The words “the medium is the message” coined by Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan seem apt for Nigerian designer Mai Atafo. He truly is the best medium and model of his work.
When we meet him, the always-immaculate Atafo is dressed in a clean cut black suit, white shirt, yellow tie and socks. His minimalist, unpretentious – and rather understated like the man himself – eponymous shop is located in the heart of Victoria Island, Nigeria. He strides in to meet two new clients in search of the perfect bespoke suit. They have come to the right place.
Pieces of clothing featuring traditional Nigerian design mingle with modern eclectic prints on the racks in the open-plan shop floor. The Mai Atafo brand is known for its Savile Row masterpieces. To the uninitiated, Savile Row is a street in central London known for its bespoke tailoring, and Atafo is a Savile Row Training Academy-certified tailor, of both men’s and women’s suits.
After listening to the new clients and their brief, he asks: “Why do you want this style?” An understanding of what the client is looking for sets the premise for the ensuing four weeks that will go into producing a unique, bespoke suit, typically costing anywhere upwards of N200,000 ($1,000). This level of perfection and attention to detail has earned Atafo an enviable reputation amongst his peers in Nigeria’s fashion industry, and beyond.
Fashion had not always been Atafo’s calling. When he was younger, music was his first love. He was told that as a two-year-old, he only walked when he heard music, and resumed his crawling position when it stopped.
“Until I was 10 years old, all I ever wanted was a guitar, but unfortunately my parents never got it for me otherwise I would be making hits instead,” says Atafo.
His dream of becoming “the next Michael Jackson” was not on the tarot cards though. The sixth of seven siblings, he thankfully also grew up with a keen eye for fashion.
“To me it was more important to look good than to eat,” he says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-30959" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Mai8-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mai8-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mai8-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mai8.jpg 387w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-30958" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Mai7-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mai7-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mai7-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Mai7.jpg 387w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-30956" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/MaiA2-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MaiA2-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MaiA2-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MaiA2.jpg 387w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
After acquiring a degree in Agricultural Economics and a master’s degree in Information Systems in the United Kingdom (UK), Atafo decided to stay on in the West. After five years, he decided it was not for him.
“I decided one day that I am more than a statistic, I am more than yet another African looking to make it in the UK, so I took a chance and decided to relocate back home.”
He secured his first job in the research department at British American Tobacco where he stayed for four years after which a stint at Guinness Nigeria PLC followed as an Innovation Manager and then later as brand manager. While at Guinness, Atafo decided to start his fashion career on the side.
And what was Atafo’s trigger?
“My sleeve length is 27 inches which is quite long because the average length is 25 inches, as a result, I struggled to get clothes that fit.”
So he decided to get his own clothes tailored; a practice from secondary school. There was another impetus. A friend was getting married and the groom’s men decided to upstage the bridesmaids. Atafo designed a range of African print-inspired waist coats and matching trousers in lilac and purple that were an instant hit and after replicating the style for five subsequent weddings, Atafo decided to go with his heart and enter fashion, full-throttle.
“I saved money that was equivalent to my one year salary and decided to take the chance. I said to myself, if in one year it doesn’t work, the worst that can happen is I will be a brand manager again.”
That was never to be – he has only worked for himself since.
Five years on, his brand is the recipient of top accolades in the highly-competitive Nigerian fashion industry. Developing the brand was not without challenges though, especially in light of the perception that it is more acceptable to pay higher prices for bespoke pieces made in the West than for those produced locally.
Even though Atafo holds the certificate from London’s elite bespoke tailoring school, he says he still encounters variables of this perception.
“I remember once a customer came to me with a $4,000 Tom Ford suit from the ready-to-wear range. However, the suit was ill-fitting and I was going to charge less than $1,000 to have it tailored and yet the customer complained that the price was way too much.”
Atafo believes it is still a long way before luxury African brands are fully acknowledged. However, he is in no hurry to open up shops abroad. Far from the contrary, Atafo is a proudly Nigerian brand, the name ‘Mai Atafo Inspired’ is born from what influences him the most – his strong Nigerian heritage. He is on a mission to create the first African bespoke brand for the international market, and be a cut above the rest.

MaiA5

The Bespoke Tailor Who Wanted To Be Michael Jackson

Every time a woman earns R89 ($6), a man earns R100 ($7).
That’s right. Seventy years since women joined the workforce en masse, these inequalities are as real, though more insidious, than ever, and the repercussions of this disparity ripple across a woman’s entire lifetime. Payslips serve as benchmarks for future raises and these differences accumulate over time, into the difference it takes to pay back student loans and the amount it’s possible to save for retirement.
The wage gap is also maddeningly ubiquitous. Women in executive positions in South Africa earn 11% less than men, 13% less in management, and an enormous 21% less in professional roles, according to research and consultant firm Mercer.
This difference is set up from childhood.
“Girls are socialized differently,” says Anita Bosch, lead researcher at the Women in the Workplace Research Programme at the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Girls aren’t encouraged to enjoy and be good at Maths and Science, and this, says Bosch, changes their possible career choices.
Donna Rachelson, the author of Play To Win: What Women Can Learn From Men In Business, says that socialization is even more subtle than simply what subjects are taken in school.
“Men learn that games are win or lose, and this attitude is taken into the workplace when it comes to salary negotiations,” says Rachelson.
Yolisa Phahle, the CEO of MNet, comes from the BBC in London, and says that in her international experience, many companies prohibit salary discussions amongst employees and it’s difficult to know where the differential comes in.
“I always felt that men earned more,” says Phahle, “But without the numbers it’s hard to prove, and hard to negotiate.”
Luckily for her, her husband was always a step or two above her on the career ladder, and she had a benchmark when it came to raise negotiations.
However, this is not the norm and asking for a raise is certainly a significant part of the problem.
“The assumption is if I do good work, it’ll be seen and I’ll be rewarded for it,” says Bosch. “But that’s not the case. Companies aren’t benevolent. If you need a raise, you must ask for it.”
Women tend to wait until they’re certain they deserve a promotion before approaching management, whereas men negotiate that raise long before.
“Demand more, don’t sit back and just say thank you,” says Lee-Anne Bac, a director of advisory services at Grant Thornton.
“Women are also penalized for their parental responsibilities,” she adds.
Leaving work early is frowned upon, and yet society expects women to bear the bulk of the burden of parenthood. This leads to what is called the ‘motherhood penalty’ and the ‘fatherhood bonus’.
Aside from career paths thrown offtrack by maternity leave, the possibility that a woman could fall pregnant and that her time could or is taken up by parental responsibilities takes a hefty toll on salaries and career trajectories. The opposite is true for men. Being perceived as the breadwinner gives married fathers a salary bump over their single colleagues. Bac says women need to challenge their organizations, and make their partners your true partner in all aspects.
“My husband and I both get home at 5.30PM, spend time with our child and continue work later that evening,” says Bac.
These inequalities are rooted in a patriarchal past, with a workplace built around men. But with an increasingly large female workforce, it’s essential that change takes place for a healthy economy.
No one thing is going to change the wage parity, and remember, as Rachelson says: “Don’t try to be like a man, just understand how the game is played.”

