The fact that the digital economy is growing so fast means that we can now create value and substantial profit through our creativity; the current technological landscape has created more opportunities for people like you and me to align our chakras, unleash our ultimate creative selves, and possibly make millions of rands overnight. It’s probably less complicated than boiling an egg or more complex than baking your own croissants while reading a copy of “POPI act for dummies”…But before you get excited and start manifesting your profound piece of digital art, allow me to try and simplify/explain what NFTs are, how they work, and ideas of how you can benefit from them.

The latest buzzword seems so confusing and complicated, lucrative and intimidating…more cryptic than crypto and even more perplexing than blockchain, but I assure you that these terms are really simple, well kind of.  

An NFT is a Non-Fungible Token, but what does fungible mean in the first place? Let’s get into it.

Fungible VS Non-fungible?

Fungible is an adjective that refers to something that cannot be distinguished from another thing, it is interchangeable, substitutable or uniform; For example, If I lend you a R10 note and you pay me back as either two R5 coins or another R10 note I won’t mind because it still has the same value as the R10 I gave you.

In the same way, one bar of gold must be tradable or exchangeable for another bar of gold, or two bars that are half the size and weight. Still with me? Great!

Examples of fungible goods include oil, bonds, gold and other precious metals, money, and unopened items of consumer products on store shelves such as boxes of cereal. 

They possess fungibility if they have identical value and properties of other items; Once you damage or crack that box of Weetbix open, it’s over, it’s no longer of the same value as an unopened/undamaged box, it is then no longer….you guessed it! Fungible.

Non-Fungible is the opposite in that, Assets like diamonds, land, or baseball cards have unique qualities that add or subtract value. 

NFT(non-fungible token) in its most overly simplified terms,  attributes ownership of a digital property/asset to one single person. It certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent digital files such as photos, videos, audio etc.

NFTs are made to give you ownership of the work although in some cases the artist can opt to retain the copyright and reproduction rights (hint,hint).

So What’s the fuss?

Well it’s simple for reasons that we might not yet comprehend at this tender stage of the game, that just like a physical art piece the true value is in the original, and essentially the more it is replicated/copied and subsequently popularised, the more the original increases in value. 

“NFTs can work like any other speculative asset, where you buy it and hope that the value of it goes up one day, so you can sell it for a profit” 

anyone can sell their digital work as an NFT  most notably the sale of Beeple’s “Every Days – The first 5000 days” sold for $69 million, and an animated Gif of Nyan Cat (a 2011 meme) was sold for more than $500,000.

So what are you waiting for? Go design a uniquely absurd Jpg or rally up your ultra cool high-school friends to record a one of a kind comeback album, get all your friends and  family to hype it up, get the streets talking and journalists typing frantically on all digital mediums, hailing you for your ground breaking creativity and hey…you might just quit your 9-5 forever and all thanks to the invention of NFTs.

Now that you are suited, booted and want to “tokenize” your genius idea, it’s important to know where you can upload your work and start raking in the big bucs.

There are several marketplaces that were created around the selling and buying of NFTs.  These include OpenSea, Rarible, Nifty Gateway, and recently a South African platform called Momint.

Anyone with an internet connection, marketing hype, creativity and access to a desired program or software can become the next overnight billionaire. You, reading this now could change your fortunes from where you sit. 

So don’t let the big terms spook you out, read a little,  live a little, create your art, upload it, put a value on it and let the rest happen. 

Box braids and twists have a long and beautiful relationship with South Africa and black women all over the world. No matter the length, or size or style, braiding has been used for centuries to protect African hair while swagging it out.

Affectionately referred to as “Da Bratz” in South Africa, thick braids became popular with the emerging hip-hop pop culture of the afro conscious youth in the ’90s. According to an article on www.Essence.com, they were made iconically famous by Janet Jackson when she wore waist-length box braids in the 1993 flick Poetic Justice. 

In the same year, Boom Shaka came out with their single “Its about time”; where the female duo consisting of Thembi Seete and the legendary late Lebo Mathosa sport waist length twist-outs in the equally iconic high ponytail. Over the years following that, Mathosa informally trademarked the iconic waist length blonde braids in South Africa. 

