MTKidu: the End of the Begining

by Shane De Lange

The electronic music scene in South Africa seems to be booming right now, with quality productions from Max Normal, Real Estate Agents (aka Constructus), Lark, and Jacob Israel generating positive results. Given the high calibre of these already established electronica artists, it seems difficult to imagine how another group could enter into the fray. However, thanks to all the publicity that Mtkidu have been attracting lately with their performances and exhibitions, it is clear that South Africa’s underground cultural scene has got a new member to contend with.

I first noticed Mtkidu about a year ago whilst visiting Love and Hate at their studio in Pretoria. There was a copy of TFTD 0.5 laying on one of the tables in the studio that attracted my attention with its peculiar pink cover, sporting a highly stylized and synthetic looking tree, suggestive of the proverbial burning bush. A few weeks later, Love and Hate held an exhibition, called New Suburbia at the Platform on 18th gallery in Pretoria, which exhibited some of Mtkidu’s illustrations. Mtkidu also played a live beat construction set on the opening night of New Suburbia that made many of the visitors, including myself, stare in astonishment and take notice. A few months later, I had the opportunity to join Love and Hate for their next exhibition, which was held at the Moja Modern gallery in Johannesburg. My involvement in this event, called the Inevitable Exhibition, eventually allowed me to make contact with Mtkidu. Thanks to this ‘inevitable meeting’, I managed to get Mtkidu to perform at my solo show, called Anticube, hosted by Gordart in Melville during December last year. This short history has allowed me to develop a close relationship with Mtkidu, which affords me the opportunity to elaborate on their work here.

Mtkidu are a Johannesburg based ‘blip-hop’ collective comprising Murray Turpin (MT) and Richard Nesbit (KIDU). Together this Team Uncool, as they like to be called, is known for their live beat constructions and multimedia manipulations, which have developed a cult following in certain cultural circles in Pretoria and Johannesburg. These constructions and manipulations form the basis of Mtkidu’s performances, forming a small part of their dark and whacky idiom. Mtkidu’s happenings are pivotally connected to their other artistic endeavours, and it is important to note that Mtkidu’s work is experienced most effectively in various contexts. Mtkidu employ a plethora of mediums and formats to create their work, ranging from graphic illustrations, digital animations, internet blogs and web sites, live DJ sets, interactive CD box-sets, improvised performances and happenings, and all kinds of marketing, such as buttons, badges, stickers, stencils, and pamphlets.

Murray and Nick played a few modest gigs together before the formation of Mtkidu, most notably the “Secret Parties” that were held at the Horror Café and Carfax in Johannesburg. Mtkidu’s first official performance took place at the trendy Berlin Bar in Melville during July 2005, and it was a typically low-key, underground, ‘dope-beats’ affair. They would go on to have regular appearances at various events and venues around Johannesburg, practically becoming residents at Fuel Café and Tokyo Star. Key amongst these happenings was Mtkidu’s performances at art exhibitions organized by Love and Hate, which gradually extended their support base.

Despite the furor surrounding Mtkidu’s underground events, it was the limited release in May 2006 of TFTD 0.5 (Tales from the Dark: Version Five), their first studio album, that finally began to manifest results for the collective. This album was seen as a breakthrough by many connoisseurs in Johannesburg’s artistic community, simply because it managed to do away with many historical constructs and border-limitations; most notably those that separate fine art, illustration, graphic design, and multimedia (digital animations, interactive interfaces, electronic compositions, et cetera).

Mtkidu’s penchant for cross-pollination can be attributed to the fact that MT is a trained artist (Honours, Wits University) and KIDU studied graphic design (Degree, Wits Tech), and both of them have dabbled extensively with music in the past. Murray was a DJ for many years, spinning the decks with rather conservative hip hop beats under the guise of “Undersound”. Nick has been in various bands, playing guitar and singing for the “Shirley Temples”. So, it is understandable that Mtkidu tend to hybridize graphic design, sound, and art so effortlessly. Mtkidu can be seen as a chimera that agitates conservative perspectives about art, design, and music; specializations that have been isolated by institutions throughout history, causing redundant boundaries to be constructed. The introduction and development of new media has offered a way out of these boundaries and constraints, and Mtkidu are surely a pioneering duo in this respect.

A major feature of TFTD 0.5 is its strong emphasis on ‘multi-media’; blurring the distinctions between Mtkidu’s live performances, web sites and blogs, art exhibitions, collaborations, marketing, interfaces, music and other saleable publications. This is not to say that all traditions must be discarded; the point is that Mtkidu has managed to find a relevant use for traditional mediums within the virtual spaces of ‘new media’, paying homage to the digital medina.

Mtkidu’s process is extremely progressive, tossing any notions of specialization away, feeling free to use any medium that strikes their fancy. Firstly, audio manipulation is done with a laptop, sampler, CDJ’s, Kaoss pads, turntables, and a Casio keyboard. These machines help compose the soundtrack to the world of TFTD 0.5, both in its live and recorded manifestations. Secondly, graphic elements, such as comics and websites, are introduced to convey the visual concepts surrounding TFTD 0.5. Thirdly, audio experiments with cued animations are regularly performed in front of a live audience (simple two-dimensional animations are made using Macromedia Flash). And lastly, Mtkidu manages to conjoin all these projects, mediums, and disciplines under a banner of a pseudo-corporation called Team Uncool, which is also their recording label and art consultancy. This approach to capitalism is fairly reminiscent of Asha Zero’s Roadkillvisiontoiletries, or Matthew Herbert’s “Country X” and Radioboy projects, and adds to the socio-political element characteristics of their work.