Anita-formal-portrait

Unequal Pay For Equal Work

It was a hot spring day in the suburb of Westdene with its neat tiny gardens and white-washed fences, in Johannesburg on September 10, 2014. The flowers had blossomed and the streets were filled with color. Palesa Manaleng was happy at home enjoying a hard-earned day off, two weeks after she landed a new job as a junior online journalist.
“I thought let me just stretch my legs out at about 10. I took my bicycle and messaged my friend, Nozuko, telling her I was going to take a quick cycle around and then come to her Spaza shop,” says Manaleng.
It was a snap decision to turn into Monmouth Road. Manaleng thought the steep downhill would help her pick up speed. Monmouth Road was the last place where the 27-year-old would use her legs.
“I tried to brake. They failed. I thought if I go straight I am going to go straight into the UJ stadium wall, but maybe if I turn, I will be able to take the uphill and slow down naturally. I turned too quick. I slammed into the paving and flew into the palisade fencing, head first,” she says.
A neighbor heard her body slam into the fence and came running out. Manaleng kept telling him that she needed to go, she needed to meet Nozuko. Manaleng didn’t understand why the neighbor kept saying they’ll go now, just wait a bit, an ambulance is coming. She was numb and couldn’t see the blood.
“I was conscious the whole entire time. The moment comes in bits and pieces,” says Manaleng. Finally someone called Nozuko.
“I heard my friend giggling, she hadn’t seen me yet.  When she saw me, she looked as if she was about to cry. I said ‘the brakes failed’ then I started laughing,” says Manaleng.
By the time the ambulance arrived, Manaleng’s skull was swelling into her shattered helmet.
“I only started crying when the ambulance moved my body, because the blood was filling up my lung. That’s when I started feeling the pain.”
Manaleng wasn’t in safe hands yet.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30949 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/IMG_4729-300x220.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="220" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_4729-300x220.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_4729-600x439.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_4729-768x563.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_4729.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
As the ambulance rushed to take her to the closest hospital, Helen Joseph, in Johannesburg, they were refused entry. The hospital was full. They had to drive her eight kilometers away to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital instead.
“I was in the emergency room for three days, before they operated on me. I thought it was a day,” says Manaleng.
“Before I went under, my friends and family were told I wouldn’t make it out of the operating room. I wouldn’t survive the operation. When I came out, I came out smiling,” says Manaleng.
For three weeks, Manaleng clung to life.
“I was so high I didn’t know what was going on. After a while, the doctor asked me to wiggle my toes, and I said I am. Wiggle them so I can see them moving. He left the room and came back…he said ‘you are a paraplegic’, I said ‘what does that mean?’ ‘It means you may never walk again’.”
Manaleng had dislocated her T9/T10 spinal column. In laymen terms, her spine was folded like a pretzel.
“It took a while to hit me. Six weeks into being in the hospital. In my mind, I was going to walk. Then I had a spasm and it thought this is it, this doctor is a fool, and here is my leg spasming. I thought my legs were moving. I tried to move it again and I couldn’t. It’s the mind and the legs trying to connect. Your mind is saying to your legs ‘move’, and it can’t. So on its own, your leg just does what it wants. I was so upset,” says Manaleng.
At her side was Nozuko, once again.
“I started crying. Nozuko came in, despite it not being visiting hours; I don’t know how she got in. I said ‘I’m never going to walk. Please make me walk. Why can’t I walk, why can’t they make me walk. They operated on me, I am alive but why can’t I walk. I will never walk Nozuko’.”
Nozuko climbed into the bed hugging Manaleng.
“Once I was done crying she said ‘are you done now? Do you want to live? Then start living. So you can’t walk, so you can’t pee properly, who cares? Just live your life’.”
If surviving with a dislocated spine, two broken ribs, a punctured lung and a head injury was miracle enough, it took Manaleng less than one year to get back on the road.
“The worst 24 hours of my life was when they stopped the morphine. I was cold and then hot. I was itchy; it felt like bugs were crawling all over me. I couldn’t move and curl up. You feel like your stomach wants to fall out but you can’t move. I spent the whole night screaming. I was trying to bargain with the nurses. I was begging.”
Manaleng left rehabilitation on December 31.
And she came out with a dream bigger than most – to compete in the Rio Paralympics.
“I first saw the handcycle on TV. I was watching the 94.7 cycle challenge on TV, when I was in rehab. I told my physiotherapist that I would like to cycle again, but I didn’t know how to without my legs.”
“When I got home, I wrote to all the sponsors of the 94.7…The first handcycle I got onto was a second hand bike from Hilary Lewis, a South African handcyclist champion. She has won championships with it. Now I must up my game.”
“The first day I got to test it out, I was in normal traffic. Cars were stopping. People were staring at me. I was waving at them. I didn’t know what I was doing; I got stuck up on a pavement. I didn’t know how to turn. [Lewis] said just use your hands and go backwards.”
It was like learning to ride all over again for Manaleng, says Peter Motsai, Manaleng’s handcycle trainer.
“It took us three hours for 40 kilometers. On the hill, we had to stop. She didn’t know how to change her gears. The gears work the same as a normal bicycle but Manaleng was driving with one gear only. One gear the whole way. Now, I am struggling to keep up with her,” says Motsai.
On the anniversary of her accident, Manaleng was on the road again. With her second-hand handcycle, she competed with the world’s best at the UCI Para-Cycling Road World Cup in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal.
“When you look at the UCI profile, under H3, I am 14th in the world. I don’t know how it works. But I’d like to find out. Out of 20-30 people. How do I get to number one? I would like to go to the Paralympics. I would like to become a world-class athlete and kick some butt. I’d also like to freelance as a journalist. I do some here and there. I think my heart is set in sports,” she says.
Manaleng is ever the optimist. Not only does she cycle, she also rows. Every day at 6AM, she can be found in the gym weight-lifting. In the afternoon, on the ergo, and in the evening hand-cycling.
When Manaleng isn’t on the road, water or gym, she enjoys reading and listening to old school music, the likes of Michael Jackson and Tracey Chapman. Her musical fandom even goes as far as to naming her bikes after her idols. Her handcycle is named Billie Holiday. The one she crashed in was called Dolly Parton.
“I named the bikes after Billie and Dolly because I enjoy their music, there is a message of heartache and love in their songs and when I ride I feel like I am going through my own journey of heartache and love with every steep hill and downhill I have a different emotion that I share with my bikes.”
The rigors of sport can be demanding but not as much as daily life, she says. Manaleng faces challenges that many disabled people struggle to deal with; the entrances to handicap bathrooms in shopping centers are too small; many buildings don’t have wheelchair-friendly ramps and worst of all are the men who grope her.
“When you’re disabled, men will act as if they own you. I will be pushing up a hill and some guy will come and touch my shoulder and ask me where my husband is. I am trying to get somewhere, if you want to help me up the hill, I am fine with that. But don’t grope me. Don’t have funny comments about where is the real man in my life. [Some men will] stop my wheelchair and demand my number to push me up the hill. It makes me want to punch someone,” she says.
It’s an uphill battle that most would find daunting, Manaleng fights it every inch of the way.
“There were worse things in life than not being able to walk,” she says with a laugh.

IMG_4690

Her Rough Road To Rio

They are regarded the dregs of society, the shunned shadows of the night.
They are sex workers, and South Africa is home to an estimated 153,000 of them. According to a 2013 study by the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), of this total, about 8,000 are men and 6,000 transgender.
Women comprise the clear majority, selling their bodies for a living, often facing abuse, persecution and prosecution for their choice. They want rights too, they say.
Unlike some countries, such as New Zealand, where sex work is legal, in South Africa, it is a criminal offence under the Sexual Offences Act of 1957. Sex workers risk being arrested while working or when running a brothel. The amended Sexual Offences Act of 2007 includes a clause that also criminalizes the clients of sex workers.
Luckily for the sex workers, on August 11 2015, human rights watch group Amnesty International passed a vote to protect the human rights of sex workers. Delegates from around the world adopted a resolution authorizing this policy to be developed and adopted.
In addition, there are organizations such as Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) fighting for the decriminalization of the sex trade and for their work to be treated like any other job.
According to Dianne Massawe of SWEAT, sex workers are not usually arrested as per the Sexual Offences Act because it is hard to enforce. Instead, she says, police use public nuisance bylaws to arrest and fine them.
Sergeant Lloyd Ramovha, spokesperson at the police station in Parkview in Johannesburg, says sex workers are charged with prostitution when caught.
“We arrest them and they appear before a judge. There are different charges, sometimes they pay a fine or are jailed for no more than three years,” he says.
The women say the system is unfair.
“One day I was walking in town and the police stopped me and put me in the van only because they know I am a sex worker. Even though I wasn’t doing my work at the time, they arrested me,” laments Pam*, a sex worker in Johannesburg.
SWEAT wants sex workers to register and pay tax, and the industry to be regulated.
“The right of every South African to choose their trade, occupation or profession, as guaranteed in the Constitution, is denied to sex workers because their work is currently illegal. We are pushing for law reform and bylaws that will work for both sex workers and the government,” says Massawe.
She adds that criminalizing sex work will not remove the sex workers from the street.
“We have instead seen an increase in human rights violations of sex workers, which goes against the moral fabric of society, the Bill of Rights and the South African Constitution.”
Pam agrees, saying they are discriminated by most stakeholders in society, not just the cops.
“When you go to the clinic and you have an STI [Sexually Transmitted Infection], the nurses don’t care. When you go to the police station and tell them you have been raped by a client and want to open a case, sometimes they ask you why you say you have been raped yet you are a sex worker. Most sex workers are scared to go and open cases,” she says.
Nelly*, another sex worker, says police sometimes arrest them for carrying condoms in their bags.
“How can we reduce STIs and HIV if police are taking condoms from us? This means they want us to have unprotected sex.”
Nelly pleads for the government to work with them and decriminalize the sex trade.
“Work is work. I am not hurting anyone. Why is my work different when I am taking care of my family through legit means? Is it better when people are sleeping around for free? All I am doing is feeding my family using what I have, so why is my work different?” she asks.
According to Massawe, when industries are criminalized, criminality links to them.
“I once received a call from a client who said he was at a brothel and he noticed that some of the girls there were underage. Currently, the law criminalizes the client so a lot of underage sex work and other crimes go unreported because people are scared of being arrested,” says Massawe.
“Decriminalizing sex work will give sex workers legal recourse because police target sex workers for free sex and bribery. Right now when you speak back at a police officer you risk being abused, assaulted and being locked up,” she adds.
Addressing the issue of sex work and HIV/AIDS, Massawe says the government must ensure that asking a sex worker for unprotected sex is illegal.
“Sex workers are one of the most marginalized groups in the world, who in most instances face constant risk of discrimination, violence and abuse. Our global movement paved the way for adopting a policy for the protection of the human rights of sex workers, which will help shape Amnesty International’s future work on this important issue,” says Salil Shetty, Secretary General at Amnesty International.
The policy will ensure sex workers around the world benefit from the same legal protection from exploitation, trafficking and violence that everyone else enjoys.
“We recognize that this critical human rights issue is hugely complex and that is why we have addressed this issue from the perspective of international human rights standards. We also consulted with our global movement to take on board different views from around the world,” he says.
Other organizations supporting the decriminalization of sex work include the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, Human Rights Watch and the Commission for Gender Equality.
“Because sex work is a criminal offence in South Africa, authorities are feared and distrusted by sex workers. If sex work was decriminalized through appropriate amendments to the law, the sex industry would become more open to regulation and the role of the police could change from persecutor to protector of sex workers,” says fact-checking organization, Africa Check, on its website.
“In addition to broader arguments for the decriminalization of sex work [such as the positive impact on public health through improved sex worker access to healthcare services and HIV prevention], decriminalization would mean sex workers could assist police in identifying people who have been trafficked or otherwise forced into sex work against their will.”
Faith Munyati, a feminist and attorney at Lawyers for Human Rights, says it should be decriminalized because most sex workers are females who form a marginalized and vulnerable group in society.
“It is well documented that women have been, and continue to be, discriminated based on their gender. This in turn results in the occurrence of rape and other various forms of abuse. Criminalizing sex work opens up numerous women to abuse. It puts them at constant risk of exploitation,” she says.
According to Munyati, when police officers arrest a sex worker, they often shame them publicly to “teach them a lesson”.
“Sex workers should not have to succumb to such discrimination because they have the inherent right to dignity.”
Munyati adds that if sex workers were considered to be employees rather than criminals, there is a possibility the negative light they are seen in would be reduced.
“Criminalizing sex work means that there are no regulations on the nature of the occupation. Regulations such as payment of tax or channels to access legal assistance in the case where a sex worker feels an unfair labor practice has taken place,” she says.
Munyati says the solution is for government to be bold and “endorse a feminist approach to sex work, enforcing non-oppressive work structures”.
Sex workers have for years been judged for their chosen profession; is it now time for a fresh perspective on their trade?

