Born a Crime

go up to my room, and fire up my computer, carrying on a conversation the whole time. I was that dude walking down the street ho ...

disenfranchised in the wake of oppression. Andrew was white. His family had access to education, resources, computers. For gener ...

something of yourself!” But with what raw materials are the poor to make something of themselves? People love to say, “Give a ma ...

Andrew giving me the CD writer. People say, “Oh, that’s a handout.” No. I still have to work to profit by it. But I don’t stand ...

understand; you’re sitting on a gold mine. We need to do this for a crowd. You need to come to the township and start DJ’ing gig ...

crimes. Street parties are the best thing about Alexandra. You get a tent, put it up in the middle of the road, take over the st ...

front of somebody’s house, they get to come and share your alcohol. The parties don’t end until someone gets shot or a bottle ge ...

“How much music do you have?” he asked. “Winamp says I can play for a week.” “We’ll make a fortune.” Our first gig was a New Yea ...

people came. It was explosive. By midnight the whole street was packed from one end to the other. Ours was the biggest New Year’ ...

reputation in the hood, instantly. Pretty soon we were getting booked all over. Which was a good thing. When Bongani and I gradu ...

were taking a gap year. “I’m going to take a gap year and go to Europe.” That’s what the white kids were saying. So I said, “I, ...

booked for gigs in other townships, other hoods. Thanks to my computer and modem I was getting exclusive tracks few people had a ...

people know how to dance to it. Bongani decided we needed a dance crew to show people the steps to the songs we were playing. Be ...

fluidity that defied physics— imagine a jellyfish if it could walk on land. Incredibly handsome, too, tall and lithe and muscula ...

There were parties with dance competitions. Kids from every neighborhood would come and bring their best dancers. We’d always br ...

gap in the back for Hitler to enter. I’d crank up Redman’s “Let’s Get Dirty” and start whipping the crowd up even more. “Are you ...

and down to the beat. “Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler!” We’d have the whole crowd in a frenzy, a thousand people ...

colonial times through the days of apartheid, black people in South Africa were required to have an English or European name as ...

confused by that, but really it’s a case of the West reaping what it has sown. The colonial powers carved up Africa, put the bla ...

story of the war was that there was someone called Hitler and he was the reason the Allies were losing the war. This Hitler was ...