Sesasedi sa Tsodio

Please join us for the first screening of „Sesasedi sa Tsodio“, an essayistic video on the Kwaito classic „Tsodio“. The event takes place on 26 February from 6pm at the Goethe-Institut Johannesburg. To RSVP, please send an email to Francois.Venter@goethe.de or send us a DM. Space is limited due to Covid regulations, therefore you are only allowed entry if you have RSVP’d before. For those who can’t make it: There will be further events in Mamelodi, Meadowlands and Mahikeng in the coming months!
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A fugitive flees from both a ghost and the police (as written by harepa player Johannes Mokgwadi in 1974). Tsodio runs to ‘Gauteng ma phutha ditšhaba’. Before we ask why, what if Tsodio is fleeing from neither the ghost nor the police?
 
This essayistic video takes a kwaito classic, Tsodio, as a song-being that narrates movements and biographies; conquests and namings; defeats and reclamations; returns and ancestries…
 
The character of Tsodio as lyrical fiction/mythology travels through orature and storytelling in black musical and sonic histories of the past, present and future. Traveling banners, thinking and sounding with three locations – Meadowlands, Mamelodi and Mahikeng -  serve as backdrops for oral histories with “people as libraries”, on site. These situated lens-based performative conversations trace Tsodio’s multiple umbilical cords and drive the essay video through a journey in sonic, optic and phonetic black world un/making.
 
Tsodio, a pursued and haunted character who murdered his uncle appears in unrecorded mmino wa setšo repertoire, and into mainstream circulation through Johannes Mokgwadi (1974), Paulina Mphoka (date unknown), Joe Shirimani (1998) and Lebo Mathosa, (1999). The Tsodio narrative as circulated in song is long and traverses popular and subversive no-genres (includes the 2012 rendition by Thath’i Cover Okestra Vol.2) up to the 2020 amapiano treatment by The Trybe, Penene The Vocalist (2020). At least 11 Tsodio versions are recorded between 1974 and 2021. For ‘Sesasedi sa Tsodio’, a first in a trilogy on Southern African song-beings, our story zooms into three of Tsodio’s sonic speculations:
 
In Johannes Mokgwadi’s ‘Tsodio le Khwembu’ (1974), ‘Bra Tsodio’ with ‘Bra Khwembu’, his accomplice, stole a gun and killed Sehlapaseledu. They are on the run from Sergeant Lekalakala, and end up in Gauteng “maphutha ditšhaba”.
 
For Paulina Mphoka, Tsodio killed his uncle Matšhabataga, this time without an accomplice, and there is no mention of guns. For Mphoka, the story of Tsodio is not dissimilar to the experience of women, such as “Mosadi wa sepankana, o rekiša bjala”  a brewer of beer during apartheid South Africa is on the look out for ‘Maphodisa a Lebowa’. Men and women all evade the police…
 
For Mathosa, like Mphoka and Mokgwadi, Tsodio doesn’t sleep: “okare o tshwere ke sepoko”. Mathosa’s Tsodio didn’t steal, didn’t kill no one. There are no police after him. Yet when people are sleeping Tsodio “wa groova” – grooving. He also doesn’t work – ke sebodu – a loafer. Eish! Ke eng ka Tsodiyo?
 
In a method that borrows from The Otolith Group, 'Sesasedi sa Tsodio' starts from a place of criticism, and grows into fiction. Conceived and led by Rangoato Hlasane, narrated by Masello Motana with cinematography by Bheki Pilot Biller, score by Siya Makuzeni and Azah Mphago, featuring Vusi Mahlasela, Motlapele ‘Mo’ Molemi’ Morule, Galefele Molema, Stacey Lee, Intellectuals Pantsula, Mandla ‘Spikiri’ Mofokeng, Azah Mphago, with sonic cameo by Gillian Fleischmann and special appearance by Maftown Pantsula Nation.