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Still In The Shadows

In October 2015, Oscar Pistorius, the South African double amputee Olympian runner sentenced to five years’ jail for the culpable homicide of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013, was released for correctional supervision.
He spent 10 months behind bars, and will now be under house arrest.
The world’s media gathered outside Pistorius’ uncle’s home in Waterkloof, near Pretoria, South Africa, for a glimpse of the athlete, but the family instead sent out spokeswoman and former journalist Anneliese Burgess, who said:  “He is simply entering the next phase of his sentence now. He will serve this under strict conditions that govern correctional supervision.”
Pistorius’ prosecutors have now appealed to the Supreme Court to scale up his sentence from culpable homicide to murder.
Karin van Eck, a lawyer at Clarke &amp; Van Eck Attorneys in Pretoria, says the situation could change.
<div id="attachment_30942" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-30942" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30942" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/000_Par8117606-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/000_Par8117606-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/000_Par8117606-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/000_Par8117606-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/000_Par8117606-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/000_Par8117606.jpg 1023w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />June Steenkamp, Reeva Steenkamp&#8217;s mother.</div>
“If the state is successful in their appeal, then that would mean that he’s found guilty of murder and that would influence the sentencing and he doesn’t qualify for correctional supervision,” says van Eck.
The courtroom dramas that sent the athlete to prison in 2014 had been watched by the world. People wondered what was going to happen to him; but what about Reeva?
Thousands expressed outrage over Pistorius being the focal point of the trial, prompting #HerNameWasReevaSteenkamp to trend in defiance.
Reeva’s mother June Steenkamp was the face of the family throughout the trial but broke her silence for her book Reeva: A Mother’s Story, released in 2014.
In addition, June has now launched a foundation to help women and children who are victims of domestic abuse as her way of keeping her daughter’s legacy alive.
In October 2015, dressed in a black jacket, June had addressed students at her daughter’s old school in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, saying: “I will now carry on where she left off”. She read out excerpts of the speech her daughter was going to make to students the day she died.
In the televized address, she also said: “I have got no feelings of revenge. I don’t want to hurt [Pistorius]. He is already a disabled person. I did not want him to be thrown into jail and suffering because I don’t wish suffering on anyone and that’s not going to bring Reeva back.”
Nooshin Erfani-Ghadimi, project manager at Wits Justice Project, a program of the journalism department at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, reckons the wheels of justice turn slowly, and the case is not over, yet.
“What we want to see, in order to have a fair and just system, is the same amount of attention being paid, as has been paid to Oscar’s case, as to the myriad of cases in the system which are the cause of miscarriages of justice for victims, families, the accused and their families too.”
The jury is still out.

ED_0020953

But What About Reeva?

Africa’s music industry is young and vibrant. From Dakar to Mombasa, Lagos to Cape Town, creative communities are producing music that draws from our millennia of heritage, while incorporating modern instruments and the latest technology. The industry itself contributes to Africa both economically and culturally. But it faces challenges to its ongoing development and expansion, and will require both structural and cultural support to counteract these damaging trends.
The difficulties faced by the African music industry are long-established and well-documented. The fundamental challenge is the predominance of an informal economy operating supply chains without proper regulation or observation; the issue of artistes receiving remuneration for intellectual property impacts both physical sales and digital platforms, with content piracy stealing livelihoods from would-be musicians and creatives.
Across the continent, piracy is perceived as a victimless crime. Without proper education as to its impact, not only on creative industries but also on society more widely, this scourge will go unanswered and will continue to undermine the efforts of those working to promote African music. Empowering musicians requires legal frameworks to be reinforced and expanded in order to safeguard intellectual property, a fundamental building block in constructing a robust music industry.
While Africa’s music industry challenges are well known, positive steps are being made to counter these obstacles, and technology is at the heart of those solutions. Internet penetration in sub-Saharan Africa stood at 2% in 2010; by 2014, Africa’s entire figure had risen to 27%. This increased access has fostered the proliferation of international services such as iTunes, and Shazam, as well as Nigeria’s Spinlet and Kenya’s Mdundo. This represents a prime opportunity for a more regulated distribution chain for artistes.
Although physical sales revenues outweigh digital by a considerable margin across Africa, digital sales are growing as a percentage – a trend predicted to continue, with my home country Nigeria estimated to see over 50% of music revenue through digital streams in 2015.
Unsurprisingly, Africa’s music industry does not have significant economic impact on the bottom line of the continent’s exports balance sheet. Findings from US-based research agency PolitiFact found that the music industry accounted for “less than 0.1% of Africa’s export revenue”. Compared with commodity-rich sectors such as fuel, gold or diamonds, and softer commodities such as timber, sugar, or grains, our music industry’s economic contribution is dwarfed in absolute terms by this more tangible production.
There is, however, an intrinsic value to Africa’s music industry, one which is not measured in dollars, naira or any other currency.
It is the value of a diverse yet shared cultural heritage, one which places musical creativity at the heart of storytelling. The tonal nature of many African languages creates a strong connection between musical and verbal communications, meaning for many African communities music is woven into the fabric of society.
Many are already aware of the impact African music has had on global music, from historic links to blues, soul, and jazz, all the way through to contemporary rap and hip-hop. This feeds back into Africa’s musical exports over the past 50 years; from the Nigerian greats of old like Fela Kuti and Osadebe to Mali’s Ali Farka Touré and Cameroon’s Manu Dibango (who’s still alive) with Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour and Nigeria’s Femi Kuti and William Onyeabor the next to take on the mantle, right through to younger breakthrough acts like Kiss Daniel and Yemi Alade; the love around the world for African music is huge, even if the profits are not. And with the younger generation, we’re seeing artistes incorporating western musical influences to create the eclectic and exciting fusion of sounds we’re hearing today.
The legal and governance frameworks which surround African music are in their infancy, but the continent’s musical heritage is as rich, time-honoured and robust as that of any other continent on earth. It has an exciting future, a future of challenges but also of opportunities, most notably through the emergence of digital platforms. Properly protected and nurtured, African music can continue to go from strength to strength. No one can doubt that the whole world would benefit from that.

