Taxijam :: Jack Parow

Some refer to him as the Bob Dylan of the northern suburbs but to those who share a taxi with him on the way to work, he’s just the sweaty guy in the brown vest. Jack Parow is a resident of Belleville, a ghetto located 12 miles from the centre of Cape Town. “That’s four miles further than Eminem has to commute from his trailer park to the city,” says the rapper. Parow is currently spearheading a hip hop movement characterised by the use of his regional Afrikaans patois. “We avoid the word pidgin,” he explains, “owing to its unfortunate association with the rats of the sky.” Moreover, Parow’s sharp tongue has earned him critical acclaim. “Parrow’s indignation concerning snake tattoos on breasts,” says university professor Bo Locke, “represents a rejection of crude phallic imagery in favour of poetic discourse that interrogates the social politics of superiority.” The professor insists that Jeremy De Tolly of the Dirty Skirts is only a symbol of rock star vanity, adding, “He’s probably a nice guy in real life.” As regards the two-foot peak cap, “Purely functional,” says the professor. “Owing to the even topography of the neighbouring Cape Flats, Belleville residents require longer brims to keep the morning sun out of their eyes.”

► Taxijam :: The Smallest Gig in Town

Taxijam :: Simon van Gend

If you think patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time is a piece of cake, there’s a hip Cape Town folkster serving a slice of humble pie called “Blinking and Breathing and Crying.” Simon van Gend is a bespectacled troubadour with a perpetual five o'clock shadow, a dark mane and a name that should be avoided by the eNews Channel weatherman. If he was a gimp, you’d bring him out for sessions of soul-searching, making the contemplative heights of Tafelberg Road at sunset a fitting location for his Taxijam. Accompanied by drummer Ross Campbell on the shakes and vocal harmonies, SVG’s offering is proof that less is more when it comes to catchy songwriting and that clapping and whistling are time-tested techniques to get toes tapping. “Blinking and Breathing and Crying” reminds us that big themes don’t need fancy lyrics and that big brothers should be encouraged to bully their arty siblings in the hopes of planting traumatic memories that will flourish into great music. Putting the inside out there is what Simon van Gend knows best and it does us all some good to join him on the train of introspection. The album Guest of my Feelings (2008) is where to hop on.

► Taxijam :: The Smallest Gig in Town

Taxijam :: Illiterate Skillz

If you find yourself in a taxi heading from Gugulethu to Cape Town, you’d better hope that rappers Illiterate Skillz (a.k.a. Ill Skillz) aren’t jamming in the back seat. This Mother City hip hop crew will chew off your ears and stew your brain in a sea of alphabet soup. Unless you can perform the mental gymnastics required to process the stream of consciousness that rattles from their lips (or at least have a strong Arabica piloting your system), it’s likely that their bombardment of rhyming couplets will cause you to blow a fuse. Back in the day, guys like these were heralded for their sophistry and became bosom buddies with the monarchs in the form of court jesters. Times changed and they took to the tour buses as wandering minstrels, or “original backpackers” as Illiterate Skillz like to see themselves. That’s right, these self-proclaimed illiterates have vocabulary skills that don’t bow to the gangster lexicon. They may claim to be bad at reading and writing (and their spelling is admittedly atrocious) but if African storytelling is about oral transmission then Tommy Jinnix and Jimmy Flexx score ten out of ten for the gift of the gab. Look out for the debut album Off the Radar.

► Taxijam :: The Smallest Gig in Town

Taxijam :: The Smallest Gig in Town

They may cut in on you or even run off the road but the minibus taxi, the ubiquitous emblem of South African transport, is no less than a profoundly South African icon. In fact, minibus taxis are moving monuments to South Africa’s entrepreneurial spirit. Deregulation wrenched transport from government hands in the late 80s and unleashed a minibus tsunami that surged through the Madiba Years and now sees privateers pocketing the fares of over 60% of South Africa’s commuters. In a country characterised by great diversity, a ride in a minibus taxi may just be the national experience that most of us have in common.

Taxijam is what happens when you mix a minibus commute with music and slap it onto a new media platform. The “smallest gig in town,” it’s a website that features performances by South African artists shot in the back of taxis. If new media is about mobility, Taxijam is creating content that mimics the way we consume it. The site showcases seamless slices of musical art that have shed the shackles of high production and been posited into the realm of the mundane. The effect is strangely paradoxical: a private performance in an intimate location that everybody with an Internet connection is invited to experience.

There’s also something of an unplugged ethic informing Taxijam. The empty minibus is a democratic stage and performers have only their charm and raw talent to draw on. As such, Taxijam provides the opportunity to see different artists in the same naked context. Such is the platform that new dimensions of the musicians are revealed and familiar songs are bathed in compelling unfamiliarity. As the camera pans away from a performance, catching glimpses of motorists and pedestrians through the taxi windows, we’re reminded that that life goes on when music happens. Bands aren’t just totems that live out our fantasies on stage and in music videos but rather a part of everyday life. Taxijam proves that artists inhabit the same stinky spaces that we do.

The best thing about Taxijam is that the project is born out of an uncomplicated interest in music and a desire to provide an alternate platform for recognised as well as fresh talent in all shapes and styles. Taxijam producers, cousins Richard and Simon Wall, describe the project as a labour of love and tip their hats to London’s pioneering Black Cab Sessions. They’ve unpacked the project in Cape Town but are interested in collaborating with production teams as far and wide as Joburg and Dubai. “We’ll shoot artists, musicians, poets, performers and anyone who blows us away,” says Simon, “Anyone can hop on board.”