Hip hop & Poetry Concert - in commemoration of Black August: 2007

The year 2007 was the year of implementation for the BWARF movement. Apart from hosting Weekly Poetry Sessions we had managed to get the word out and attracted a sizeable audience. It had become common knowledge that the movement’s principles revolved around self-knowledge through some of the materials that were published. It’s therefore not surprising that most people came to know the acronym BWARF as Black Writers and Artists Forum. In all the materials such as leaflets and brochures, there was a clear indication that blackness was the core of our existence: that black consciousness was in actual fact, the ideology behind the words and the mental attitude initially embraced.

During the first half of the year we had attracted strategic partners such as DJ SOJ, Graffiti and graphic designer artists such as a.k.a Imo who would later help gather a team of competent like-minded individuals in organising our very first concert in our three years of practice around Limpopo province, Polokwane. Imo and company painted the mural as seen in the picture(above).The people we attracted were strategic in that they all saw, through our formal involvement with Polokwane Municipality Cultural Services, an opportunity to grow their respective talents beyond their individual selves, although many never became registered members of BWARF, and they were very close to the operations one would say they were registered as members.

Of course who would blame them for believing the time had come for local artists to emerge and get recognised for their talents given the sad state of affairs we as a forum had found locally. Apart from the ideological mission of the BWARF movement, the main objective was to create a platform from where local artists can grow and shine. Given the many emerging artists that we were able to unearth during the weekly poetry sessions, we were quite satisfied that we were achieving that goal. There were many young aspiring poets, authors, fine artists and singers the BWARF movement help shape and groom during its prime – they know themselves and there is no need to mention name here.

When a decision was made during a joint meeting with one representative of Polokwane Municipality Cultural Services and the rest of supporting artists that the time had come to host a concert, everyone was exited. We started off preparing for the concert with BWARF playing a sweeping role in as far as shaping the concert purpose and organising performing acts was concerned. By then, BWARF was a registered NPO with both a logo and a letter head which was enough to attract external sponsorship and donations. Unfortunately, the problems of incapacity and the forever absence of executive committee members prevented the forum from applying for funding. This was a huge obstacle towards progress and it was also a great impediment during the planning of our very first provincial concert: the Hip Hop & Poetry Concert   - in commemoration of Black August of 2007.  

Together with a.k.a Con Artist (self-confessed), BWARF planned, organised and partook in the concert both as host and a pool from where performing acts for the day came. It was during the planning that a few surprises came on board as we continued building on momentum. Corporate giants Cell C and SAB Miller became part of the planning and their involvement was clearly recorded in the concert marketing material such as the famous leaflets which had a black clinched fist alongside “The Backyard” as the host. What many people weren’t aware of is that the involvement of the two giant corporates was just strategic and a non-monetary sponsorship and therefore no monies were made from this partnership. What’s available for people to know though is that some people invested some money into the planning and coordination of the concert.

The only misgiving unto this day was that since the people who invested money had corporate interests in the concert, a lot of injustice was done on the performing acts of that day since most of the entrance fee intake went the way of the investors and not of the artists: a move that would later cause a great fall out between BWARF and the Polokwane Cultural Services Unit. We were co-nned.
We were less concerned with getting paid ad more with preaching a message of cultural affirmation and self-knowledge. Prior the concert, a lot of people had asked why BWARF wasn’t recorded as the host and the explanation we gave then was that due to the incapacity and disagreements between executive board members in as far as the operations of the forum were concerned, it was decided in a joint meeting with supporting artists that the alias “The Backyard” be used on the marketing material instead of BWARF – this move would keep individual BWARF movement members on the safe side since doing the opposite would mean they would bring the forum into disrepute according to its organisational constitution which was binding at the time.

During that time, author and performing artist Mahlaga Molepo was visibly the only executive member , out of the original executive four, who was hands on in as far as planning, organising and coordinating the weekly poetry sessions and later the concert  was concerned. The disagreements and incapacity was slowing sending off the organisation to its death. It was during this period that new members came in and helped fill in the gap but the fact that the BWARF movement was a registered organisation meat that for decisions to be taken, a quorum was needed and this never happened as fellow executive members were always absent during meetings. Due to these internal problems, BWARF became an acronym used to refer to the movement instead of the much contested then registered name: Ba-Pedi Writers and Artists Forum - which in short meant two people had founded the organisation. The name had in fact, caused the disagreements and internal infighting for opinion as some executive members had argued the name send out a wrong message – that the word Ba-Pedi relayed a message of ethnicity and not “two” as originally thought when the forum was registered. The forum continued to exist amid these internal shenanigans and so the concert happened.

After much media publicity through articles written in the Capricorn Voice, and a big mural was painted outside the walls of the Polokwane Art Gallery and interviews done on local radio stations such as Thobela FM, the 31^st of August 2007 17:00pm sharp came and the concert began. The Polokwane Auditorium was abuzz with activity as local Poets, Mcees, B-Boys and Singers strutted their stuff from the stage to the amusement and delight of the crowd. It was estimated that the auditorium was full to capacity and the number of people had exceeded the 250 capacity crowd minimum the auditorium was allowed to accommodate. There were many standing in between the seats and others waiting outside. In the crowd were socialites, celebrities and lay people and the event went on until 11:00pm when the audience left behind artists to finish off the days commemoration until the wee hours of the morning. What a day to remember for local artists, what an achievement by the BWARF movement. The downside of it was that the video footage of the event somehow got lost?; a careless mistake on the part of the photographer.The message had sunk deep into the conscience of the provincial population and had even ringed in the ears of people as far as Gauteng, Mpumalanga. We continued to attract a huge following….