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The Value Of African Music

The African entertainment space is perhaps too vast and too cumbersome to measure. But in the scattered data available we find the continent houses the world’s third largest homegrown film industry in Nigeria’s Nollywood, which according to a recent United Nations report, is larger than Hollywood by volume and second only to India’s Bollywood in worth, estimated at around $3 billion. The music arena is sweeping is similar terms.
If an artiste is defined by wholly the extent of their output and global influence, then these women are candidates for celebration.
<h3>Angélique Kidjo</h3>
<h3>Musician, Benin</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30919" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-240x300.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-240x300.jpg 240w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-300x375.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-600x750.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-768x960.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-478138866.jpg 818w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" />
She is perhaps the most iconic of modern African songstresses. Known for her electric performances and creative music videos, Kidjo began her musical life in Benin, then known as Dahomey, part of a musical family. Her mother was a theater director and her father, a photographer.
She fled her country following a coup in the early 1980s seeking a secure setting to chase her musical dreams.
“It was not possible to write your own music if you weren’t talking about the communist regime and the people in power. It was one thing I didn’t want to do. So the only option I had was to leave, otherwise I was going to end up in jail,” she says, speaking to us in 2015.
Since then, Kidjo has risen to become a Grammy-award winning artiste with over 37 albums in her repertoire.
The youngest in a large family, Kidjo’s childhood was colored by late nights, singing with her older brothers, at a little bar by the Cotonou lagoon. Eventually, she was headlining at jazz festivals across Europe with the legendary pianist, Jasper van’t Hof, and his afro-jazz ensemble, Pili Pili.
It was a difficult road to stardom.
“It was not easy&#8230;my parents were not rich enough to send [me] money. It was very hard, I had to find work. I did babysitting, I did hotel room cleaning, I did hair-braiding, I was a backup singer in a band. It was a matter of survival but I was free and that freedom had no price for me,” she recalls.
Kidjo did more than survive, she flourished. Her time with Pili Pili eventually led her to a recording deal with Island Records in Paris. A string of number one hits followed and she became a world music icon, picking up awards and accolades at every turn.
TIME magazine hailed her as “Africa’s Premier Diva” in 2007 but she remains true to her personal philosophies in an industry that is notoriously unkind to those with weaker spirits.
“One thing I learned as a young girl singing was always to be true to my inspiration, never ever give that up in order to please other people. If you cannot sing your song alone without instrumentation and be happy, don’t put it out there! You cannot be an artiste thinking that you want to be somebody else. You need to know what kind of artiste you want to be and why you want to be that,” she says.
Kidjo’s latest album, Eve, is dedicated to the women of Africa. She details stories of youth and rise in her memoirs, Spirit Rising, My Life, My Music published by HarperCollins in 2014.
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<h3>Danai Gurira</h3>
<h3>Actress and playwright, Zimbabwe</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30930 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Danai-02.jpg 682w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
Gurira is a consuming personality. She is both an actress and playwright. Her plot lines are at once accessible and complex, delving into the lives of everyday women fighting the insurmountable and emerging, at their conclusion, to a victorious reckoning. She writes to entertain and educate.
Her Off-Broadway play, In The Continuum, on women making peace with their HIV status debuted when she was still an MFA student at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and won three accolades including the Helen Hayes Award for Best Lead Actress.
Her most recent production, Eclipsed, written in 2009, follows the lives of five Liberian women at the height of the country’s drawn-out civil war as they navigate the horrors of wartime and the people they become.
This has scaled even higher heights than her previous one. It received an African treatment in 2014, at Johannesburg’s Soweto Theatre, in an adaptation directed by South African actress, Warona Seane. The current production opened at the Public Theatre in New York City to rave reviews in October 2015 with Kenya’s Oscar-winning diva, Lupita Nyong’o, at the lead.
As an actress, Gurira can be seen weekly on American hit television serial, The Walking Dead, as the no-nonsense, zombie fighting Michonne. She also has six film credits to her name, notably as Adenike Balogun, a Nigerian woman dealing with infertility, in the independent drama, Mother Of George. Eclipsed ran at The Public Theatre in New York until November 29. A third play, Familiar, based on a Zimbabwean family transposed in Minnesota is slated for 2016.
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<h3>Lupita Nyong&#8217;o</h3>
<h3>Actress, Kenya</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30921 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-206x300.jpg" alt="" width="206" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-206x300.jpg 206w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-300x437.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-600x874.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-768x1118.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01-703x1024.jpg 703w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Lupita-01.jpg 702w" sizes="(max-width: 206px) 100vw, 206px" />
For moviegoers outside East Africa, Nyong’o must have seemed to burst into view out of relative obscurity. However, she was on the Kenyan stage and television before she took on the hearts and minds of red carpet watchers worldwide.
Nyong’o was a thespian from a young age, as a member of Ian Mbugua’s Nairobi Phoenix Players, she lead as Juliet in a local adaptation of the Shakespearean, Romeo and Juliet.
However, her big break was a culmination of efforts. She signed on as a member of production staff on various big budget films from The Constant Gardener, shot in Kenya, to Mira Nair’s adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake.
From there she won a place at the Yale School of Drama where she was awarded a prize, in her final year, for ‘outstanding ability’ in her craft. Earlier, in 2008, she appeared in an independent short film shot in New York. The year after that, she directed a documentary, In My Genes, on the much discriminated-against albino population in Kenya. It won first prize at the Five College Film Festival.
With all of this behind her, she was cast in her breakthrough role as Patsey in Steve McQueen’s stellar cinematic effort, 12 Years A Slave, just three weeks before her graduation. From there came her surprise Oscar win.
Her most recent project is with Zimbabwean playwright Danai Gurira and her play Eclipsed, playing a young woman who finds herself a sex slave in the rebel camps of wartime Liberia.
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<h3>Souad Massi</h3>
<h3>Singer-songwriter, Algeria</h3>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30931" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-199x300.jpg 199w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-300x452.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-600x904.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633-680x1024.jpg 680w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-163396633.jpg 679w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />
Perhaps one of the most successful singer-songwriters in the Arab-speaking world, Massi marries beautifully composed guitar harmonies with her enchanting voice, often the only instruments in her employ, to tell stories through her songs. First-time listeners might compare her music to the American blues softened by the poetic lightness of careful lyrics.
While she is based in France, she was born in Algeria to a forward-thinking, but poor, family of six in 1972. She learned to play the guitar quite early and often performed her compositions to keen family and friends. At the beginning of the 90s, as the country plunged into civil war, Massi joined a political rock band called Akator and had a successful seven-year run with them, producing underground hits and popular music videos.
However, as the war raged on and her popularity soared, she became a target for the conservative fundamentalists that were quickly winning political ground in the country. They threatened her family and they threatened her life. Unfazed, Massi continued her musical conviction, cutting her hair short and disguising herself as a man.
“I grew up in a modest family in Algeria but I [was given] a lot of chances because my parents liked music, so it was easy to listen and to play the guitar. [This became] very hard because it was the civil war, it wasn’t easy to play on stage. In past it wasn’t a problem, but when the movement of Islamists it became very hard for us women to express ourselves, to [wear] clothes that we want. People thought that I [performed] on purpose, to attract attention but that wasn’t my idea,” she told the BBC in October.
Despite her camouflage, it was clear the extremists didn’t care for her music or her opinions. The death threats continued. In 1999, she accepted an invitation to play at a Paris festival and she never returned. Days later she was signed on to a local imprint of Universal Records and two years later she emerged with a celebrated first album, Raoui. It became a commercial success in Europe.
Although a deep yearning for the country she left behind echoes in her music, Massi understands that her voice is much stronger outside the constraints of the conservative society she fled.
“What I did in France, I could never do in Algeria,” she says.
In 2015, she released her latest album, El Mutakallimun, a collection of ancient poems from 9th century Arabic poets living in Cordoba, Spain, put to music. She says she wants the album to counter the negative stereotypes perpetuated of the global Islamic community.
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<h3>Genevieve Nnaji</h3>
<h3>Actress, Nigeria</h3>
Africans, the world over, have patronized a Nigerian movie at one point or another. With complex plot lines and exaggerated theatrics, Nollywood is the undisputed home of African cinema. And of its many on-screen darlings, Nnaji is perhaps one of the more prolific. In 2009, Oprah Winfrey dubbed her the ‘Julia Roberts of Africa’.
A former child model, Nnaji got her start in acting almost by accident. A local soap opera was short of child actors and they called into the modeling agency for recruits. Three names were put forward and she was among them. At eight years old, the actress was born.
“I enjoyed it, it was fun. I never felt so alive,” she told CNN in 2011 about the experience.
Over a decade later, she made her Nollywood debut at 19 with the movie, Most Wanted. Since then, her talent has been lent to over 80 titles of the industry and she has found herself thrust forward as a Nigerian ambassador appearing at film screenings in London and beyond.
This responsibility is not taken lightly.
“As long as you are a celebrity, you are an ambassador [to the rest of the world] they can’t see the whole country so what you show people is basically&#8230;what you show [of] back home,” she says.
In addition to acting, Nnaji has an album, One Logologo Line, released by a Ghanaian record label in 2004. She is also an accomplished model spawning a line of endorsement deals including being the face of Lux beauty products in West Africa.
However, she still has more planned for the future. In 2008, she launched her own clothing line St. Genevieve which donates some of its profits to charity.
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<h3>Warsan Shire</h3>
<h3>Poet, Somalia</h3>
Entertainers do exist in spaces outside music and film. While she is shy to admit she is a performer, writer and poet Shire launched her career at a poetry slam when she was just 16. Although the concept was new and bewildering to her, she got on-stage and performed her piece and to her surprise, won.
“I was very nervous. I didn’t really understand what a poetry slam was. Then I won. My friends jumped around. I didn’t want to ever do another poetry slam, but I think it has a lot to do with how I approach readings,” she says.
Since then she has used the internet to share her work becoming a sensation among a new breed of literary minded young Africans. She has released a popular album of spoken poetry, warsan versus melancholy (the seven stages of being lonely) and has been invited to perform her work from Berlin to Johannesburg.
However, she insists that first she is a writer.
“I’d rather listen than speak. It’s overwhelming, the amount of detail I see in really mundane scenarios: strangers touching one another; someone arguing on the phone; a man falling asleep on the train. I’ll fill in the gaps of the story myself. In my mind I’ll follow them home, I’ll imagine their childhood, what their bedroom looks like, if they are in love with someone who does not love them. The downfall is that I give everything (and everyone) too much meaning. Sometimes a thing is vacant and I’ll create depth for it; that’s not always fair,” she says.
Shire is an also an editor at SPOOK magazine, which focuses on the alternative literary arts. In 2012, she released her debut book of poems, Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth.
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<h3>Anne Kansiime</h3>
<h3>Comedian, Uganda</h3>
Funny woman of East Africa, Kansiime was an internet superstar before she even got on television. Her videos have been liked and shared thousands of times over even though her comedy persona is very Ugandan.
Hailing from a little village in western Uganda, she began her career in comedy while a student at Kampala’s Makerere University. She dabbled in drama and music but continued on with a degree in Social Sciences due to family expectations. Desperately looking for an avenue to showcase her talents, a friend urged her to record her skits and upload them online. After her first few hits, it was clear that she was a big, and unique, talent.
“I didn’t see it coming. I would post a clip and get a reaction, and I thought that I would put it on YouTube&#8230;I got motivated and kept on posting and posting till I started receiving phone calls and [even] receiving money from people who weren’t even in Africa. I didn’t know what I was doing but I knew I was doing a job and I liked it and people liked it,” she told Kenyan media in 2014.
Encouraged by the outpouring of support, she carried on to become a viral hit in no time.
“I just wanted to act. I didn’t understand [then] that acting would make people laugh,” she says.
Already, she has almost a quarter of a million followers on her YouTube channel. Some of her videos have been watched over a million times. She has performed in a variety of venues from London to Lilongwe.
Currently, her weekly online comedy sketch show Don’t Mess With Kansiime can be seen on her YouTube channel. In 2015, she released a debut music album, My Name Is Kansiime, available for digital download on Amazon and Itunes. Kansiime performed live in Washington D.C and New Jersey, as part of her World Tour, in late November.

