News Brief

The Late Nelson Mandela's Artwork Will be Auctioned Off in New York

'The Cell Door' is an artwork Nelson Mandela completed after he served his only term as the president of South Africa.


For the first time ever, one of Nelson Mandela's artworks will not only be displayed in public but also auctioned off by Bonhams. Following the end of his presidential tenure in 1999, Mandela took up drawing as a favorite pastime. Many of his drawings are depictions of the things he'd seen and endured during his 27-year imprisonment on Robben Island.


The Cell Door is almost childlike in its simplicity. The pastel drawing, completed in brown and purple wax crayons, depicts part of the anti-Apartheid veteran's tiny cell where he spent the majority of his time. The focus of the drawing is of course the cell door which is seen to be visibly locked by a key.

The drawing has been in the possession of one of Mandela's daughters, Pumla Makaziwe Mandela. According to the BBC Africa, she said, "I think for him, art was a good way of expressing himself or trying to come to terms with his history and his (I wouldn't want to say) demons but just coming to terms with his whole life."

The artwork will be auctioned off today in New York and is expected to fetch as much as 90 000 USD. Speaking about the prized artwork, the director of the auction house's modern African art, Giles Peppiatt, said:

"The word 'iconic' is so overused but to have a drawing of one of the most important men of the 20th century… would be a remarkable thing...It was a very personal, very poignant work for him."
Photo by Alet Pretorius/Gallo Images via Getty Images

5 Designers to Watch at South African Fashion Week SS23

Here are five designers to watch at South African Fashion Week SS23.

From April 20 to 23, South African Fashion Week will hit Johannesburg for its spring summer 2023 showcase. More than fulfilling the need of a fashion show, SAFW has accelerated the growth of South Africa’s fashion scene, by creating avenues to discover local talents, promoting local craftsmanship, boosting the retail economy, and triggering conversations like sustainability. SAFW is also responsible for launching the labels of prominent homegrown designers like Rich Mnisi, Thebe Magugu, Lukhanyo Mdingi, Reggi Xaba, and Sindiso Khumalo.

As one of Africa’s leading fashion event, SAFW now enters its 26th year. And over three days, it will host 11 shows and showcase 39 collections at Mall of Africa, its official venue partner. The SS23 show will see it join forces with contingents from Mozambique (Chibai, Mabenna, and Cuccla). It’s a first time collaboration, syncing Mozambique Fashion Week with South Africa’s, which will close out the show.

Going strong is SAFW’s New Talent Search, a local-run competition to discover fresh and under-the-radar talents. Returning as a headline sponsor of this segment is fashion retailer Mr Price. From Mmathoo Silika to Sifiso Kunene to Kuhle Phumzile Zondo, this year’s entrants will open proceedings at SAFW and may the best talent win. On the other hand, there are other designers we have on our radar. Not only have they been impressive in the past, we just love the mystery of not knowing what to expect.

Here are five designers to watch at South African Fashion Week SS23.

Thando Ntuli (Munkus)

After winning SAFW’s talent search competition in 2022, Thando Ntuli became a national buzz. Her womenswear brand, Munkus, was created in 2019 and has been a time capsule of '80s and '90s Soweto style influences. From its playful, whimsical silhouettes to bold and daring prints, the brand is bridging wardrobes across generations of women.

Further, a sustainability narrative has governed Ntuli’s approach to making garments. Involving technical details that imbue sentimentality, the brand prides itself on quality over quantity. In doing so, the garment’s shelf life can be extended enough to be passed down. Munkus has also adopted layering cues, allowing customers to style with other pieces. At SAFW SS23, the designer is slated to appear on day one, debuting the brands’s Isikhathi/Time SS23 collection.

Fikile Sokhulu

A 2021 WWD profile had spotlighted Fikile Sokhulu as a designer to watch. Indeed, the Durban-based designer finished as a finalist at the 2018 SAFW talent search contest. Launched in 2018, Sokhulu’s eponymous brand was among the selected few for the Fashion Bridges project in 2021. A collaboration between South Africa and Italy, the cultural exchange initiative saw Sokhulu unveil a new collection during Milan Fashion Week.

The brand’s romantic aesthetic (ruffles, frills, pleats, ruching) and feminine tailoring tap into soft sensibilities. When the brand started out, it had heavily featured white, which can still be found in recent collections.

