It’s a midweek afternoon and I meet up with an old friend in Dobsonville, Soweto. We used to go to hip-hop shows together. Now Trevor ‘Paranoia’ Macupe is a black man who pounds out white music. He’s a member of a black metal band, from Soweto, the urban township to the south of Johannesburg; his music is kicking down barriers.
Black metal is fast, with high-pitched piercing vocals and distorted guitars. It grabs you by the gut. The artists often appear on stage with painted faces, looking like corpses; a dark look for black metal.
The members of this metal band have taken the aggressive guitar music from the northern hemisphere and made it their own.
<div id="attachment_33625" style="width: 325px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33625" class=" wp-image-33625" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-729-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="473" />Trevor ‘Paranoia’ Macupe playing guitar at Arcade Empire. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The five musicians met through skateboarding and hip-hop and now they spill black metal into the African night.
Macupe is the guitarist; Thapelo ‘Bellicose’ Mokoena, the bassist; Modiba ‘Belgaroth’ Rabothata, the drummer; Siyabonga ‘Thronum’ Mngadi is the other guitarist. Dreadlocked Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene, the vocalist, lives up to his name on stage. They are known as Demogoroth Satanum and they are the first all-black, black metal band to come out of South Africa. They have been playing together since 2012.
The band’s technical skills have earned them fans in faraway places like Botswana and Germany. They didn’t have money, nor equipment, nor resources, to go to music school but they practised hard and taught themselves to rock hard.
“Upon discovering it, we didn’t understand it; we dived into it and upon exploring it we found the sound that we are known for today,” says Mngadi.
They acquired the taste while skateboarding and playing video games, with rock ‘n’ roll and punk music playing in the background.
The band usually meet at Mngadi’s room, in Zola, Soweto, sometimes to listen to what they have produced or to write songs before they head out to a community center to rehearse. Passers-by are stunned when they hear metal churning out in a place where township music is the beat of the streets.
“Not just our families, but the whole black community had a very negative view on what we&#8217;re doing because it’s not in the Sowetan comfort zone. They would say it&#8217;s witchcraft or Satanism with the corpse paint and the loud music and screaming,” says Kunene.
<div id="attachment_33626" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33626" class=" wp-image-33626" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-596-e1506084307148-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="332" />A fan takes a photo of Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Kunene says that the younger generation accuse them of playing “white-boy music” and say they are trying to be white people. The older generation just say it&#8217;s witchcraft.
Mokoena had a bad experience while sitting on a train bound for Johannesburg. He was wearing a black metal t-shirt with dark imagery and there was a gentleman sitting in front of him and staring.
“He eventually had the courage to say something. The first thing he said was that I am ‘evil and Illuminati, you’re the one poisoning our children’. He attacked me and didn’t get to know my name. I let him vent because it was a scary situation because of mob justice. If half the train thinks he’s right, I would have got my ass kicked for wearing a metal t-shirt. I didn’t want to engage him in case I incite a violent situation,” he says.
On August 4, the band was in a safer place. The gig was in Pretoria, the capital city of South Africa, about a 91-kilometer drive from Soweto – in cultural terms, it could have been on Mars – at a pub called Arcade Empire peopled by whites. On the night, the only black people there were the members of the bands, the waiters and myself. Nothing unusual for Demogoroth Satanum.
<div id="attachment_33629" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33629" class=" wp-image-33629" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-743-e1506085087815-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Trevor &#8216;Paranoia&#8217; Macupe (left) and Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene thank the crowd for its support. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Four bands are playing on the night; Demogoroth Satanum is the only one playing black metal. An ear splitting kerrang from the lead guitar announces them on stage with a swagger.
“This song is made out to two girls who tried to make it to hell but, unfortunately, they made it to heaven,” says Kunene before one of their numbers.
The audience cheers and the mosh pit – an area on the dancefloor where fans jump into each other as the aggressive music plays – comes to life more and more with every song. Before the song had finished I had to be careful with the camera; it was raining beer as the crowd jumped with bottles in their hands.
“As the mosh pit is happening and the crowd is going crazy, I know we’re doing the right thing,” says Kunene.
<div id="attachment_33627" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33627" class=" wp-image-33627" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-732-e1506084625760-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Fans show their appreciation for Demogoroth Santanum by making devil horns with their hands &#8211; a traditional metal symbol. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
The last song ends and the lights go up. It was like the calm after the storm. The guys had just performed yet another show for free and didn’t mind because they love the music.
The band wants to play more international shows, especially in Europe, where metal is popular.
Demogoroth Satanum sustain themselves with day jobs. Mngadi works as a retention agent, Kunene trades online, Rabothatha recently left his job as call center agent to focus on the music, and Macupe freelances shooting and directing videos. When he is not playing the bass, Mokoena does street cleaning and sweeps bus stops.
“Metal is not one of those genres you’d get into for the money, because you going be sorely disappointed. Trust me, you’re not going to <a href="https://luckycasino.co.za/how-to-make-money-in-south-africa-online-for-free/" style="text-decoration: none; color: inherit;">make money for free</a>, not in this country,” says Macupe.
Just as well. With all the negative commentary from the township and stereotypes about the genre, the boys have turned their most unlikely fans; their families, into their greatest supporters. Their long-term aim is to get more black people into the mosh pit.
<div id="attachment_33630" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33630" class=" wp-image-33630" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/metal-700-e1506085238591-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />Sthembiso ‘Tyrant’ Kunene. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>