Jada Pinkett Smith was styled in a braided bob when she played the role of Stony, who was the youngest of the female bandits in the 1996 classic Set It Off. Short braids are a favourite for young girls because they’re easier to handle, and they’re often embellished with beads to make them fancier and unique from the next.

Braided hair has remained the go-to everyday hairstyle for black women over the centuries. Unfortunately, “go-to every day” does not mean instant, as most of us know that getting braids done is a long and sometimes tedious process to accomplish all its majestic beauty.

To add to the mystique behind this historical hairstyle, research shows that Queen Nefertiti, who lived during the fourteenth century B.C was known for wearing dark blue wigs, and festive wigs were sometimes coated in a thin layer of gold. Dr Zinga A. Fraser, quoted in the Essence.com article says that historically, a specific look could indicate age, marital status or which clan one belonged to.

Braids in the 21^st century come in every colour imaginable, and are still being worn for their intended purpose of protecting the complexity that is African hair and not so much as a reflection of age or marital status. SA pop star Sho-Madjozi is well known for her out of the box braids (see what I did there), that show influence from various African countries/Tribes as well as the world, the complexity and detail on her hair look nothing like the assumed “out-of-the-box convenience” that we all wish for.

Twars have even been fought over who is “allowed” to box braid their hair, such as the Kardashians being slammed for cultural appropriation. Plenty of arguments have also been had over the “appropriate” way for “African” hair to be worn. However, evidence shows that apart from protecting the hair, hairstyles are an expression of self and creativity. In the context of a global community, everyone should be able to wear their hair as they please.

Written by: Nokwazi Phangela

Words By: Lineo Segoete | (photo by Drew Coffman via Flickr/CC)

Writer’s block doesn’t exist; you’re simply over-thinking it. Inspiration comes from the strangest of places, last year the people at Chiko came up with a design for sandals inspired by a spider-web. Innovative! Who is to say your next piece or song will not be inspired by some silly thing you heard a toddler speak as you walked/drove past, or the rhythm of your movements while mopping the floor? The trick is to be present even through the most trivial tasks. Here are 3 ways (for practicality’s sake) to unclog your writer’s block:

1. The great outdoors do wonders for a cluttered mind.

Just think about all the gallivanting Richard Branson does around the world. Chances are each adventure inspires his next multi-million Pound venture, merger or investment. If hiking, paragliding or off-roading and the likes aren’t your thing, that’s cool, just find something doable within your area, heck even a swim will do. Our ideas of adventure are different, so if yours is to talk to a complete stranger you have nothing in common with then do that but by all means invite some adventure into your life.

2. Do household chores

Engaging in seemingly mundane tasks (i.e chores or some manual labour) clears the mind because one is focused on efficiency and not hard mental labour: You want those dishes clean because quite frankly your kitchen just smells better that way. Clearing the laundry frees up space in your house and in your mind, not to mention you’ll smell all kinds of fresh in clean clothes. A well-prepared tasty meal takes one’s insides to happy places, especially because it means you have successfully managed not to poison yourself and/or your guest(s).

3. Walk around the block

Take more walks. Walking has been proven to have therapeutic qualities that enhance creativity because you are guaranteed to bump into something new and different each time. You can soundtrack the activity by compiling a playlist to suit your loitering about for observation’s sake your. Or you can leave your headphones at home so you can hear noises, voices and unusual sounds. The newness and even unpredictability of what you might encounter stimulates the mind by giving it something different to digest. Conversely, if you feel that all you see is the usual stuff that too presents an opportunity to exploit your imagination. With each step you take you have the liberty to picture your ideal reality.

Writer’s block? It’s all in your head Holmes, stop traumatizing your creativity with that kind of thinking. If anything, it’s a cover-up for being lazy 😉

Written by:  Bonolo Modise | Photography by: Sydney Mori

Skin.

By definition, skin is the thin layer of tissue forming the natural outer covering of the body of a person or animal. It’s the external layer that shells and protects all the tissues and organs that form part of the body.

Skin is personal. It’s unique.

Living in skin can be rather tricky. For some, it is liberation personified. It’s independence. It’s individual expression. It’s freedom. On the opposite end, skin can be isolating and embracing it can be a challenge. Skin can be restricting, divisive, sensitive and even hold one captive.