Sipho Mbuto

Durban-based Sipho Mbuto created his self-named, androgynous brand in 2018. A finalist at the 2021 SAFW New Talent Search, Mbutho also participated in the Fashion Bridges project. And this is only a few of the recognitions he has. The brand’s aesthetic tows the line between understated and dramatic, mix matching and clean monochromatic lines.

In Mbuto’s world, he has been sustaining a dialogue around the gender question of clothes, prioritizing self-expression, functionality, movement, and durability. At SAFW 2021, he showcased a collection made out of upcycled denim, second hand jeans sourced from street markets and then deconstructed. At the core of the brand are zero-waste measures informing its production method.

Ntando Ngwenya (Ntando XV)

Photo by Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images

Ntando Ngwenya isn’t a new name in South African fashion. A self-taught designer, he showcased his debut capsule collection in 2015 at the Johannesburg Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. In 2017, he became the winner of David Tlale’s The Intern, a South African reality show with contestants competing to be Tlale’s next assistant designer.

In the years that have followed, Ngwenye has found a niche in menswear with Ntando XV, created in 2015. The experimental label has been inclusive nonetheless, combining wardrobe essentials with postmodern techniques. A visual signature is the contrasting white piping that wreathe around garments. In the SS23 SAFW designer lineup, Ngwenya showcases on the last day, and we look forward to it.

Gugu Peteni (Gugu by Gugu)

A finalist in the 2020 and 2022 SAFW’s Scouting Menswear competition, Gugu Peteni established Gugu by Gugu in 2019 as a streetwear label. Her experience designing for Mohair South Africa for three years helped the designer to navigate Gugu by Gugu in the streetwear market. It also explains her love for mohair, and how the material has crept into her own label.
From colorful knits, denim, velvet dungarees, mohair coats, jumpers to bomber jackets, embossed logos and hand-painted essentials, Peteni has created a wide range of streetwear pieces. For SAFW’s AW22 showcase, she collaborated with South African artist Moagi Letseki to render paintwork on some offerings. It was also a collection that used sustainable techniques and materials used in Peteni’s home. Gugu by Gugu will showcase on April 22, the last day of SAFW.



Film
Photo courtesy of Prime Video.

The 10 Best Horror Movies to Stream in South Africa

It doesn’t take much to make a good horror film – often the most thrilling of scares come from the simplest of ideas. Here are our picks for 10 of the best horror movies to stream in South Africa.

As far as African cinema is concerned, no one does horror quite like the South Africans. OkayAfrica crawled through the major streaming platforms to bring you a list of some of the finest horror titles, plus where to watch them.

From survivalist screamers to ecological horrors, these titles are guaranteed to scare your socks off.

'African Folktales Reimagined' (2023)

Netflix partners with UNESCO to present a potentially exciting initiative, a lore anthology series from six different African countries (Kenya, Mauritania, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda), each one reinventing a familiar folktale through the filmmaker’s unique lens. Covering a range of genres from romance to horror, the project is Netflix’s attempt to support the next generation of storytellers, arming them with resources including mentorship and a healthy budget of $90,000 following a competitive process. Dive in and get your scare on.

Where to stream: Netflix

'Beast' (2022)

Idris Elba versus a rampaging CGI lion in a duel to the death – what’s not to love? Baltasar Kormákur's high-concept thriller is a classic man vs. nature survival fable that delivers exactly what it promises, nothing more or less. Shot in the provinces of Limpopo, Northern Cape and the city of Cape Town, Beast also features South African star Sharlto Copley in a supporting role. Elba plays Nate Samuels, a widowed surgeon who meets his worst nightmare — a rogue man-killing lion — when he visits a game reserve with his family.

Where to stream: Prime Video

'The Domestic' (2022)

Bradley Katzen’s single-location chiller stars Thuli Thabethe and Tumisho Masha as an upper-class couple who hire the daughter of their recently deceased housekeeper as their new help. Things soon take a macabre turn when the new help (played by Amanda Du-Pont) seemingly makes it her personal mission to destroy them from within. The Domestic is a suburban horror caper that explores class differences as well as the continuum that links the living with the ancestral plane.

Where to stream: Prime Video

'Fried Barry' (2020)

Barry (Gary Green) is a loser; a heroin addict who has stretched his long-suffering family to their breaking point. Following yet another bender, Barry is abducted by an alien, and he surrenders his body to the visitor who then goes on a joyride through Cape Town, discovering the messy and wonderful world of humankind. Ryan Kruger’s madcap adventure, which has amassed somewhat of a cult following, employs drugs, sex, and violence to comment on human follies and dissatisfactions.