The Stars  Of Africa

Comedians are B-grade celebrities in South Africa,” says Tumi Morake, a comedian famous for her brassy honesty, stand-up shows, Comedy Central Roasts and adverts with Vodacom.
“And yet I have a lot of disposable income. A lot,” she admits.
South Africa’s entertainment industry is fast growing, and bringing in vast amounts of money. Zinhle Jiyane, known as DJ Zinhle, says: “The South African entertainment industry has proven to be one of the most influential industries and its growth is something we can’t ignore.” And she’s right.
Musicians, actors, deejays and entertainers, as well as other creative industry performers, contribute 2.9% to the GDP, according to the Cultural and Creative Industries Federation (CCIFSA), and the creative economy contributes 3.6% to the total employment.
Jay Badza, a self-described brand architect and manager of some of South Africa’s biggest stars, including Bonang Matheba, predicts the industry will grow “in leaps and bounds” in the next five years.
“We’ve got a very healthy industry, and social media has tipped the scale to the entertainer,” says Badza.
Other experienced managers agree, such as Nomndeni Mdakhi, founder and managing director of Edits Communications, and DJ Zinhle’s manager. She predicts the industry will expand its footprint into the rest of the continent.
Morake admits that a ‘gig’, from stand-up to emceeing, to a mixture of the two, can earn a comedian of her calibre anything from R15,000 ($1,050) to R45,000 ($3,176) for an evening’s work.
Taffia Keight, a partner at Whacked Management, representing many of South Africa’s comedians, including Morake, says: “Depending on what other deals are done on an artiste’s behalf, [comedians] could earn between R12,000 ($850) and R250,000 ($17,000) a month.”
Comedy is a relatively new money-maker in the South African entertainment industry, and even in that sphere, it’s possible to earn a quarter of a million rand monthly – much of it through corporate gigs. Comedian Celeste Ntuli estimates she earns up to 40% of her monthly income through corporate emceeing and advertisements.
For a celebrity like Bonang Matheba, the numbers are much bigger. Nicknamed Queen B, Matheba is an A-lister through and through. She has over a million Instagram followers and is the first face of Revlon out of the United States – “A dream come true,” she says – and has her thumb in a lot of pies: she presents on Top Billing and Afternoon Express, hosts a radio show on Metro FM and has her own lingerie line at Woolworths. On top of this, she can earn anything from R30,000 ($2,120) to R100,000 ($7,060) for four hours’ work, depending on the client, hosting events like award shows and more.
Matheba’s flawless weave is a custom-made wig from Patrick Missile, and costs R15,000 ($1,050) – and that’s not including maintenance costs. For an event like the South African Style Awards, she says she can easily spend R55,000 ($3,882) for her look for that evening alone.
“My designer dress will probably cost around R50,000 ($3,530),” says Matheba, “And I’ll spend an additional R2,000 ($142) on my nails, and another R4,000 ($283) for hair and makeup for the evening – that includes having the makeup artiste at the event to touch me up.”
These are considered business expenses because, as Badza says, “An artiste is expected to be glitzy and glamorous.” Her luxury spends are holidays; 10-day trips to Mauritius, London, Paris and islands off the coast of Mozambique.
Other big earners are in the music industry. A DJ such as DJ Zinhle can earn up to R35,000 ($2,400) for an hour’s work, and can do up to five gigs between Friday and Sunday.
“You can just imagine how much she makes in a weekend,” says her manager Nomndeni Mdahki. And that’s just if she stays in the country – for international shows, also sold by the hour, the rate can easily go up to R50,000 ($3,530). Transport and accommodation are, naturally, included. Then there are celebrities expanding briskly into the international market, like DJ Black Coffee, who has been named several times by others in the industry as an example of a South African entertainer doing it right, with a growing international audience. He was not available for comment on this piece.
But even with these numbers, South Africa is lagging behind international entertainment industries. Nigeria is enormous, and South African celebs are clawing their way to Lagos, and not New York.
“The continent is opening up,” says Mdahki.
“Look at artiste collaborations, Channel O and the MTV Music Awards. In the end, it’s a numbers game. The more people you can bring in, the more money you can make. You want to develop a wide footprint out of South Africa.”
The trick for further growth is for celebrities to treat themselves like businesses, and use their social currency to expand their careers.
“Artistes don’t have to rely on the SABC anymore to become successful,” says Badza. With social media accounts, they communicate directly with their audience, and corporate and other clients look to those numbers to rate their popularity.
Mdahki agrees: “Social media is giving the power back to the talent.”
Morake, with over 55,000 Twitter followers, says celebrities need to remember that they are a brand. But perhaps most of all, the biggest key to growth, says Ntuli, is for South Africans to appreciate their own entertainers, like Nigerians appreciate theirs.

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‘$2,400 For An Hour’s Work’

