time I started looking at the ingredients’ list to find that the ‘natural night creams’ that I was picking up didn’t have a single botanical name in the listing. Some didn’t even have ingredient lists.”
So Smith founded her own, called Faithful to Nature, a South African online health shop. It sells anything from lipstick and underwear to spices and chocolates; so long as they are natural, organic and ethically sound.
“When you’ve got an infant industry like this it’s frustrating on the one hand because you are dealing with so many teething issues and on the other it’s exciting because there is so much opportunity,” she says.
Few people would have heard about ethical consumerism when Smith started her business. But, eco-friendly alternatives are on the rise.
“When I started in 2007, there was this misnomer that if a product contained aloe vera it was natural and organic. It didn’t matter what it was preserved with. There was a completely wrong idea on what actually constituted a natural organic product.
“When I got back to South African soil, and started looking for natural and organic stuff on the shelf, I realized there was no structure to the industry at all.”
Right up until 2012, Smith felt like she was chasing shadows, she calls them pink fluffy clouds. She was R2.5 million ($184,000) in debt; experts told her to run for the hills. She also faced divorce.
“When we got divorced, I had a 16-month-old baby, I didn’t own a car, I didn’t own a house, I had a business that was millions of rand in debt. My family couldn’t financially back me. My parents actually took a R500,000 ($37,000) mortgage on the house to keep the business going.”
“I didn’t have a choice but to turn the business into a profitable enterprise.”
Now, Smith is reaping the rewards of hundreds of hours spent scrutinizing the ingredient labels on products and ignoring the naysayers.
“I believe in 10 years, it’s going to be, you go and buy me a shaving cream and it will be organic, it’s a no-brainer. Once you start using natural organic products, you can’t go back.”
Smith’s ticket to success has been strict quality control. If new research shows that a product isn’t safe, she has to be brave enough to take it off the shelf, even if it’s a best-seller.
“I always had a very strong ethical compass. Even at school, I was always getting into trouble for being outspoken on the right thing. It didn’t necessarily make me quite popular,” says Smith.
“Ingredient integrity isn’t a static product. As more interest grows, more research is done on it.”
Smith’s warehouse can take 400 orders per day and delivers across the country. So determined is she to keep the company environmentally friendly, she reuses packaging from suppliers for her own customers.
“You can imagine; there is a huge amount of packaging coming into the business. Sometimes we will send out an order in a box that was actually used to bring in stock. So, it isn’t this beautifully branded Faithful to Nature box, but it’s the right thing to do. On the box we will write ‘reused box, please recycle me because I want to be in a bag next time’.”
With stock lining the rafters of her warehouse, and packages going out by the truckload, Smith is going to be a busy bee, the naturalists would be happy to let her buzz.

