Video of The Decade: Kwesta, Spirit

Kwesta's Spirit video deserves praise in many aspects: conceptually, aesthetically and well for just being incredible and fresh.

For a hip hop video (genre known to be tearing than building perceptions about the woman body), this music video is activism, archive and entertainment in one.

Opening shot, a young man walks past, a mandela grafitti on  the wall is communicative of the dead past. The grafitti is in black and white, the young man does not even once acknowledge it. This shot very clear about the state of deception felt by the youths about the myths of legends sold to them. 

The next shot shows kwesta wearing jersey number 11 Ngobese. Paying tribute to the undying spirit of the late soccer star, Skara Ngobese who wore jersey 11 for Kaiser Chiefs.

We then see the late legendary Brenda Fassie  playing on  tv, someone watching her. This here means she is gone but not forgotten: like Ngobese and Mandela that we just saw, her spirit carries South Africa forth even when Brenda informs us that, zimb' indaba, meaning it is not yet uhuru in Azania: people fighting to own their spirits. Mind you, only people of colour appear in the video to say they are still battling, fighting to keep their spirits alive in the midst of Afrophobia, poverty, police brutality and quest for spirituality.

Water and smoke stand in to chase the evil of the new South Africa. A zion man is being bathed in a river cleansing his spirit. In the same way, Kids are playing summer time, cleansing the hostile winter that finds them in harsh ghettos. They throw water celebrating Spring that comes with warm weather and uplifted spirits.

Foreigner mum hugs kid while the house is burning, this is juxtaposed with a portrait of mum n child smiling. This choice is playing out the irony of love to say no matter the circumstances, black mothers find happiness in their hearts. This is evident with the mother and child being burned for being non SAn: like the slaves in diaspora who were lynched, their spirit still smiled and never stopped multiplying. The man drinking Heineken while set alight further illustrates this: his spirit asipheli moya. This is also taking us to 2008 and 2015 where Xenophobic attacks in SA kasis burned African nationals alive, chasing them out of the country. Here the man is unmoving, his spirit is resisting prejudice, he is not running or afraid.

The Chinese man is fisting up ekasi which is so unusual considering that he is a foreigner himself and therefore alien to the struggle of black liberation. Here the message is that through the democratic SA, China is the new imperial ruler in SA with more of SA billions invested in their country while their citizens take over markets that were previously run by Africans. His fisting up is mocking the spirit of freedom fighters that were fighting for Africans to call their soul theirs under white rule and Western Imperialism.

Bones are thrown n dices appear from boys gambling. Here we are shown that everything is linked: that people can use whatever that works with them trying to revive their spirit. While others uplift it in church, others uplift it in night clubs or through conscious movements. Gents are fisting up in a club also uplifting their soul in the same way that the Zion and ZCC men, the rasta man burning zol, magogo washing blankets in a dance or the Sangoma  trancing up. The Zion man sun gazing, holding a cross is also doing the same, connecting to his spirit the same way the apostolic woman reading a bible is. Similarly, the man with score energy drink, smoking a huge ass boxer is calling his in his shop. Through the Catholic sacrament, water, zol and alcohol but that ultimately it is the spirit that is common: the hunger to awaken umoya is the link.  All of them are calling their spirits to come to their bodies.

Fire is used to kill some bad and unwanted spirits. A man is necklacing himself along with the old apartheid flag. To kill the oppressive spirit of apartheid that is wildly lingering in the air even after apartheid. Smoke in a club is juxtaposed with impepho yomngoma to continue killing these negative spirits of divide and rule that has led blacks to fight each other as well as to doubt ways of their own spirituality.

Ghetto girl is leaving everything behind, burning her past that's locked in suitcase. To signify the hostile lives blacks still live in the violent and overcrowded ghettos.

To speak to police brutality all over the world, the youth is kicking the heavily armed n bulletproofed cops. This is taken from fees must fall, the manner in which the youth kicks is identical to Cape Town Parliament March of October 2016 with Fees Must Fall. Suddenly we hear Kwesta saying, le eyamagents estoksini, abangasqed jo' to speak again to the arrests made that year in the spirit of Fees Must Fall. Students arrested and trialled for revolting against undecolonised state of SA.

Words, 'are mo states mo' are heard when the crowd is fisting up paying pledge to black lives matter in the USA that also united in the spirit of  fighting to call their souls theirs. This is featured to say wherever blacks are, the spirit of unity will follow them.

This music video is more than what I tried to analyse here. There is a lot more that is yet to be talked about even from where it is shot and the history of Katlehong.

It is unfortunate that it will only be after Kwesta's death that we start praising its profoundness.

Analysis by Noluvuyo Mjoli