Ernestine Deane & The Vision

Ernestine Deane’s multi-faceted artistic trajectory has seen her fronting the electro combo MoodPhase5, a group that propelled Cape Town sound into the “naughties” with the millennium masterpiece Steady On (2000). A softer solo release, Dub for Mama, appeared in 2007 and she has crafted moving, socio-historic performance pieces in recent years. Her current trio, Ernestine & The Vision, blends rhythm with soul and features percussionist Brian de Goede and Texito Langa on drums. Deeply inspired by Cape Town and its people, Ernestine appears in the music documentary Mama Goema (2011). Co-produced by Profoundly South African, the above video formed part of a value exchange with the filmmakers.

Jou Ma Se Goema :: Film Teaser

Cape Town came about as a result of its location and the subsequent historic forces that were visited upon it. What emerged is a city with cultural and linguistic characteristics drawn from the disparate influences of Western Europe, Maritime Southeast Asia and Southern Africa (amongst others).

While Cape Town’s musicians take inspiration from the natural wonders that surround them, they inhabit an African city in the process of negotiating how it projects itself to the rest of the world. A place of musical diversity, modern Cape Town seeks to rise above tolerance to pursue meaningful cultural integration. This challenge is reflected in Cape Town’s oldest manifestation of authentic musical culture, Tweede Nuwe Jaar and the Coon Carnival.

The Carnival’s rhythm, Goema, initially a term describing the drums used in the minstrel parades and subsequently the name of the characteristic Cape beat that emerged from these drums, was adopted as a Cape Jazz idiom in the 20th century and has been interpreted through Rock, Hip-Hop and Electro in recent times. Modern usage of the word reflects a growing re-appraisal of Klopse culture and a new movement that defines Cape Town’s “sound” by the inventive blending of cultural influences.

(This teaser evolved into the documentary Mama Goema)