Robyn-Smith_JC-2-of-5

Back To Nature: Why Even Lipstick And Shaving Cream Should Be Organic

South Africa’s renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) with the United States (US) a few months ago seemed to be about local poultry, when in fact negotiations were about a wider range of exports from 39 predominantly sub-Saharan African countries.
All had to meet the criteria of good governance, sound democratic values and protection of property rights. Countries such as Zimbabwe and Swaziland did not make the cut. It also did not go unnoticed that sub-Saharan Africa accounts for around $1.6 trillion of Africa’s $2.4 trillion GDP. AGOA therefore gives the US economic reach into countries where it would ordinarily have no influence.
AGOA is not a gift. As South Africa discovered, its economic strength on the continent does not guarantee its AGOA membership, and the accompanying eligibility to trade at preferential rates with the US. If South Africa did not loosen its stance on the anti-dumping tariffs imposed on chicken imports from the US, it would feel the costs in more lucrative areas, such as motor vehicles and parts, and wine and citrus exports. In the end, South Africa agreed to take 65,000 tons of bone-in chicken imports per annum, free of anti-dumping duties, from the US. Concessions could, however, have been as high as 300,000 tons, threatening an industry in which almost a billion chickens are slaughtered each year for local consumption.
The arrival of 16,000 tons of US chicken, a few weeks ahead of the deadline in mid-March this year, allowed South Africa to retain its preferential access to the world’s biggest market, and benefit from the latest version of AGOA, which was extended until 2025.
The arm wrestle between the US and South Africa may have been prompted by pressures the Americans were facing elsewhere. The dollar was strong at the time and the US needed to find export markets for its chicken. There was also the issue of a trade war looming with its neighbors, Mexico and Canada, over meat-labeling legislation, where the World Trade Organization ruled in favor of these countries being allowed to retaliate with $1 billion in punitive tariffs.
Another plausible reason was Russia imposing its own sanctions on the US in retaliation for economic sanctions it suffered while attempting to Balkanize the Ukraine. With threats to its industry coming in fast and furiously, pressuring South Africa to make the concessions must have seemed an easy option.
With the focus on what concessions the South African poultry industry had to make, it was easy to lose sight of the shortcomings in South Africa’s domestic trade policy. The concessions shed light on the lackluster performance of the manufacturing sector, caused by the political economy tilting left, protectionist trade policy, restrictive regulation, and labor disruption.
The pending Private Security Bill on the local security industry, which could see 51% of US-based companies, like Chubb, G4S and ADT, sold to South African participants, was also a worry, as were plans to limit foreign ownership of property. While the knee-jerk response may have been to assume that greater local ownership translated to black economic empowerment, a more significant interpretation is that no private foreign entity has an equity interest in South Africa’s state defense and protection services, and by extension, neither should they have controlling equity interest in private security establishments.
Land restitution may also fall short of AGOA legislation. The still-to-be promulgated Regulation of Land Holdings Bill will not affect foreign ownership of residential property, but will prohibit ownership of agricultural land, which could instead be leased for between 30 and 50 years. A ceiling on land ownership would be set at 12,000 hectares, regardless of nationality.
The potential overhaul of intellectual property laws, which could impact the pharmaceutical industry, is also concerning. While it makes socio-economic sense to roll out cheap generic drugs to as many South Africans as possible, foreign-owned multi-nationals may see this as an infringement of patents on their own more expensive medication.