Where to stream: Shudder, Showmax

'Gaia' (2021)

A trippy ecological cautionary tale, Gaia broke through at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in 2021. Directed by Jaco Bouwer, Gaia tracks an injured forest ranger, Gabi (Monique Rockman) who, on a routine mission, is rescued by two off-the-grid survivalists. What starts out as a timely rescue soon grows into a hellish nightmare for Marie as she observes a cultish devotion to the forest among her hosts. Meanwhile, the cabin is also being attacked by a strange presence. Cue the screams.

Where to stream: Showmax, Hulu

'Glasshouse' (2021)

Kelsey Egan’s dystopian debut was a big winner at the South African Film and Television Awards (SAFTAs) following its premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival in 2021. As a dementia-like toxin that has the effect of wiping people's memories spreads, a family of five isolates itself from this devastating pandemic in a dreamy greenhouse. Their ritualistic idyll is endangered when one of the daughters invites a wounded stranger into this sanctuary. Glasshouse recalls Sophia Coppola’s The Beguiled, only with more chills.

Where to stream: Showmax

'His House' (2020)

Written and directed by Remi Weekes, this elegant and eloquent debut which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival stars British actors of Nigerian descent, Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu as a refugee couple from South Sudan, struggling to adjust to their new life in an English town that appears to have evil lurking beneath the surface. His House is a terrifying look at the refugee experience, situating the indignities and the abuse within the traditional structure of a haunted house horror.

Where to watch: Netflix

'Nanny' (2022)

Sierra Leonean American filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu made her feature debut with Nanny, a visually arresting horror fable about an undocumented Senegalese woman (a convincing Anna Diop), working as a domestic help to a wealthy couple in New York City. Nanny emerged the big winner at Sundance, winning the U.S. Dramatic Competition. The film is a visual delight, with Jusu’s singular vision emerging through the crisp photography and engagement with West African folklore.

Where to stream: Prime Video

'Prey' (2007)

Another (wo)man versus wildlife adventure, Prey directed by the veteran maestro Darrell Roodt (Yesterday, Sarafina!) stars Bridget Moynahan as an American woman trapped by a pack of hungry lions inside a car alongside her two stepchildren, while holidaying at a South African game reserve. The film was inspired by the true story of the Tsavo Man-Eaters during the colonial era, and was filmed on location in Gauteng and Limpopo.

Where to watch: YouTube

'Trees of Peace' (2021)

Trees of Peace contends with a different kind of horror, a not-so-distant example of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. Based on true events, writer-director Alanna Brown makes a fictional account of three Rwandan women and an American who hideout in a tiny underground crawlspace during the 1994 genocide that pitted Hutu and Tutsi sects against one another, leading to the massacre of over 1 million people. Brown’s filmmaking is quite heavy handed but look beyond her reliance on closeups and cliches, and you might find something inspiring about Rwanda’s reconciliation efforts led by women.

Where to watch: Netflix

Music
Image courtesy of the artist.

7 Essential Facts About Nonso Amadi's Debut Album

Nonso Amadi explores his musical journey and tells us 7 Essential Facts about his new album, When It Blooms.

Any discourse involving Nigeria’s alternative music scene can’t be complete without mentioning Nonso Amadi.

The 27-year-old singer, songwriter, and producer is a key figure in Nigeria’s “alté renaissance” of 2015-2018, a period responsible for the widespread emergence of a crop of alternative artists, producers, and creatives firmly establishing their niche and creating room for themselves and their art in an industry heavily dominated by afrobeats-centered music, sounds, and aesthetics.

2015 saw Nonso release his first project, the Alone EP, officially launching a career that would quickly usher the young talent into the limelight. Following the EP, his subsequent single “Tonight” put Nonso on the map. The self-produced afro-R&B song established Nonso as one of the leading new voices in Nigerian R&B and alternative music, transcending the niche listenership of the alté community and successfully taking the emergent R&B sound mainstream, in a similar fashion to what the likes of R&B veteran Banky W accomplished.

The next few years saw him release a string of singles, high-profile features with the likes of Mr Eazi, Simi, Kwesi Arthur, and more, and two EPs, all capped by a three-year hiatus. In 2022, he returned to the music scene with “Foreigner.” the lead single off the subject of this story: his debut album When It Blooms. The release of “Foreigner” marked the beginning of a brand new career run, backed by label partners UMG Nigeria, Def Jam Records and Universal Music Canada, in a freshly-inked record deal.