The varying pigments are all undoubtedly glorious, each beautiful in its own way, adding to the diversity of the world. It, therefore seems fairly natural that there are descriptive terms in popular culture that label particular skin segments.

Let’s face it, how many of us stop to look into a stroller with an incredibly dark child? Not taking a peek to play with the baby because it’s “so black” is terrible behaviour!

As a black South African woman, different shades of our colour have always been alluded to in my community. Okay, maybe the assortment of the multiple tones have been blatantly pointed out.

Growing up between Dobsonville in Soweto and the neighbouring Doornkop in Thulani, there was no going unnoticed. Kids on nearly every street knew who was what complexion and had specific nick names for each.

I, being on the lighter side of the pigmentation scale, was always referred to as “witties” (derived from the Afrikaans word ‘wit’ for ‘white’). The traditionalists in our township would also call me “ipentshisi” or “peach” because I was supposedly yellow and ripe like the fruit.

There seemed to be some kind of enchantment associated with being a brighter kind of black. People walking down the street would gleefully chat up my mother and compliment her on having such “a beautiful baby”. (Let’s face it, how many of us stop to look into a stroller with an incredibly dark child? Not taking a peek to play with the baby because it’s “so black” is terrible behaviour! Unfortunately this mentality exists even today.)

Of course “witties” was not always a term of endearment.

When kids wanted to be mean they would hurl insults like “coloured bastard” or “ibhunu” (a Zulu term meaning ‘Boer’ loosely used in township slang to refer to Afrikaners). There were times when it was more painful to be “milky” and “pale” compared to “dark beauties” who were way more ebony in comparison.

When one reached teenage years, particularly around matric in high school, you were referred to as a “mooi van ver” aka MVV (translation: beautiful from afar).

When a light skinned person walks down the street, they tend to attract attention. There’s a bit of excitement that builds up amongst those watching you trot along anticipating that a breath taking creature is approaching their midst. That is until you are up close. Should your beauty not meet the expectation set by your glowing complexion, you are referred to as a MVV.

There was therefore no love lost between “ama dark dindie” (aka black beauties) and “abo witties”. Each tended to flock to their own and if not, one was the “white sheep” of the group.

Fast forward to what’s nearly 2015 and the same divisive mentality is what permeates through society. Women are separated by size, age, sexuality, parenthood, career, culture and wait for it – skin complexion!

Segregation of any kind is a notion that leaves me irate. Particularly at the world’s perverse obsession with highlighting the differences in skin.

Yesterday I was “witties”, today it’s something utterly new. Being a light skinned black woman has evolved to the term “yellow bone”.

It’s a supposed compliment, but growing into your skin can be quite an exercise. It can be emotionally taxing, mentally draining and exhilarating at the same time.

There’s such candour in exploring who you are, where you are going and what you hope to become despite society’s preconceived ideas about what you should be.

Am I “witties”, “ipentshisi” or a “yellow bone”? Sure. But there’s more to me than just light skin.

Fiery, bold and ambitious. Steadfast and opinionated. Proudly South African. This is the woman I would like you to become acquainted with.

Tag along on my journey as I explore the intricacies of being a light skinned African woman in modern day South Africa.

On this venture, nothing is ever as simple as it seems nor does the good guy always win. At the end of the heaviest storms though, there’s always a rainbow and a sprinkle of sunshine.

These are the Misadventures of a Yellow Bone.

Written by: Tsholofelo Ranyane  | Image By: Zanele Muholi 

Homosexuality is as unnatural as blackness equals inferiority – to a bigot

I can distinctly remember the first time I went head-to-head with a black homophobe. It’s a strange thing to recall, especially distinctly, but the encounter was so profoundly upsetting that it towers above every other incident of bigotry I’ve ever come upon. Not to mention that the homophobe in question was my boyfriend at the time.

We had decided to flee the humdrum that comes with being two pitifully broke, young people living in Johannesburg and headed to a nearby hangout spot in Braamfontein. Tipsy on boxed wine and welling up with exuberance, we queued up for a night of mad, rhapsodic dancing. Upon entering, my ex noted that the place was crowded with homosexual men. It seemed an odd thing to note at the time, because in my tipsiness, all I could see was a continuous band of brown, carousing bodies.