TFTD 0.5 was the first production released by Team Uncool, and it contains a number of digital compositions in the form of an interactive Flash presentation, which gives a concise introduction to Mtkidu’s worldview. There are seven tracks on the CD that can be described as a mixture of Hip Hop, Drum and Bass, Electronica, Brit-Pop, classic arcade game noises, and a combination of familiar sounds that are reminiscent of childhood (swings, children playing, and birds singing). The sound that comes from this creepy combination of noises can be compared a prospective collaboration between Aphex Twin and Alphaville, or a concert with Richard Devine and Foreigner in a huge gaming arcade. The interactive presentation on the CD also enhances the ubiquitous experience of TFTD 0.5; creating a strong sense of nostalgia in relation to the past, present, and future. The interface is deliberately obscured in order to increase this sense of ambiguity in relation to society’s borders, geographical positioning, and temporal paradoxes. The album is an amalgamation of Mtkidu’s subversive ideas relating to societal constructs, stereotypes and institutions i.e. white people listen to Alternative and Metal and black people listen to Hip Hop and House. Their point is that these distinctions are severely limiting and unnecessary, obstructing the development of art and design in South Africa.

TFTD 0.5 can be described as a satire about the current socio-political climate within South Africa, specifically in relation to the transition from Apartheid to the ‘New South Africa’. Issues such as crime, poverty, and change seem to be addressed in a humorous and serious manner. This confusing situation is addressed by the digital comic book of TFTD 0.5, which can be viewed with the enhanced features on the CD. The comic evokes Mtkidu’s vision of a simulated environment based on life growing up in South Africa’s transitional period.

The comic depicts a troubled young boy called Klein Baas (meaning young master - a call-back to the Apartheid era) who lives in the inner city of Johannesburg. He is constantly struggling to understand the odd contradictions that surround him in his post-apartheid world: he sees his domestic worker as a mother because his mother is too busy with her advertising job, and he constantly makes Manichean distinctions between the city and the suburbs. Klein Baas is the alter-ego for both MT and KIDU, both having been seemingly unaware of the events of 1994 because they were too young to understand the reasoning behind those events. TFTD 0.5, from the perspective of Klein Baas, asks a few simple questions: what would life be like in 1994? Am I responsible for what my forefathers have done? Am I South African if I am white? Who comes up with these distinctions, taboos and stereotypes? It is a play on George Orwell’s “1984” in the context of South Africa during 1994.

Mtkidu uses technology and the effects of the media, such as television and the internet, to approach these issues in an almost Futurist, avant-garde manner. The only way Klein Baas manages to cope with his schizophrenic life is to play video games on a cartridge based console, which is once again a flashback to the early 90s (Nintendo and Sega consoles were very popular at that time). At one point in the comic Klein Baas manages to get his hands on a very special game cartridge, called TFTD 0.5, which he stole from a second-hand shop owned by a man named Paul Kruger. When Klein Baas inserts the game cartridge into his gaming console he is transported into an alternate universe. This dimension is called “dark continent” and forms the environment of TFTD 0.5; an immixture of The Never-ending Story, The Ring, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz. The only difference is that Doris is a boy named Klein Baas growing up in post-apartheid South Africa.

All the features included on TFTD 0.5 aids in linking Mtkidu’s art, design, performances, and marketing. The spectator is converted into an information pattern, skipping networks, penetrating vibrant, anime inspired, two-dimensional domains, in dark and lively spaces. Mtkidu, Team Uncool, TFTD 0.5; all these identifications form an absorbing display of quirky and sinister visuals, combined with hauntingly funny sounds, and an extremely addictive concept founded on MT and KIDU’s lived lives, growing up in a multi-cultural, multi-faceted, and multi-mediated South Africa.

TFTD 0.5 is analogous to Mtkidu’s historical and futurist, altruistic and self-conscious viewpoint on South Africa; a schizophrenic attempt to portray the tenebrous and lucid geographies that comprise South Africa. Mtkidu prove that South Africa is certainly an interesting place to live; a veritable well spring of sources and influences for artists to draw back on and express themselves, streaming with a multitude of possibilities, despite the economic and social problems that still plague the country.

Recently Mtkidu closed the book on TFTD 0.5, stopping all performances and halting every manifestation of the project after a few arduous months touring the country with their Nike sponsorship. However, TFTD 0.5 is only the first of many chapters that will be released by Mtkidu. TFTD 0.6 is already being advertised on Mtkidu’s blog, and the next chapter should be released soon, which will introduce new characters to the TFTD galaxy, namely Nandi (Klein Baas’s love interest) and Shaka Zulu (Nandi’s Father). For now Mt and Kidu are focussing on their respective solo careers. MT has had two solo exhibitions this year, at Moja Modern and the Premises. KIDU is hard at work with his band called Doris, and collaborations with Mtkidu’s VJ known as CHINXXX.

For more information about Mtkidu and their upcoming events visit their blog at www.myspace.com/mtkidu.