Industry news
Experiencing connection through creation
Zolani Mahola, lead singer of South African sensation Freshlyground, was the surprise speaker at this year's edition of TEDx Cape Town. She spoke of being caught up in a toyi-toyi, performing at The Apollo, her family, and connection through creation.
Her main message to those gathered at City Hall was that everyone's connected in some way - she's felt it on the streets of Tokyo, performing in Zimbabwe, playing an intimate set in New York, as well as back home in South Africa - allowing her to feel connected to a global community: "If we are all connected to each other, somehow, by however many degrees of separation, then nobody's ever really a stranger, and we're all among friends," said Mahola.
Toyi-toying
She began her talk by describing in vivid detail how in 1989, as an 8-year-old in New Brighton Township in PE, she was swept up in a sea of people, toyi-toying against the injustices of apartheid, and for the freedom of Nelson Mandela. Transported in time, a sense of collective goose bumps was felt throughout Cape Town's City Hall - a venue brimming with history.
Mahola then took us to 2013 in Harlem, to The Apollo Theatre where the enthusiasm of a young boy's sense of wonder and curiosity created a feeling of connectivity from the stage to the audience. She calls this her moment of "closed circle", where everybody is joined together in real harmony.
Both experiences, while vastly different, aroused in her the same feeling of connection to the people around her. She realised while at The Apollo the power of creation in bringing people together, and building that sense of togetherness.
Image source: Facebook
Seeing people as family
Mahola spoke of her father; she described him endearingly as "that guy" - the one that everyone knows and loves, and who spoke to everyone who crossed his path, plotting a family tree on his walks. He never spoke of the political situation in South Africa, and encouraged his children to see people as family and to be curious about others, she said.
"This sense of curiosity that he fostered in us and this sense of connection to other human beings encouraged me or rather inspired me to write songs and continues to do so. It helps me to listen to the voices within me and to tell their stories. It gives me a platform to experience real harmony," explained Mahola.
It's this level of connection to those around us that can be achieved through creation - whether its art, design, building bridges - it's all the same, said Mahola. "This world is our home, and its people our family."
TEDxCapeTown 2014 was themed 'Design Your Thinking'. For more info, go to www.tedxcapetown.org/tedxcapetown-2014.