Although the night was thickening in its vigour and festivity, witnessing my ex’s increasing discomfort caused a dwindling to my own exuberance. I’m not quite sure what led up to the argument (music and wine addle my brain) but I can clearly remember my face soaked in tears, my glass of wine trembling in my hand and my voice audibly reaching for the cosmos. Right there, amid the wild gyrating and budding hook-ups, was me, head-to-head with a man whose hatefulness was revealing itself like the sun of a thousand dawns. All the points raised in the argument are too lengthy to note here, but his one prevailing sentiment was that it was OK to hate gay people because of the unnaturalness of homosexuality. “God created man and woman to procreate, not two men or two women”, he’d say. His weak attempts at using religion and biology to justify his unwavering hatred for people because of their differentness took me back to the first time I read The Venus Hottentot:
If he were to let me rise up

from this table, I’d spirit

his knives and cut out his black heart,

seal it with science fluid inside

a bell jar, place it on a low

shelf in a white man’s museum

so the whole world could see

it was shrivelled, and hard,

geometric, deformed, unnatural.

These are the words poet Elizabeth Alexander imagined Sarah Baartman would have said on her autopsy table as Georges Cuvier dissected her lifeless body and, in the greater context of her troubled life, her humanness, in the name of science. She was taken from her native South Africa and shipped to London where she lived as a freak show for the bulk of her adult life. She was gawked at, proverbially tarred and feathered with her ‘otherness’ as her one great crime, while white fingers pointed at her in delighted mockery. Her exhibitions occurred at a time when scientific racism was frequently used as justification for white imperialism and even slavery. Scientific racism is the usage of scientific techniques to sanction the belief in racial inferiority and superiority.

I couldn’t help but wonder how he felt he was any different to the white man of yore who felt justified in placing people like him and me on a spectrum of existence somewhere between civilised European and barbaric ape – somewhere between human and animal.

In his thesis, naturalist Georges Cuvier compared Baartman’s genitals to those of orang-utans and ‘her vivacity when alive to the quickness of monkeys’.

Cuvier is one of many scientists of the 18^th and 19^th century that likened Africans to apes and used their respective studies as proof of a natural racial hierarchy. Along with misinterpreted Bible verses, scientific ‘findings’ were used to perpetuate the notion of innate, black inferiority and to justify oppression.

And as my ex was harping on about the unnaturalness of homosexuality and alluded to God’s disapproval as proof of homosexual inferiority and heterosexual superiority, I couldn’t help but wonder how he felt he was any different to the white man of yore who felt justified in placing people like him and me on a spectrum of existence somewhere between civilised European and barbaric ape – somewhere between human and animal. He is an educated man; he knows that wherever bigotry thrives, the air is drained of freedom and an entire people are made to suffocate. He knows of the transatlantic slave trade; of apartheid; that his very parents were oppressed at the hands of bigots who held the belief in this spectrum so dearly. He sees how the effects of this oppression has trickled down to his welfare and will trickle down to the welfare of his future offspring. How is he saying gay people are “morally inferior” any different to Dudley Kidd describing Africans as “hopelessly deficient”? He uses Leviticus 18:22 as ammunition against gay people while the ammunition used against the Africans of old was Genesis 9:20-27 – both bullets in the same barrel of prejudice used to wage terror against anyone non-white, non-straight, and non-man.

And herein lies my gripe with the black homophobe. He will complain about the wage gap between him and his white counterparts , bemoan poor service received because of the colour of his skin, is riled when he is called kaffir but has no reservations about yelling “don’t touch me, faggot” when accidently stroked by a gay man. He tries to glean sympathy from the world because “being black in a white man’s world is so hard!” while the gay man and lesbian woman who live under his foot are constantly brutalised. I will not venture into which struggle is ‘harder’, but my humanity will not allow hatred to fester in places where compassion is needed, without raising my voice about it. Black homophobe, I will tell you what you are so fond of telling your white neighbour: CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE! Examine your history and dig into the depths of your humanity to garner empathy for your fellow marginalised man. Check yourself.