Lefifi Tladi’s cosmological influences came from the Pedi, Tswana and Xhosa folklore, stories, songs and dances that he heard growing up in Lady Selborne and Ga-Rankuwa. In the late 1960s, Lefifi transformed these influences into anti-colonial, Black Consciousness (BC) and Pan Africanist thought.
Makaya Ntshoko
Makaya Ntshoko was born in 1939 and grew up in Cape Town. His father was a church musician, who played organ. While in the boy scouts and cubs, Makaya played the bugle. Makaya moved a lot between Cape Town and Joburg playing American jazz and kwela. He played gigs in Johannesburg with Kippie Moeketsi and Hugh Masekela. He performed in the Jazz Epistles with Abdullah Ibrahim (then Dollar Brand) and Johnny Gertze.
Sobizana Mnqgikana
Sobizana Mngqikana was born in East London, South Africa in 1938. He grew up as a young trumpeter. As many other ANC leaders and activists he studied at Fort Hare University. He joined ANC staff in 1969 and in 1973 opened a mission in Sweden in line with ANC’s strategy of “rainbow politics.”
Johnny Dyani was born in 1945 and joined the jazz formation “Blue Notes” at the beginning of 1964 as bassist – the ensemble of five black and one white South Africans quickly gained an international reputation. The apartheid regime did not tolerate this collaboration, and on their tour to Europe in 1964 the five South Africans were confronted with the decision to go into exile where they all established themselves with stellar careers. In the following years, Dyani played with many of the most important representatives of free jazz, such as Steve Lacy, Charles Mingus, Roland Kirk, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd and Archie Shepp.
Peggy Luswazi
Peggy Nomfundo Luswazi was born in Kokstad South Africa as daughter of a pastors family and grew up in Anglican Mission Stations. After her degree at Fort Hare she worked as a teacher in secondary and high schools before she came to study psychology at the university of cologne and later West Berlin. She lectured at the institute for intercultural Education, free university and also at the third world unit of the technical university in West Berlin.
Jürgen Leinhos
Kultur im Ghetto founder Jürgen Leinhos is a practiced organizer of concerts for decades with long-time supporters from church, union and civil society.
Vusi Mchunu
Poet, film-maker and heritage practitioner Vusi Macingwane Mchunu spent 16 years in exile in Berlin, returning to South African in 1992.