Money, Witchcraft And Beer – This Is Metal From Soweto

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.

Not Horsing Around

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

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To Russia With Style—From Russia With A Headache

They call it the sport of kings, but one young lady begs to differ. At 25 years old, Uneku Atawodi has played professional polo in more than 14 countries. She has represented her country at the Federation of International Polo, which makes her the first black, female, professional polo player to compete at international level.
The Nigerian youth began her journey into professional polo at the age of 16. In Kaduna, in north-central Nigeria, where she grew up, polo was almost a weekly ritual in her family. After having played casually for two years, she was ready to make a career of it. Her parents tried to talk her out of it and stopped paying for the upkeep of her horses. Atawodi enrolled for a qualification in Equestrian Sports Science at the University of Brighton, in England. It was then that she began to work at horse stables to gain more experience and received a stage 4 riding accreditation from the British Horse Society.
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“I was quite fascinated by the sport from the first time I watched it and had always wanted to play polo, but my uncles would discourage me by saying: ‘No, you’re a girl, you should try other sports instead’ or ‘A woman’s place, is not on a horse, you won’t get married’. I had also tried out hunting, in England, but there was something about the horses. I was in love and fascinated with them right from the onset. I was passionate about polo,” says Atawodi.
Her passion kept her undeterred; each game gave her a bigger thrill, but Atawodi soon realized that she needed to finance her expensive passion. The costs of playing polo are high: a thoroughbred or thoroughbred cross Argentinian horse ranges from $15,000 to $20,000 or more, and they need to be well looked after and trained if they are to excel. Players’ kits are also pricey, polo riding boots range from $600 to $800 a pair.
More determined than ever, she was ready to swing the mallet for money.
“I believe that if you truly want something, regardless of how wealthy your family might be, it is your responsibility to work for your dream, not expect others to fund your plans. I think my parents’ stern decision bred a strong will in me. It encouraged a strong work ethic and a vibrant belief that every aim is eventually achievable if you work hard for it.”
With this in mind, Atawodi knew it was time to make a change. She returned to Nigeria and began to work at the Federal Capital Territory Administration, in Abuja, as a special duties officer. At that time, she also pursued a business venture in the hospitality sector.
Her love of polo and bid to change perceptions of it being an elitist sport, led Atawodi to establish an NGO called Ride to Shine. It is here, at this non-profit organization in Abuja, that a few orphans are raised to be future polo stars.
“I wanted to open these doors for the children because through my polo handicap, I’ve been able to see the world. This is what I love to do and what better way to share with the children than to give them this gift?”
She is also building a resort in Abuja, the capital city, that will facilitate polo tournaments for children. All proceeds will go to the Ride to Shine trust fund.
“I want them to be ambassadors for Nigeria through polo,” she says.
With a handicap of zero, Atawodi had bigger plans.
“Owning my own team is what I ultimately wanted,’’ she says.
This became a reality as she owns 17 horses and runs a team called Bamboo.
“[It] is a rather new team, we have played in a few Nigerian tournaments and we are now aiming to have the team play around the world.”
One of the tournaments the team has participated in is Polo For A Cause, Atlanta. This event is hosted in partnership with equestrian brand, La Martina, to raise money for orphans in Africa. The tournament will continue to be hosted in various states across the United States to raise awareness and benefit charities.
The team recently played at the Miami beach tournament, where she was a role model.
“It was amazing to have so many little girls inspired by my participation. As the only girl in the tournament, it was a lot of fun,” she says.
Atawodi represented Nigeria in her role as a ‘global shaper’ at this year’s World Economic Forum. She is also writing a book about polo; it will see her traveling the world and learning about the history of polo in many countries.
With more points to score both on and off the polo field, Atawodi is keeping her eyes squarely on the ball.

Tag: Black

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Money, Witchcraft And Beer – This Is Metal From Soweto

Not Horsing Around

To Russia With Style—From Russia With A Headache

Taking A Swing At The Boys Club