69 Years to the Treason Trial: The Drill Hall Arts Advocacy Project Launch

“69 Years to the Treason Trial: The Drill Hall Arts Advocacy Project” (2025) a recent key document to archive not only the work of the last 17 years, but also a profound display of cultural advocacy as artistic work. The publication consists of eight sides of 12” vinyls of previously unreleased multi-sensory sonic works and an accompanying booklet (68 pages) of multi-genre texts, ‘69 Years to the Treason Trial’ is a collectible that resists the often elitist practice of material accumulation. As a case-building, epistolary petitioning tool in defense of cultural autonomy with regard to the built environment, grassroots pedagogy, and spatial justice, the publication sits at the intersections of municipal responsibility and accountability with a specific focus on the Drill Hall.

‘69 Years to the Treason Trial’ is the third in the series, following from 56 Years to the Treason Trial (2012) and the revised edition, 58 Years to the Treason Trial (2014). The first two in this series were a compilation of advocacy documents capturing the praxes grounding the Keleketla! After School Programme (K!ASP) at the Drill Hall, Johannesburg, that took place between 2008–2014 and were conceived as pedagogical tools that support sites of educational encounters. Just as the title draws from the pivotal South African Treason Trial of 1956 as that which is still to come, this publication, as both a memory and a mode of advocacy, is an offering towards a future horizon, namely, the relinquishing of the lease of the Drill Hall.

Keleketla! introduces a practice that is both critical and speculative, grounded in the lived realities of Johannesburg while remaining aspirational in its scope. The work with the Drill Hall extends beyond aesthetic or functional considerations, engaging with deeper questions of identity, equity, and spatial justice. By addressing the entrenched systems of title and tenure that perpetuate inequality, we challenge the structural conditions that define post-apartheid urbanity.

Published by: Keleketla!, Haus der Kulturen der Welt & Archive Books - supported by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) 2025
Language: English/German
8 disc 12" vinyl and booklet (68 pages) On sale for R800

The listening session will also explore Keleketla!’s previously published discography:

“Keleketla!” self-titled studio album (Played on Vinyl)
Keleketla! is an expansive collaborative project, reaching outward from Johannesburg to London, Lagos, L.A. and West Papua, “Keleketla!” started as a musical meeting ground between Ninja Tune cofounders Coldcut, Keleketla! and Mushroom Hour. The final product is a future-facing assemblage of influences, drawing connections between different points in a jazz-tipped, soulfully-minded spectrum; it builds outwards, from the solid musical foundations of those first sessions, featuring the likes of Thabang Tabane, esteemed percussionist and son of the legendary Phillip Tabane. On the one hand, there are gqom beats, interlaced with activist chants and and Tony Allen’s live Afrobeat drums; on the other, there are warm, lyrical meditations, aided by horns and keys. The name “Keleketla” means “response”, as in “call-and-response”, a title which speaks to the project’s aim: to build out a shared musical ground, traced across different recording sessions, continents apart.

Thath'i Cover Okestra Vol. 5: Live at Hau Hebbel Am Ufer, Berlin.
Another Keleketla! Library orasonic memory project, Thath’i Cover Okestra, Vol. 5: '17 July to 12 September 1977. Lebo Mathosa is born. Steve Biko is assassinated'. Thathi’s Okestra has been, since its beginning in 2012, a platform that looks at the legacy of Kwaito music, seeking its sociopolitical effects, along with the Black Consciousness movement, in the formation of a new
generation. With Yonela Mnana on the piano, Yusuf Makongela on the guitar, Tiko Ngobeni on percussion and didgeridoo, Mma Tseleng on electronics, Simphiwe Tshabalala on drums, Ayanda Zalekile on electronic bass, and Masello Motana singing, alongside internationally known Mbira instrumentalist the late great Ambuya Stella Chiweshe, the Okestra took over HAU’s auditorium with two breathtaking performances in which music and memory merged.

Doors open at 18:00
Listening session 19:00 - 22:00