Although the controversy surrounding the chicken industry seems to have settled, South Africa is still vulnerable to the vagaries in US trade policy. Should the US feel aggrieved by any of its preferential offerings, they may be withdrawn much quicker than what was allowed under the older version of the agreement. South African policymakers should be more cautious when making decisions, especially those that affect US interests.

Playing Chicken  With The US

You could argue Davison Mudzingwa and Francis Hweshe picked the right business at the wrong time.
“Poor funding, falling numbers in theaters and improving technologies are some of the reasons affecting the film industry in Africa,” says Hweshe.
We share a pizza after the premiere of Lost Tongue, their documentary on a disappearing language of the Kalahari Desert, on a winter evening at The Bioscope, in the Maboneng Precinct, in Johannesburg.
Hweshe and Mudzingwa are all smiles as it sold out and attracted positive comments from the tough film crowd. But the joy of the night fades like the closing credits with thoughts of the rough, hard and unpredictable road ahead.
Their life story is woven into their Lost Tongue film. They too, as second-language English speakers from Zimbabwe, suffer lost language, lost identity, and lost money.
“Funding is difficult to come by and if you wait to get money, you will not make a film. Every filmmaker should be prepared to empty their own pocket,” adds Hweshe.
Mudzingwa, the director, says filmmaking is even riskier than fashion.
“You have to bet on your instincts that people will like it. Most African filmmakers put so much on the art of producing and forget the business element,” he says.
What makes the documentary industry even tougher is that in Africa, where often the best films are made, fewer and fewer are going to the cinema.
“We are making films with universal themes that someone in Afghanistan, Spain and United States can watch,” laments Hweshe.
On this night the documentary was about a subject closer to home.
Lost Tongue was one of the 10 documentaries from around the world screened at the Socially Relevant Film Festival in New York in March. It cost the filmmakers more than $250,000 over three years. They will never get their money back.
The film, a debut feature presented by South African-based Mvura Ya Afrika Productions, explores a story of hope and revival of the ancient and endangered N|uu language of the marginalized Khomani San people of the Kalahari.
“A cultural and spiritual journey reveals the battle through time in the language going extinct. Today, the fight continues with new conflicts against time, with the number of surviving people who can speak the language diminishing,” says Mudzingwa.
Steven Markovitz, film producer and distributer, agrees. He says money is as important as a camera in this business.
“Documentary film is a tough business. There is need to marry sustainability and passion, which is the great approach to this and every other sector.”
Markovitz, who has directed over 100 films in 14 years, says no matter what happens, he will never leave the trade and has handed it down to his 17-year-old son.
“Most people do film for money and not passion, each time you embark on a project you should finance it from scratch.”
He puts the case for more investment.
“The strength of the film industry covers a lot of disciplines and these may include carpentry, accounting, artistry and creative jobs. Film that travels and has impact in the world has a profound effect on the public,” says Markovitz.
Nigeria is an African country seeing a boom in the film industry. It is the third largest national film industry in the world, with estimated annual revenue of $590 million. According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, the film industry’s share of Nigeria’s GDP is at 1.4%.
The problem is, just like Mudzingwa and Hweshe, Nigerian filmmakers are failing to sell beyond Africa. With piracy also taking its toll, fewer and fewer filmmakers are making money.
As long as there are stories to tell, Mudzingwa and Hweshe will keep telling them until their pockets are empty. While many keep complaining that African stories are the domain of outsiders, here are two young African filmmakers telling African stories.
By the end of this year, this African story of the Lost Tongue would have travelled to the United States, South Africa, Tanzania, Canada and Spain.  Lets’ hope it finds its tongue on the international stage.

