established 01/04/00 Sustaining the principles of love in action : ubuntu /sharing PORTFOLIO OF CULTURAL JOURNALISM : the doors of culture and learning shall be opened struhuru@gmail.com

From the dreaming hamlets of Zululand; to Cape Town's fun-filled coon life, and Johannesburg's teeming, thrilling thousands. From the coffee plantations of the Gold Coast to the jazz-stung nightspots of Nigeria, from the slow pomp of Uganda's royal ceremonies to the livid frenzy of Kenya's turmoil's.” So wrote Henry Nxumalo in Drum magazine Jan '56.

This world of African ideology is a village where everybody everywhere have their idiosyncrasy's; but are the same people with the same hearts. Nobody quite said this like Drum magazine in the 1950's.

This was the ultimate ‘journalists club' mixing the good old humour of the English private schools with the sharp moves of the African ghetto's to an art. And thus we had urban life where Drum was an icon of courage, beauty and high life - ' the best of times, the worst of times - so full of events,' claimed Can Themba.

Drum was funded by the interest on gold and at one stage was extremely powerful with up to 25 offices in Nigeria alone and a publishing wing in Uganda. However by the 1970's this magazine was destroyed and humiliated by the political powers of the time forcing it to sell out to the dominant party at a song.

And what was to be remembered is what founding editor / publisher Jim Bailey had saved in the archives. The Bailey African History Archive is an extraordinary world of truthful and honourable African culture.

In South Africa Drum is most closely associated with the 50's people and the bright lights of the cosmopolitan twenty four hour suburbs of Sophiatown and District Six.

Mr. Drum, Henry Nxumalo, was the first journalist for the magazine, and the first to employ the mass of extraordinary material the polar opposites of South African politics offered the non-white world. He risked everything to bare the truth and represent the integrity of the exploited people. Mr. Drum was the good, fighting courageously and liberally, swallowing tough and dangerous assignments for the cause - to uncover the ‘scoop', provoke change and strengthen the will off the righteous. He knew what was going down, and he supplied the details. His working stint on the potato farms rocked parliament exposing the poor conditions under which Africans labored. The clean up the reef campaign identified the great area of lawlessness, 'the square mile of sin' and cried for support from the police. He conspired to get himself into Johannesburg central prison, and created an international scoop with the ward conditions and the belittling naked native search. He arrived barefoot and unshaven to beg employment on a farm where an African laborer was flogged to death with a hose-pipe. And his investigation into church apartheid was fascinating in its juxtaposition of icy prejudice and the will for 'brotherly love'.

Crime and investigative reporting joined the more frivolous and entertaining material - sex (preferably across the color line) and sport as the content formula for the magazine, whilst explicit and provocative photography was the romantic shine. In every issue, there were sweet and coy picture love stories - girl meets boy, a lonely love song, a sensitive man and Cupids strike. Dolly's heartbreak column appealed to all unrequited, footloose, inexperienced or confused lovers to write in for advice. Todd Matshikiza with his rhythmical infectious jazz writing brought the personal victories of many artists to the public. Matchekeez as this uniquely stylish fellow became known went onto compose the All African Jazz opera King Kong.

King Kong was an over confident boxer from Johannesburg who after being floored by a middle weighter, murdered his girlfriend and drowned himself by jail. Somehow in the opera through vivid performances by Miriam Makeba, Joe Mogotsi and the brass arrangements, this story is transformed into a mirror of society, so resplendent in its struggle between honor and jealousy, it preserves cultural pride and identity, injecting a self confidence into the heart of the people, enabling them to fight with courage.

King Kong was an opera that was staged in London and lives on to this day on LP or even CD. It stand alongside Drum magazine as a shining example of South Africa popular culture.

To think of the 1950's in South Africa is to think of how urban life was integrating with township life and a vision for freedom was being entrenched in the minds of the city slickers.

And with all these emotions the journalists became a huge presence in the community. They brought an effervescence from the variety of cultural hot-spots and an earnestness from the social issues. Their lives were a dedication, a mission, almost a fearless and selfless abandon in evaluating everybody's culture, everybody's concern. It made compulsive reading. People lived by their Drum magazine, everybody of every age would read it. In the trains, on the streets, in the clubs - it would pass from hand to hand, everyone's monthly diet of controversy, self-acclamation and self-worth. Drum was a symbol of the new African cult, divorced from the tribal stereotypes, but urbanised, eager and proud.

At it's prime Drum Magazine sold 50 000 copies monthly that got read 9 times each. It was immediate and disposable media that was extremely successful at its time for igniting and integrating an era.