It’s the inevitable cost of fame. Recounting one’s success story for the nth time and sounding like a scratched record.
Lira, born Lerato Molapo in Ekurhuleni in the East of Johannesburg in South Africa, has done it too, countless times, and relates it again – how she came to be a singer – in one breathless sentence. At 16, she was in the final year of high school in South Africa when she teamed with her best mate and two other friends from church for a singing competition. That night, they walked away with awards for best composition, best performance and best vocalist.
That night, a star was born.
In the present, Lira has performed all over the world, and has almost a million social media followers – that new measure of creative capital.
The accolades have come thick and fast: a Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards nomination as ‘Best International Artist’ in 2012; performances with the likes of A-listers Alicia Keys, Shakira, K’naan and John Legend at the FIFA World Cup opening in South Africa in 2010, a big role in an Italian feature file, The Italian Consul, and a performance, in a David Tlale-designed gown, at President Barack Obama’s inaugural ball in 2013 in the United States (US). It was not just Lira’s, but South Africa’s wow moment on a global stage.
“I was performing for all kinds of races and that bridged the race lines for me. It was the first time that I saw something that transcended all boundaries,” says Lira.
She launched her American album Rise Again in the US in 2014.
As an undergraduate student, Lira studied finance and used her skills to exchange for recording time at a local studio. It resulted in her first demo at the age of 18. Then she put her music career on hold, finished her degree, started working and saved all her money, almost every penny she made.
“No one gave me the idea that I could go into music. I was into finance – general finance and auditing. I turned 22 and decided I would take five years to get it out of my system. I cashed in on my pension and made sure I could survive for a year. Two weeks after I served my notice, I landed a deal. I was exceptionally lucky,” she says.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-30922 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/IMG_6461-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_6461-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_6461-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_6461-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_6461-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/IMG_6461.jpg 682w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />
When she submitted her resignation, she created a five-year plan for her music career. In 2000, she was discovered by music producer Arthur Mafokate, who signed her to his record label, 999 Music. She released her debut album, All My Love, in 2003. Despite earning accolades at the Metro FM Awards, South African Music Awards (SAMA), Channel O Reel Music Awards and topping charts, it was “a disaster”. Her idea of how it would all play out was quickly shattered – and it broke her.
“My first deal was a disaster, they exploited me. It crushed my spirit so much that I slipped into depression. It took two years to get back on my feet. They just want to make money out of you, they want control over you.”
She left 999 Music; teamed up with keyboardist Victor Mngomezulu, bassist Tshepo Sekele, and producer Robin Kohl; and signed to Sony Music Africa and released Feel Good in 2006. A huge success, it led to multiple nominations and wins at SAMAs. The following year, the album was released in Italy, where its title track gained massive airplay.
In 2006, she started her own label Otarel Music in South Africa to house all her business interests. In 2011, she launched the label in the US. Otarel Music was responsible for the publishing of her musical works and her management company. The singer and songwriter outsourced her publicity and co-produced her own music.
“Mediocrity had become the norm but excellence is part of my brand value. I remember when I quit my job in the financial space, when friends would ask what I did, I would say I am a musician. No one would take us seriously. We have to be able to take ourselves seriously. I now do keynote speeches at high-level events, I speak as a businesswoman in the music industry. It is the one thing I am proud of, it is a model that I have built,” she says.
One of only two wholly black-owned labels in South Africa, she learned from other labels and modeled her business on them. With Lira as the sole attraction, she has built a brand around herself with a multi-million rand company which has consistently seen a 20% profit growth in the last six years.
“Every time we have a tour in the States, it is self-funded, it is completely my brand. It is incredibly difficult to build a brand for an artiste. Artistes have to see themselves as a business. I couldn’t baby another artiste, I mentor a lot of people and consult on that level. I recommend that artistes manage their own business,” she says.
She splurges on her business and her image. She’s adamant she has found the secret to the glamorous life without racking up debt. Her brand is centered around being innovative and creating an image she can export.
“The best thing is being able to control my career, as an artiste, you want to express your creativity. I’ve been able to imagine and fund the kind of live performances that I want. We were the first people to spend money on a big production. I was the first African artiste to produce a full HD production. We used a RED camera and we held the record for having the most RED cameras in any production in the world. The only other production that beat that was The Hobbit. That’s the kind of excellence you push for,” she says.
For many African artistes, gaining traction in the US is daunting. For Lira, who has a large following in Africa, growing her brand internationally is a slow process but since going solo, she aims high.
“My brand works beautifully because of the visual products I put out. My intention was always to produce products of a global standard. People take me seriously because they can see that. When people google Lira the quality of my work speaks for itself,” she says.
“For three years, I built my business up. Within a year, I doubled my income. This whole diva tactic doesn’t work for me. Stars that succeed know that without your customers you will not have business,” she says.
Her next project is a seven-part TV show, Dream Chaser, which traces her story and what goes into building a brand out of a musician. Based on years of footage of Lira’s performances, the series shows everything – Lira with warts and all. She has been dubbed one of South Africa’s biggest acts – and wealthiest. Her following ranges from grannies to young executives to CEOs.
“The truth is I could retire. I don’t know what my net worth is but I have been debt-free for nine years. Well I guess my company turns over R7 million ($522,411) and I’m the only artiste. If I was in the US, I would probably be in the league of Beyoncé,” she says.
Lira may be one of South Africa’s highest-earning female artistes but she struggles to balance fame, wealth and her image in South Africa. For Lira, South Africa’s legacy doesn’t allow her to be ostentatious.
“We all love the underdog. As soon as you are successful, nobody likes it, they want to pull you down. It’s just the nature of us as South Africans. We cannot be happy for you if you rise too quickly – we’re not happy, we reject it. We just don’t like to celebrate each other’s success. It’s okay for you to know that I’m successful but not how.
“You will never know what car I drive, you will never know where I stay, you will never know what shoe I buy. I’ll never show off these little things because I still need to be close to the people. Your maid will come to my show, your mom who is struggling – those are the people who draw inspiration from what I do,” she says.
“In this country that’s what we’re like as a people. If people found out, that’s it, I must just go find another place to go make a living somewhere else,” she says.
She’s managed to secure her wealth and has built up a large following for her business model and investment knowledge. She sees money, wealth and self-respect as inextricably linked. Her views on money read like a self-help book. She’s clued up on making her wealth grow.
“I am successful because I work hard and I am very good with money, I’m very good with it. People don’t know how to deal with money. We don’t think we deserve, so when you have it, you will squander it. You will buy things that you think will fill what’s missing in your core person. You start using it to patch those spaces, that won’t last of course. You fill in what’s missing instead of dealing with who you are, when you deal with yourself, you will recognize how you use money to correct what is wrong with your person. As soon as you change that, you are awake.
“Everybody takes their cut and the last person you will honor is yourself – if at all. That’s how much we dislike ourselves. People think they are not linked. I will probably do a lot more with my little seven million than people who earn 20, 30 or 40 million because of my relationship with myself and how I use my money.”
Each concert is carefully orchestrated to deliver a deliberate punch of music. From conceptualizing to the actual stage performance, attention is paid to every detail and making sure her audiences experiences the wow factor. She has spent R700,000 ($52,240) producing a show at South Africa’s Carnival City as a local artiste with a two-hour performance. She’s got a 12-man team from stylists, makeup artists to light and sound technicians. Her show had a built stage and screens set up but Lira says her efforts go largely unnoticed and that there isn’t money available for African artistes. It’s a sentiment shared by many. Her commitment to delivering value for money is to make sure that the show will be top-notch.
“Chris Brown comes in, it’s just him and a DJ. I, with all that money cannot charge R500 ($37) which would make sense for me. For Chris Brown, the minimum ticket is R650 ($48) – he’s drunk, he’s swearing, he’s high, he performs for 45 minutes and South Africans will pay for it. That is the truth of my reality. I am done with entitlement. I realized I’m working so hard to reshape a certain consciousness. It took me time to get South Africans to trust me with their R200 ($14) to see just me. My returns are ridiculous so I do it for the love, for the brand-building,” she says.
“People are struggling to put food on their tables. But you’ll find more cellphones in Africa than people so we foolishly spend on showy kinds of things. We’re very twisted in that way,” she says.
Lira admits to being a dollar millionaire, but doesn’t foresee the billionaire pop star emerging out of Africa any time soon. Equivalent in status but the differing contexts of the US and South Africa translate into different ticket prices. She envies the returns of international artistes.
Her best experience was in Brooklyn, New York, at Beyoncé’s concert where patrons paid R11,000 ($820) for VIP tickets. Lira’s reality sits in direct contrast. R975 ($72) was Lira’s most expensive concert which included a VIP package. Lira has earned the trust of her South African audience – and it’s paid off. A concert ticket would cost R200 ($14), and R300 ($22) for the golden circle. But in order to do well, she estimates she would have to charge R500 ($37) for every ticket in order to keep her own label.
“It is very limited here. You get tired of scraping by because you always work so hard. You invest in your career but the returns are tricky. When I see my balance sheet at the end of the year, it almost feels like a miracle that you did so well but it is a worthwhile pursuit.”
A collaboration with Pharrell Williams would cost $250,000; John Legend is $100,000. There aren’t any collaborations on the cards – she doesn’t think it’s worth it yet. For now, she wants to be a household name all on her own.
Aside from her property which boasts a fully organic food garden, a filtered water system and a view to die for, Lira’s biggest splurge has been shoes.
“I have dropped some ridiculous amounts on shoes. I will never do that again. I do spoil myself on holidays, amazing holidays. I was in Paris with my husband and I did splurge on shoes. I spoil myself plenty on stuff that I really want,” she says.
“My fans are predominantly female and I have built myself as a wholesome brand. It would be out of character for me to be showing off my wealth. It’s not taken positively,” she says.
With Lira, it’s about brand management and investing for the present and the future. It is rare for an artiste to display financial wizardry and musical flair. And master both.

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‘I Speak As A Businesswoman In Music’

It had been peaceful as thousands of students from the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) marched down the streets of Johannesburg to shut down UJ. Peaceful, at least, until a rock smashed into someone’s face.
This was the eighth day of the nationwide campaign to scrap university fees. It was gathering pace, as students ran in the spring sunshine you could feel the simmering anger.
Upon their arrival, most of the Wits students retreated and headed to a larger gathering at the African National Congress (ANC) headquarters, Luthuli House, after being refused entrance to UJ. The rest made for the gate – undaunted.
About 20 gigantic security guards, with the bodies of bouncers, stood behind concrete fencing and chained gates.
First words flew; then rocks, then bricks. The students tried to break the chains on the gate. A rock smashed into the face of one of the guards drawing a torrent of blood. The battle raged for 20 minutes, until the chains broke.
The students moved in hesitantly with their hands in the air; the rattled guards, bloodied with bricks in hand, stood by. Their last hope of stopping the students: the small road, over the freeway, that leads to the university.
The guards dashed for the bridge. They blocked hundreds of charging students. Two students fainted in the stampede but the guards stood firm. There was no backing down. Not even pepper spray deterred the determined students.
“They’re throwing stones, they’re hitting us, they’re spraying things on our face. What must we do? Must we look at them and smile?” asks one of the students with tears running down her cheeks.
Eventually, university staff allowed students through; UJ was shut down.
A few kilometers away in downtown Johannesburg, students lay siege to Luthuli House, the offices of the ANC. The ruling party was prepared. It set up a stage and microphone for the protesters; not too surprising for a liberation movement born of protest. But the 103-year-old party, the oldest in Africa, wasn’t prepared for the young fury of 2015.
On this day, even one of the most powerful men in the land couldn’t hold sway. ANC Secretary General, Gwede Mantashe, and the President of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), Sidumo Dlamini, were told to come down from the stage and talk to the students on the streets. Students then told them to sit down on the road, they refused. Mantashe was also refused an opportunity to address the crowd.
“ANC must fall,” were the chants that met the sunset from the mouths of the children and grandchildren of the struggle that put the party in power.

Must We Look At Them And Smile?

You wouldn’t blink if you saw Anaso Jobodwana on the street. Like many young men, he is well dressed and walks hand-in-hand with his girlfriend, 26-year-old American semi-professional athlete Taylor Monae Evans, and looks slight and hungry.
Make no mistake, this 23-year-old has the world at his fast feet. He smashed the South African 200-meter record, with a time of 19.87 seconds, at the World Championships in Beijing in August. In 2016, he is heading for the Olympics in Rio where he will strain every sinew, yet again, against Usain Bolt.
In Beijing, the great man came to him like a Bolt from the blue as the two limbered up.
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“In the final he said ‘Are you ready to run this 19 seconds?’, and I just said ‘yeah’. And he said ‘don’t be nervous, you’ve got this,’” says Jobodwana.
“Afterwards he came to me and said ‘I had to talk to you throughout the whole call-room because you were nervous so I had to calm your nerves down. Out of all the finalists you were the one, throughout the rounds, who looked the most ready and relaxed and I don’t understand why you were nervous in the final.’”
Jobodwana was starstruck because Bolt was the guy on the cover of his training file, inside were pictures of him in his stride.
Bolt’s 19 seconds prediction was spot on because in the final, Jobodwana ran close.
“After the finals he came up to me and screamed ‘National record, I’m proud of you!’, but obviously with a deeper voice,” chuckles the soft spoken Jobodwana.
The glare and glamour of the track was a million miles from where Jobodwana grew up in Phakamisa, a township on the outskirts of King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It was here that Jobodwana developed his passion for running and breaking records. He would only start training professionally, though, in Grade 10 – at the age of 16.
“I hold the under-9 record at Dale Junior so I guess that kicked-started my passion for sprinting,” he says.
In King William’s Town, his mother is a teacher; his father a retired prison officer. Jobodwana says he was fortunate enough to have parents that sent him to schools that nurtured his talent.
“Growing up, the kids in my neighborhood were way faster than me and better sportsmen. I was lucky enough to get sent to schools that had proper sporting facilities and coaches that would enhance my talent,” says Jobodwana.
It was at school that Jobodwana would make his mark, claiming the number one spot in the country in the 200 meters. In the same year, he was 5th in the world in the junior section, after his first full season of training.
Seven years later, the United States-based sprinter shares the track with the likes of Justin Gatlin and Bolt.
Jobodwana says he moved to the States because he wanted to be part of the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA).
Jackson State University took a gamble on the sprinter in 2011, offering him a scholarship despite the fact he was recovering from a serious injury. He repaid their faith by qualifying for the 2012 Olympics. Jobodwana says it was thanks to his meticulous coaches.
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“South African coaches are good as well. Look at other athletes who are thriving, like Wayde van Niekerk. He gets coached in South Africa, so the coaches here are awesome,” he says.
Jobodwana was not so blessed when it came to financial support. He hasn’t received any recently from Athletics South Africa. Jobodwana recalls receiving financial assistance in 2012 when he needed to qualify for the Olympics, but nothing since then.
“They (Athletics South Africa) are in a bit of shambles at the moment. I’ve been receiving support from endorsements, Nike Africa has been supportive, but I haven’t received anything from Athletics South Africa recently. Maybe they’ll eventually get it right,” says Jobodwana.
Athletics South Africa was not available for comment.
In the run up to Rio, Jobodwana might spring a few surprises – he plans to run the 100 meters more often to increase his speed.
Award-winning Times Media Group sports journalist, David Isaacson, reckons we can expect a medal from Jobodwana in August.
“I’m sure he can bring back a silver medal in Rio,” says Isaacson.
The athlete has his own ideas about what is needed to groom future South African athletes. Jobodwana says the government needs to put more emphasis on scouting and nurturing athletes in rural areas.
Jobodwana says he spoke to Bolt’s coach in Beijing. He suggested the coach come to Africa for three months to mentor young athletes here. Jobodwana says the coach looked keen.
“We all need to figure out how to put proper structures in place that will bring out the best in the future of our athletics,” says Jobodwana.
And the Jobodwanas of tomorrow? The young athlete left them with a stern message.
“Follow your dreams to the fullest. Your dreams have to be crazy enough for people to think they aren’t achievable, that will be the extra drive you need to make them come alive,” he says.
At Rio 2016, Africa will, once again, be looking to its fastest man and his fleet feet.

A Bolt From The Bush

It does not matter how amazing your business is, as long as customers don’t know about it, it is as good as a diamond buried deep under the earth.
Technology has led to radical changes in the market; traditional advertising is dying out, and the media companies’ revenue from this is declining. Yet, despite not investing much in advertising, the exposure of companies is at an all-time high.
Are we caught in a middle of a market evolution? Everyone is trying to predict what is going to happen. Reports by the likes of the World Economic Forum, McKinsey &amp; Company and PricewaterhouseCoopers are springing up everywhere. Some are correct, others are dismally wrong.
If you are an entrepreneur in Africa with a fervent drive to conquer a particular industry, whether or not you have a budget for advertising, you need to explore the most effective strategies to market yourself in a world where you can end up drowning amid the plethora of ads and messages in the media. It’s a mad show out there, all you have to do is take a walk along the street or browse the internet to realize this.
Let’s look at some of the effective ways to convert prospective customers to actual clients.
There is a model that many entrepreneurs don’t know about – the freemium model – which is one step below the paid for premium model. Freemium is where you offer your products and services for free and then make money on the other end. Facebook’s monetization strategy is selling advertising to other companies, on the back of the popularity of their service. Bear in mind that the high usage of their service is down to it being free.
Chinese ecommerce company, Alibaba, did the same thing to kill eBay when the American company tried to enter the Asian market half a decade ago. They invited eBay to follow their free model, knowing that the listed company’s shareholders would persecute its senior executives if it did so. Alibaba is now the king of the Asian ecommerce market, while eBay fizzled out.
You need to be creative to stretch a dollar in today’s economy, whether your company is big or small.
Referral is one of the most effective marketing tools for your business. It’s a form of trust transferred by another source you know and respect. Uber has used this method well. The taxi company offers free rides to their existing customers when they refer Uber. In this case, an incentive rewards existing customers for finding new customers.
There are products that go viral without monetary incentive. WhatsApp is the best example in this case. Existing customers were pushing the product themselves because they wanted to use WhatsApp to message everyone else in their phonebook. It helps that WhatsApp is cost effective as well.
Offering your product for potential customers to use over a trial period has been popular in recent years. Most anti-virus and software companies use this as a marketing strategy. It is not a new concept though. William, a young salesman in the 1930s, worked for a company that sold home appliances. He walked from door to door, allowing people to use particular products until he returned to collect them a week or so later. More often than not, when he returned, the majority of those people discovered that the items were useful and refused to give it back. They chose to pay him for the item instead. It led to him becoming the number one salesman in his company.
Some say print media advertising revenues are going down because many marketing campaigns are online. That cannot be the entire reason, only 9.8% of Africans are internet users.
Then internet is not the only answer to marketing these days. Many companies collaborate to leverage each other’s client base. Insurance, retail and healthcare based companies are good at this. Partner with a company that opens your business to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of clients; it could save you piles of money that would usually be spent on ineffective campaigns.

The Art Of The  War

Africa has 54 diverse countries, a billion people on the move, an abundance of raw materials, the largest new market for goods and services, a food for generations and an insatiable infrastructure market for a hundred years.
Despite fragmented infrastructure delivery, due to a lack of domestic fiscal strength, weak regional integration and inexperienced internal project delivery capacity, Africa’s foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows have quadrupled since 2000.
Although FDI projects in Africa fell 8.4% in 2014, the continent’s share of global capital investment and job creation hit an all-time high, attracting more FDI than North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe.
Despite claims to the contrary, European investors continue to dominate investment in Africa as American interest rebuilds, while the commitment from Asia-Pacific has weakened over the past decade.
Projects are getting more complex, with the average investment of $174.5 million per project in 2014, up from $67.8 million in 2013; a 68% increase that created 188,400 jobs.
Many of the basic public infrastructure contracts in poorer countries are implemented through diverse aid agencies, barter deals, or in rare cases, through public-private partnerships.
The more than 70 Chinese contractors in Africa benefit from barter deals in relation to energy and minerals, or aid-related projects tied to the State. Many smaller Chinese contractors battle with indigenization, and the interpretation of local contract specifications, leaving technical and socioeconomic problems and a legacy of unfulfilled expectations. Group Five were called to rectify a partly constructed commercial building in a neighboring country. It had been poorly constructed by a Chinese contractor, somewhat to the architect’s specification, but as the program became tighter and the cash flow ran out, innovation ran wild. The photographs amused us for years.
Government-funded infrastructure on open tender is the area where acquiring projects can be the most difficult, and then there is the matter of securing payment. These are highly contested bids where innovation in packaging the right mix of local resources, commitment to local communities and skills development make all the difference. In some cases, corruption rears its ugly head and staff come under duress in difficult locations. Zero tolerance is mandatory. Management needs to train employees to deal with corruption and to uphold the international standards by which a business should be judged. Contrary to popular misconception, it is possible to uphold ethical business values in Africa. Robust risk assessment of counter parties is a key factor in preventing corruption.
Foreign-financed-loan or aided-public-infrastructure projects favor their own contractors, providing a partnering or sub-contracting opportunity for the larger African-based contractors.
Projects funded by the World Bank and the African Development Bank are open tenders and often bureaucratic and highly contested, with strong competition from Asia and Eastern Europe. Often funding is inadequate – causing disputes. I remember a 10-year dispute where the specifications were completely at odds with the actual site, meaning additional work was required to build the road. The dispute ended favorably, but with significant cost and delayed payment.
Technically complex projects in power, oil and gas, mining and agriculture are available in the private sector.
The Independent Power Project market is exciting but requires time and resources to support the developers. My previous company built more than 1,200MW of power plant capacity across Africa with at least another 1,000MW now in construction in renewables and gas-fired power. Mining plant construction has provided a massive boon to local construction companies in gold, copper, cobalt, uranium and coal as far afield as Madagascar, Liberia, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leonne.
Local knowledge, the best people, the right partners, efficient execution and innovation wins these bids.
Sites are manned by a multinational workforce, so there is substantial risk in the assumptions made at the bid stage on local manpower skills, rates of production and quality of work which will determine the cost and duration. The industry exists on incredibly low margins, yet takes on massive risk. One has to see through the complexity of a multi-year project to get your bid cost accurate. It’s a tough call, yet very rewarding when it comes off.
On the flip side, the most successful long-term client relationships have been born out of managing adversity and still delivering the project.

Tough Calls Are  worth it

In its research report on financial technology (FinTech), The Future of FinTech and Banking, Accenture signalled that the revolution is well under way. The report indicated that global investment in FinTech companies had tripled to $12.2 billion last year, up from $4 billion in the previous year. Although it said Africa was lagging behind, the continent holds a lot of promise.
In the latest report by WorldRemit, Currency Cloud and Ixaris, titled Payments Innovation Jury Report 2015, Africa is seen as more promising than the traditional financial capitals of the world.
The digital revolution is not new in Africa. Mobile payment systems on the continent have set the pace internationally. The extraordinary story of M-Pesa, which in just six years enabled more than 15 million Kenyans to send and receive money electronically, is a good example. With more than 140 million registered accounts, mobile payments in Africa are quickly becoming mainstream. M-Pesa’s recent innovations, such as M-Shwari, a mobile bank account which facilitated loans worth of more than $200 million in Kenya last year, is set to continue blazing a trail in global FinTech innovation.
The remittance market is another important area for African FinTech. With the amount of money sent to sub-Saharan Africa via mobile phones set to hit $33 billion this year, it is easy to see why this market is attractive. Innovation is expected to bring down remittance charges, which currently stand at twice the global average according to the Overseas Development Institute, an independent think tank. Innovators, such as MFS Africa, are honing in on the intra-African remittance market, where remittances can rise up to 20% of face value. World Bank figures indicate that $11 billion is sent within Africa each year and African companies are taking advantage of the 650 million mobile phone subscriptions to tap into this field.
Agriculture is another sector being invaded by FinTech. Already, several innovations are bringing financial access points closer to the farmer. E-wallet in Nigeria allows farmers to receive subsidised seed and fertiliser vouchers on their mobile phones. Likewise, Intellect Tech in Kenya is helping farmers and insurance firms track compensation claims. With proven success, it’s not surprising that funding has followed. In June, two start-ups were awarded $50,000 through Village Capital FinTech for Agriculture: East Africa 2015.
Despite the obvious success, there are still many barriers for FinTech in Africa. One key obstacle is regulation. Africa has more than 50 countries, each with their own regulations, resulting in restricted capital flow, like the exchange control that is still in place in South Africa. Another issue is the focus on local problems – innovators need to realize that FinTech is part a global ecosystem. Nonetheless, Africa still faces a massive opportunity to lead the way in the FinTech evolution.
Although funding was a major barrier in the past, the situation is slowly improving. Incubation hubs have sprung up all over Africa, kick-starting the next generation of technologists. Rand Merchant Insurance (RMI) in South Africa has a club called AlphaCode that helps provide networking opportunities for the local FinTech entrepreneurs. Recently, Barclays Bank Kenya launched an innovation lab that will provide a base for local developers to come up with game-changing ideas that will change the future of the financial industry. All this makes the sector an attractive option for investors. Investment in FinTech companies is expected to double to $8 billion in 2018, according to Accenture.
With a young population set to explode in the coming decades, Africa is positioned to benefit from financial innovation. FinTech is making essential services more accessible to the wider population. The African companies providing these services are on the march and there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop them.

A Revolution  on the march

Enos Mafokate rose from being a stable hand to become his country’s first black showjumper and an Olympic athlete at Barcelona in 1992. These days he runs a riding school in Soweto, Johannesburg, where he teaches young black people to ride tall in the saddle. It is an illuminating story of doggedness that flickered into life during the harsh days of apartheid.
It all started in the 1960s, when a young and curious Mafokate got his first job in Bryanston, a wealthy suburb in northern Johannesburg, as a stable hand for Jaco Fourie, a showjumper with national colors. He learned the ropes and rose to be a groom. He was entrusted with looking after Fourie’s competition horse.
Mafokate taught himself to ride, but the laws of the day said he couldn’t compete with white riders.
“It all started in December 1960 and I was 19 years old, but I was said to be 17 because I didn’t have an identity book. No black person was allowed to ride a horse to compete in any show and when I asked why, I was told I had to be a groom first, meaning you are a ‘boy’ (servant), only then you could ride,” Mafokate recalls.
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In 1992, South Africa, on the cusp of its first democratic elections, was still on the fringes of world sport after many years of being ostracized because of apartheid. Despite this, the country sent what was called a development squad to the Olympic Games in Barcelona. It was not a fully-fledged Olympic team, nor was it expected to march at the opening ceremony.
Nelson Mandela – fresh from prison – was invited to Barcelona; he demanded that the organizers allow the South Africans to march. So Mafokate, in his best riding gear, was at the front of the procession and proud.
In 2007, Mafokate realized his dream of opening his own riding stable in Soweto. At the Soweto Equestrian Foundation, Mafokate trains more than 60 children with 20 horses and ponies. The club also trains both able and disabled children.
“It provides therapy for both mentally and physically unstable children and that is working magic,” says Mafokate.
It has been far from a smooth ride. Mafokate, who sometimes uses his pension to keep the club going, feels the parents could pay more.
“They pay a R100 (around $7) membership fee and don’t pay for anything else like transport or uniform for their children for competitions.”
To make matters worse, one morning in October, as Mafokate was feeding, he was shocked to find his four-year-old pony mutilated and dead.
“This is the year where I think I have gone back to 1988 when I started. I look and think I should be better than I was years ago when I got R700 ($50) from the SPCA to buy my first horse, so 2015 has been a very, very difficult year for the club,” he says.
“The jealous will say it is Enos’ riding school. It’s not; truly speaking it is for the community.”
Through it all, the club has battled on. It was the South African champions twice, Gauteng champions three years in a row and two members from the club represented South Africa at the World Equestrian Games in France in 2014.
It is unlikely that Enos’ son will take over the reins at the riding club. Although they are father and son, they are as different as chalk and cheese.
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His son, Arthur Mafokate is a sharp dressed king of kwaito music, more at home on stage than in the saddle.

Tag: December 2015

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Bespoke Tailor Who Wanted To Be Michael Jackson

Unequal Pay For Equal Work

Her Rough Road To Rio

Still In The Shadows

But What About Reeva?

The Value Of African Music

The Stars Of Africa

‘$2,400 For An Hour’s Work’

‘I Speak As A Businesswoman In Music’

Must We Look At Them And Smile?

A Bolt From The Bush

The Art Of The War

Tough Calls Are worth it

A Revolution on the march

Not Horsing Around