Get Rich Or Try Dying – Sounds Like A Documentary?

They were led by cavalier gentlemen who believed they could overthrow an African government with 600 men, eight Maxim machine guns and three light artillery pieces. It was a band of brigands, aristocrats, adventurers and opportunists who carried out the so-called Jameson Raid on Johannesburg in December 1895 – one of the greatest botched coups in African history. On July 28, it will be 120 years since their trial ended in London in 1896 where the raiders got a slap on the wrist for trying to jump a country – their leader, Leander Starr Jameson, was one of many who walked free from prison five months later.
FORBES AFRICA looks at what would have been made of the Jameson Raid in the 21st century. For a start, it would have been the cellphone and not the gun as the lethal weapon, according to strategists.
“In some aspects war has never changed. For a start, it’s getting the right amount of men into the right position. Today your first prize would have to be an attack on a digital level,” says Colin Webster, Secretary General of Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA).
By day, Webster is a tax consultant living in Germiston, in the east of Johannesburg. On weekends, he is a three-time World Champion of Ancients Warfare of the International Wargames Federation.
<div id="attachment_5014" style="width: 218px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5014" class="size-medium wp-image-5014" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-463894213-208x300.jpg" alt="" width="208" height="300" />Leander Starr Jameson, Scottish-born South African politician, </div>
“What you would want to do is, like in the Jameson Raid, rely on the chaotic state of affairs between different nationalities. To attack a country you need to create the chaos. For example, in World War Two, the Germans created huge printing presses to create counterfeit currency. The idea was to devalue the British pound.”
“With technology it’s become so much more complicated. You would have to disable the entire country’s electronic infrastructure. A country sitting without its internet, TV and radio, makes it difficult to get information out to different regiments. It’s not impossible because all you need is a couple of electromagnetic pulses (a bomb that will fry your electronics) in the right places.”
Webster’s great grandfather was a commandant at Pilgrim’s Rest, in Limpopo after the South African War.
“I prefer the historical gaming, to computer games like Age of Empires, because it is all interactive with people. There are three different types of wargames that you will play. One is competitive. Two is recreating a battle from history. The third is simulating a battle.”
“Warfare today has become a very different kettle of fish. A lot of it is computerized. Your whole way of conducting a battle is different from the less technological society during the Jameson Raid. You have to realize the ranges of weaponry today far outrange anything that’s previously handled. These days you are able to pinpoint where you are going to fire your shells.”
Another strategist is John Smith, not his real name, an investment analyst living in Johannesburg and a World War Two re-enactor hobbyist since 2012.
“Your main goal is to consolidate your power as quickly as possible. You want to seize the initiative – always attack, always strike first, always keep your opponent reacting instead of planning – and you want to cover as much ground as quickly as possible.”
Winning over the masses, controlling utilities such as water and electricity, and controlling the media are all part and parcel of success, says Smith.
“In the modern world, your most important technology is the media. Mobile phones, social media sites – you must control them. War in the 21st century is not about who has the smartest tank or the lightest assault rifle – Iraqi IEDs and Afghan tank traps and Syrian barrel bombs have proven that. Your most important tech is that which allows you to control the media – and to sell your ideology. Take internet servers offline, hack into television broadcasters, breach government websites or take them offline through DDOS attacks &#8211; that is the tech that will count. Whether your protestors are armed with AK47s or the latest German assault rifles means little when you are losing the media war.”
There was little media back in 1895 when doctor and magistrate-turned-soldier adventurer, Jameson, set off from the small town of Pitsane, just across the now Botswana border on December 29, 1895. The idea was to overthrow the gold-rich Transvaal run by Paul Kruger, the President of the South African Republic (SAR). Jameson banked on the raid triggering an uprising of so-called Uitlanders, foreigners, working in the mines in Johannesburg.
The mainly British Uitlanders outnumbered the Afrikaners two to one, paid taxes and had no vote. The plan was for them to seize the armory in Pretoria as Jameson rode in to Johannesburg.
It all fell apart when Transvaal troops stopped the raid dead in its tracks in Doornkop, 26 kilometers west of Johannesburg. The Transvaal soldiers had tracked the raiders from the minute they crossed the border. Jameson’s men believed, mistakenly, they were safe because they had cut telegraph wires to Pretoria; all they had cut was a fence.
Jameson suffered the ignominy of borrowing a white apron from an old woman as a makeshift flag of truce. The prisoners were sent to Pretoria and then to London for trial, after diplomatic horse trading.
“The Jameson Raid could have worked if it had successfully divided society. The Jameson Raiders were backing on the Uitlanders to support them against the Transvaal government. They were relying on Uitlanders, who were mainly British, however the [Uitlanders] had no intention of supporting the Jameson Raiders as they were quite happy with the SAR,” says Webster.
These days, an attack on a government would be a different story.
“Any battle relies on surprise. It would be extremely difficult today to do a raid on South Africa because of South Africa’s infrastructure&#8230; South Africa has one of the best armies in Africa, you would have to have the backing of a foreign government. That’s not going to happen today. From that point of view South Africa is very safe and secure,” says Webster.
“There are a number of international arms dealing laws and treaties in place, making it difficult for the nefarious plotter to get his hands on weaponry in general. This leaves the darker avenues. Seize existing stockpiles of weaponry from the current government, like the Arab Spring in Libya or Syria, or on the black market. This is usually an expensive and low-quantity proposition, and is better suited for getting niche items like a shoulder-launched anti-air missile for shooting down a civilian airliner than arming large numbers of insurrectionists at a time,” says Smith.
The full force in Jameson’s repercussions were felt in South Africa. Its backer, Cecil John Rhodes, mining magnate and Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, was forced to step down. His British South Africa Company paid £1 million in compensation. Other conspirators were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death; this was commuted to 15 years.
As for Jameson himself, he was sentenced to 15 months and released after five. Eight years later, in 1904, Jameson went on to become the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony. Not a bad outcome for a gentleman convicted of treason who botched a raid to remove an African government. Jameson was buried on a high rock outcrop in the Matobo Hills, near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, a few hundred meters from the right hand of Rhodes. What stories they could tell.

