Music

Jay Z gave $6,431 of his $63 million earnings to his own Shawn Carter Scholarship Fund in 2010, while Beyonce didn't give a cent of the $87 million she earned to her husband’s foundation.

On Friday I met four local rappers in a township outside of Cape Town who give most of their time and money to their community.

Today is Youth Day, June 16, and I've just returned from a celebratory student hip-hop show with Choba and Kritzi, two of the rappers.

For the uninformed, Youth Day commemorates the Soweto uprising of 1976 and the murder of 13 year old Hector Pieterson.

Hector's body carried to hospital by an older student, his sister mourning on the left.

On the day in 1976, thousands of Soweto school children protested the Apartheid-era implementation of an Afrikaans-/English-only school curriculum by marching, singing and carrying signs. Of course, under Apartheid, there was no possible way for the police to handle the situation without gunning down innocent children. They murdered upwards of 400 protesting students that day. Hector was amongst the first to fall.

Today, 37 years later, Pieterson's name is one of many shouted at rallies and celebrations across the country,  with the likes of Biko and Mxenge - freedom fighters remembered as heroes who helped create the new South Africa.

On this emotionally charged day, I was in the middle of Phillippi, a nearby township, at a Xhosa hip-hop show. There were about 350 black students in the high school court yard. And there was me.

I was there at the invitation of Khanyiswa Zangqa (known to her friends as Kay), chairperson of Beyond Expectations Environmental Project. She introduced me to the rappers after I spent the previous Friday working as one of her interns.

Choba, Kritzi and some other rappers were hosting the free show for the students, something they do regularly. Today was special, though, and many other local dancers, singers and rappers showed up to perform.

See, for these rappers, doing these shows is just a small part of their very concerted effort to give back to the communities that produced them. Free shows and time spent with the kids is the least they feel they can do.

Kritzi told me about how inspired he was in his youth by an interview he saw of Bob Marley. Marley said that there was no point in keeping wealth for himself. All of what he had, he gave away. Kritzi believes there's no other way to do it.

Choba added, "We can't just walk around trying to be fly with our success. You see these guys in the street trying to be cool, trying to be fly. But they don't understand that this life is a gift to us. It is all we have. We cannot waste it. We must give back."

They showed me their "studio." Down an alley, around the corner, over a massive puddle and into a house the size of my bedroom. Through the front room into an even smaller bedroom. And this was the studio. The walls were made of sheet metal and plywood, and they were adorned with paintings and sketches done by the rappers. There was an old PC, a mic, a mini mixer and an equalizer in one corner. Likely $200 USD worth of equipment (a drop in the ocean in the world of recording). But these okes were so proud to show me. They were proud of it, and what they had done with it.

And I can tell you, they'd done a lot.

Rarely have I heard harder, rawer bars spat so ferociously as I heard these Phillippi rappers rhyme. They are on another level. The intensity, the content, the flow. They murdered every track, brought them all back to life, then murdered them again. It was absolutely hectic. Really brilliant.

"My momma raised a good boy, coming up through the struggle," proclaimed one refrain.

And it hit hard. These aren't just words made up for a radio jam. It's real life. Every day of their lives, these lads were confronted with gang violence, drugs, abject poverty, abuse, racism and rampant crime. But they are so much bigger than all of that. They came out on top.

You have to think their parents had something to do with it. It can't all be Bob Marley's doing. And lo and behold, this Youth Day also happened to be Fathers Day, and one of the rapper's fathers showed up, came out into the performers circle and embraced his son with tears on his face as the crowd erupted in cheers.

His son could've been on the streets, in prison or dead. But he's not. He's creating something beautiful and sharing it with the world. He's a success story already, barely in his 20s. If his life ended today, he will have already done more with it than a million snotty college kids ever will. While suburbanites across the globe were complaining about their new iPhones, these township lads climbed mountains of adversity and emerged victorious. And now they're sharing their success with other young people, to inspire more success.

And that's really what it takes. The long journey out of societal disparity begins with one champion who turns to help others up the mountain.

At one point during the day, Choba got a phone call from his show promoter asking how much to charge for tickets. The promoter's ears were probably ringing for a minute after the call. Choba tore him up.

"It's not about the money, man! We do not f*cking charge! Especially not today!"

He was quite distraught.

"It's always about money with these guys," he sighed to me.

When I asked how they got by if it wasn't about the money, they told me they charge for shows outside of the townships, as well as selling merch and working other jobs. But they were adamant that the township shows are to remain free to the public.

These lads don't have much. They live in plywood houses. But they give so much time, energy and love to those around them. They don't keep much for themselves.

Now, this isn't meant to be my gushy realization that I should appreciate what I have more because others in the world are happy with less (though that's surely true). It is my recognition of the world's need for more givers.

In the U.S., there is this heinous idea that when you climb the ladder, you do it on your own, and you alone should enjoy the rewards. Jay Z was selling crack 15 years ago. Now he's got a net worth of about $500 million USD, and he gave $6,341 to charity in 2010. That's 0.001% of his wealth. Wow. Big heart, Hov.

Here in Cape Town, it's very normal to be asked for money. Everywhere you go, more or less, someone will ask you for something. Oftentimes they're peddling handcrafted trinkets or they'll help you find a parking spot, but sometimes they just walk up and ask you for cash. Hell, some people will ring your doorbell and ask for a buck.

It's been fascinating to watch the other UK students I live with handle it. They're often offended. In the U.S., it's quite rude to ask for handouts. But in this country, we are a few haves in an ocean of have-nots. And the truth is that while the R20 that I give them will only set me back $2 USD, it can feed them for the day. Or they might buy cigarettes. Or booze.

But I give to them anyways. Because I have, and they don't. Simply. There's no other reason. Of course, it's foolish to blindly throw money at Africa, especially in large quantities. But the truth is that when I have something that others need, it is my duty as a good human being to give.

When I'm broke, it means I'll be eating frozen peas for my meals next week. When you're broke in the township, you may be eating out of rubbish bins for your meals next week.

So perhaps Jay Z should come down and spend some time taking lessons from Choba and Kritzi. Maybe we all should.

Grass

Last week I wrote a post for my sister in which I said South Africa gives me hope. I intend to amend that post to clear up some things.

I am under no impression that South Africa is some promised land flowing with milk and honey.

In fact, the majority of problems in this country are glaringly obvious. They're in plain sight everywhere you go. The haves live behind walls and gates and electric fences, while the have-nots live in tin and cardboard shacks just down the road. Corruption, inefficiency and thuggery make front-page news every day.

But a realization I've come to is that it's not a matter of the grass being greener overall. It's a matter of green patches and dead patches. And there's very little to no separation. The green patches and the dead patches are so intermingled that the difference is almost difficult to tell. If you turn some of the green blades over, they're dead on the other side.

Every beautiful thing about this country is juxtaposed against the issues. For every majestic view of a mountain, for every amiable stranger on the street, there's a robbery or an electricity blackout.

But so clear to me is the silver lining around every storm cloud. Every issue is skirted by hope, even if it's a small amount. There has to be. South Africa MUST have hope, and it does.

I just keep thinking back to how my mother used to teach songs in minor keys to the choir in Maun, and they would automatically turn it into a major key.

When you drive around the townships, you see little kids and their older siblings playing and dancing and singing and laughing. They aren't moaning. They've not got flush toilets, but they aren't crying about it.

And this isn't some gushy story. I'm not trying to say that I've had everything put into perspective about how I should appreciate all the things I have because poor African kids are happy with less (though it's true).

This is about how the negatives are literally wrapped up right around the positives, and the positives around the negatives. It's difficult to choose whether positives outweigh negatives. In fact, I don't think it's possible or even necessary.

I think the ability to accept the positive hand-in-hand with the negative is a simple fact of life. And the continual drive to create a better world is a must. If you can't accept what is and work for something better, where can you live and what can you live for?

Watch this: http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_abani_muses_on_humanity.html

Tourists

My internship starts soon! On Tuesday, in fact. Really excited to have an opportunity to be useful. Never wanted to be one of those university students who goes abroad and comes back and says something hollowly dramatic like, "They gave me so much more than I could ever give them!" If I leave Cape Town having given back less than I received, it won't be from lack of intense effort. I'm here for a reason, and it's not just so I can feel good about myself. I have skills and abilities that should be of use to someone. No effort will be spared in making that happen.

I'm a bit nervous about the internship, but not much. There's one thing, however, that actually frightens me about the next eight weeks: being a tourist. I'm terrified of group tours and group photos and tourist hot-spots and t-shirts with stereotypical touristy landmarks printed on them and everything else that goes with being a tourist. It turns your adventure into some quasi-authentic experience. It's like traveling and seeing everything through a camera lens instead of seeing through your own eyes. You may as well not even be there.

I was walking through a museum the other day and I realized how many photos I was taking. My "photography" (the quotation marks denote my amateurism) was actually disrupting my visit to the museum. Instead of taking the time to read and learn, I was so concerned about photographing everything. The drive to document every artifact was taking away from the actual experience. So I'm making a rule for the coming two months: when out and about, I'm not allowed to take more than one photo per 10-minute span. Some pictures are fine. It's something to show your family and look back at down the road. But too many photos is bad news, so I'm really going to be strict about that rule. It may just help me avoid becoming a tourist.