Now close to a decade after the singer’s first output, When It Blooms is finally here. It’s a 15-track project packed with blends of afrobeats, R&B, and more, laced with sonic and lyrical references to his Lagos ties. Nonso’s debut album represents everything he is and has become—a “sonic globetrotter” highly=assertive in his sound and identity.

OkayAfrica spoke to Nonso Amadi about his debut album When It Blooms, and he gave us 7 Essential Facts about the project below.

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Style
Photo by Kendrick Galeri.

Ayobami Oladapo On Winning AMVCA Design For The Stars Runway Competition

The Nigerian designer aims to use the prize money to create her first collection.

Ayobami Oladapo only found out about the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards fashion competition two days before the deadline. Luckily, that was still enough time to throw her hat into the ring. “I [got] an email a few weeks later that said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve been selected.’ Oladapo’s last-minute move resulted in her winning the second-ever edition of the AMVCA Design For The Stars Runway competition–providing a much-needed boost for her burgeoning fashion label, Statement by Bami. “It’s amazing,” she tells OkayAfrica. “I know for sure that winning this is going to set me up how I want [it] to.”

Created in 2014, the AMVCAs recognize and celebrate the ardent work of TV personalities and content creators across the Nigerian entertainment industry. Through its channel Africa Magic, founding parent company Multichoice has continued to build structures that uplift the industry, including introducing new categories to showcase Nigerian talent, such as the fashion competition, which it established last year.

The ninth edition of the AMVCAs culminated in a glitzy weekend affair over the 20th of May in Lagos. Among the big winners included Tobi Bakre taking Best Actor in a Drama, for Brotherhood; Osas Ighodaro taking Best Actress in a Drama, for Man of God, and Adeola Art-Alade taking Best Costume Designer, for The Real Housewives of Lagos (Reunion Episode).

Fashion has always played a role in the awards, and this year was no different. Celebrities dressed up in both regal and minimalist designs, showcasing their elaborate personalities in the process. Hosting a runway competition only further entrenches its significance at the AMVCAs. The maiden edition, which took place last year, saw Nigerian designers Obinna Omeruo, Sophie Chamberlain, and Felix Asuquo emerge as the winners. This year, Oladapo, who is known by her nickname of Bami, beat contestants like Emerie Udiahgebi of UDIAHGEBI, Emmanuel Goodnews of Just Icon, and Funmibi Olayinka. Last year’s competition was judged by a panel of high-profile fashion personalities, while this year’s was decided upon by public voting.

“I am still in shock, and honestly grateful to God for this win,” she says. “I think that what set me apart from my competitors and caught the eye of the audience was that my designs were simple, and at the same time exaggerated and making a statement. So, simple pieces, but exaggerated designs.”

StatementByBami creates womenswear pieces that juxtapose her brand’s style — easy silhouettes and fitted garments — with the personality of the clients she’s designing for. To that end, she creates highly fitted dresses, onesies and two-pieces, all made from vibrant colors and bold patterns. “My audience [is] women who are super stylists and know what they want. I mostly use silk, lace and a little bit of organza to design for my clients,” she says.

It’s no secret that one of the major challenges faced by fashion brands in Nigeria is access to funding, especially for young brands. This is why platforms like the AMVCAs are important in the grander scheme of things. Their impact allows designers to be expressive, with support as they progress in their journey. Coached by one of Nigeria’s most prolific designers, Ohimai Atafo of Atafo, the designers were tasked with producing a two-look collection consisting of one piece inspired by sponsor Pepsi’s official colors and one piece created for the AMVCA red carpet.

Another challenge facing young fashion brands is the issue of visibility and clientele recognition. With the AMVCAs being such a highly-anticipated event broadcast across a major channel, young designers taking part in the runway competition stand the chance to gain significant exposure. “My hope is that [this win] brings my brand out there, so that people can see me more, and see how creative I am,” Bami says. Although she has been building Statement By Bami for less than three years, she feels people are less willing to associate with brands of her size: “I do think there’s kind of discrimination against small brands but I’m grateful to platforms like this, since they also help us elevate our brands.”

Winning this competition doesn’t mean the difficulties of running a fashion label disappear. But for designers like Bami, it does provide more reason to continue to push on. “I would always advise people to put themselves and their brands out there. There are loads of challenges that come with it, but doing the work, improving oneself, and getting knowledge about the industry is one way to overcome such [things],” she says. And she’s only just beginning. Bami plans to release her first collection on the back of this win.

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