The Havoc Gentlemen Raiders Could Have Caused With A Cellphone

The 2016 European Championship is set to light up the northern hemisphere summer as the continent’s best battle for what is the second biggest prize in world football.
A new, expanded format will see the number of teams compete in France raised from 16 to 24, providing more football for the watching world and more opportunities for players with African roots to shine.
It is a great irony that at the highest level of European football, many teams will rely heavily on players of African descent for success.
Some were born in Africa, while others have ties to the continent through their immigrant parents, but have decided to wear the colors of the country in which they were raised.
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Many were cast into European life when their families fled violence, poverty and famine, and have little or no feeling towards a continent that they have not lived in. But this is not the case for all.
The reality for many players is that the chances of being successful in a World Cup are greater with a European nation, and the financial rewards far outweigh those of competing for an African team.
It has not been an easy decision for many players and some have faced prejudice for it in the land of their birth.
Such has been the success of players of African descent in France that in 2011 reports emerged that a quota of no more than 30% black players would be allowed in academies feeding into the national team. This caused outrage, and was denied by the French Football Federation, but shows the influence of the African player on the European game.
France’s strong ties to West and North Africa make it an obvious leader in this arena, but players of African descent are popping up in the national teams of Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
Veteran French defender Patrice Evra will likely have his international swansong at the Championships on home soil, despite being born in Dakar to a Senegalese father and Cape Verdean mother. He reveals how his decision to play for France, where he spent much of his formative years, made him a target back in Senegal.
“I grew up amid a Senegalese culture at home,” he told reporters. “But we became westernized very quickly and when I had to choose between playing for Senegal or France my father told me to follow my heart.”
“I opted for France, as that was where I had grown up, but I then came in for lots of abuse in Senegal. I was called a monkey who grovels before the white man and labelled a money-obsessed traitor to the nation. But my parents helped me get through it.”
His national teammate, goalkeeper Steve Mandanda, was born in Kinshasa but turned his back on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to play for France.
That, ironically, allowed his brother Parfait, who was born in France and is also a goalkeeper, to play international football for the DRC.
Stade Rennes winger Paul-Georges Ntep is part of the latest generation, seen as a rising star of French football but was born in Cameroon. He moved to Paris at the age of eight to live with an aunt and turned down numerous overtures from the Indomitable Lions to play for them before he was awarded his first French cap last year.
Another player also chased for a long time was Leicester City midfielder N’Golo Kanté, who was born in Paris to Malian parents. He admits he chose France purely for the opportunity to play in the European Championships.
“It’s a chance to play the Euro in France,” he said. “Regarding Mali, for a while, it’s true they contacted me. It was not necessarily an easy choice to make. But I chose the France team.”
It is likely that as much as 60% of France’s squad at Euro 2016 will be made up of players either born in, or with parents from, Africa.
Belgium, who are perhaps the most open of all European nations to immigrants, have seen their national team briefly perched on top of the FIFA World Rankings this year with a meteoric rise on the back of, it’s fair to say, their players of African descent.
Star striker Romelu Lukaku was born in Belgium where his father Roger, a Zaire international, was playing. His brother Jordan also plays for Belgium.
Lukaku’s major rival for a starting place in the Belgium line-up is Christian Benteke, who was born in Kinshasa but whose family fled to Belgium during the reign of Mobutu Sese Seko.
The same can be said for the parents of Vincent Kompany, who, injury-willing, will be leading Belgium at the finals, while Divock Origi, like Benteke a forward at Liverpool, was born in Belgium where his father Mike, a Kenyan international, was playing for KV Oostende.
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Origi had seriously considered a future with Kenya even as his star was on the rise in Europe, but in the end a mixture of factors drove him towards playing for Belgium.
“I remember at that time there was some stand-off between the league and federation. He read about that stuff and it really put him off,” his father Mike told journalists.
“But obviously there were other issues, like playing at the Euros or World Cup for a big national team in Europe.”
“Nevertheless, Divock is a Kenyan with a Belgium passport. He speaks fluent Kiswahili, comes to Kenya often and enjoys Kenyan food the most.”
Tottenham Hotspur youngster Dele Alli, the toast of English football, has a Nigerian father Kenny, who claims his son is actually a prince in the Yoruba tribe that makes up about 20% of the country’s population.
Another young English star, Ross Barkley of Everton, has a Nigerian grandfather and was courted by that country before pinning his colours to the England mast.
Experienced Swiss international Johan Djourou, born in the Ivory Coast, says he feels lucky to have “escaped” playing for an African nation, even if he feels strong roots in the land of his birth.
“When you are in Africa there are a lot more difficulties and I was lucky enough to escape that. Other players like [Ivory Coast internationals] Emmanuel Eboué and Kolo Touré have made it through there but when you are European you have more options.”
Not all players born in Europe have opted to represent countries from that continent though. The likes of Borussia Dortmund star Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon), Yannick Bolasie (DRC) and the toast of European football, Leicester City playmaker Riyad Mahrez (Algeria), have all chosen to represent the land of their parents despite being born outside of those countries.

Tag: African

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA