Yesterday in the Mother City

Yesterday in the Mother City
By: Percy Mabandu

It’s the last Wednesday of March in the Cape Town city centre. The green market square is bursting at the seams with people out to party. The Cape Town international jazz festival is hosting its customary free concert for all and everyone. Especially citizens who can’t afford the coveted tickets to Africa’s grandest gathering.

As the sun rose on the mother city, the morning sounds of revving cars arriving for work is punctuated by the bang of hammers and clank of spanners preparing the evening stage. In the evening with some of the same cars revving their way out of town, the square came under a different boom and bang. The stage is set and the bands are dishing out the funk. The audiences are snapping their fingers and stamping their feet. There’s a scream here, a shout there and everyone is jumping for joy. Suited men with important feet that won’t dance sit with their purple eyed companions in tight fitting dresses and glitzy things. There’s beer and banter everywhere. Sex workers and homeless baggers who live in the square are nowhere to be seen.

As Beatenberg, a local house and pop band takes to the stage with their chart topping hits like Pluto, the feminine hisses and hollers rise into the air to confirm the festive mood of the day.  The Dj spins some Beyonce into the intervals. The screams affirm the righteousness of the choice of song. By the time Sipho Hotstix Mabuse steps on to deliver his inimitable funk, the city centre is inescapably caught in the spirit of jazz, jive and jubilation.

The new festival director, Billy Domingo rides the good mood to promise the gathered crowd an even more electrified weekend. After all, as he put it, “This is the 16^th year since we started and thing is gonna go on rocking for the next 20 years.”