Jazz percussionist Gontse Makhene is rebuilding his life after a devastating blaze at his home
James Baldwin’s 1963 collection of non-fiction essays The Fire Next Time takes its title from a couplet from the old African-American spiritual Mary Don’t You Weep.
This song, which originates from the time before the American Civil War, is said to be a coded message of hope, resilience and resistance.
In his invocation of the song, Baldwin used the following couplet to foreground and title his own work: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign/ No more water, the fire next time.”
Soweto-born percussionist Gontse Makhene marvels as I share this anecdote with him.
His voice softens from its animated fervour when he tells me that he has bought a new notebook.
“On the title of the notebook, there is a sticker with the title Recovering from the Fire. On the subject line, I have written down ‘life’ and where it says class, I have written ‘2.0’.”
For most South African jazz revellers, Gontse Makhene is a well-known name.
His percussive mastery sounds the grooves, rhythms and beats of some of the most important and prolific post-apartheid music in this country.
Having worked with Nduduzo Makhathini, Madala Kunene, Malcolm Jiyane, Kwani Experience and an incredibly long list of other widely known names, Makhene is a celebrated sonic and cultural figure.
This past week, however, personal tragedy and devastation echoed above his celebrated rhythms.
On the evening of 22 September, Makhene lost his home and possessions to a fire he suspects was started by a surge when the power returned after one of Eskom’s increasingly frequent load-reductions where he lives in Molapo, Soweto.
He recalls coming home from a gig in Norwood, which he had played with Luyanda Madope, Sakhile Nkosi and Lungile Kunene.
“I remember that I had some urgency in wanting to come back home; something in me just said, ‘Eh gents, let’s go, let’s go.”
When Makhene’s friend dropped him off, he recalls him alerting him to the fact that there was smoke near his house.
He shrugged it off but, as he got closer, he saw that this was actually coming from his room, the home he had built for himself in his family’s backyard.
“I rushed to go open up — unbeknown to me I found out that, just by opening the door, the oxygen would feed the fire inside,” Makhene recounts.
“There we were, in a frenzy, trying to put out the flames but it was just too much of a blaze to put out …
“My friend had to actually pull me out. I remember him saying, ‘Yho dude, we won’t be able to handle this one.’”
After Makhene’s friend had got him away from the flames, he remembers them looking for sand and water to try to contain or douse the ravenous flames.
“I hit one of my windows with one of my hands, hence the stitches,” recalls Makhene as he shows me a deep lesion on his wrist.
The injury will cost him five weeks’ worth of work as he will be unable to play until it heals.
What Makhene lost in the fire is unquantifiable — clothes, music equipment, vinyl, record players and the many souvenirs he had collected on his musical travels across the world.
He also lost sentimental treasures he had inherited from his father, Ramoloa Makhene, whom many South Africans loved and revered for his remarkable work as both a stage and screen actor.
He lost the last of the possessions he shared with his long-term girlfriend who died from cancer.
Makhene recalls how the community helped him contain the fire.
“We called the firefighters but the closest fire station that we thought was working, in Jabulani, was closed.
“The fire brigade eventually came from somewhere else. I think they came from Meadowlands, which is quite a distance from us.”
By the time they arrived, the fire had died down.
“There were still some embers on the rooftop, and they were able to put that out, but already the community had been hard at work.”
Makhene draws a deep breath as he narrates how moved he was by his community’s involvement.
“If they weren’t there, the fire would have probably spread further,” he says.
There hasn’t been an investigation into what caused the fire.
“I was just told that I can’t really go to the police because nothing of mine is insured and so no insurance company would need an affidavit from me,” he explains.
In spite of the extraordinary financial — and emotional — blow, Makhene is still fielding calls from artists as we talk outside the Sorcery coffee shop in Melville.
Makhene is the co-founder of the collaborative art movement Peanut Butter and Jam sessions in Soweto.
“We developed this platform with my friends Lungile Kunene and Barman Larry,” he starts.
“It’s a jam session, in essence, but we split it into two halves.
“The first half is given to a [semi-professional or professional] act, which can be soloists, duets, bands or DJs, and the second half is a jam session, which allows for collaboration between all the musicians that are there and the people attending the event.”
The jam sessions have been rebranded as Breaking News, and Peanut Butter and Jam has been reconfigured as an events company and the beginnings of a record label. It is Makhene’s pride and joy.
He tells me he is heading to Native Rebels in Soweto to check on things for the week’s event.
Having played with international acts such as Shabaka Hutchings, Salif Keita, the Sun Ra Arkestra, Baaba Maal, as well as Lauryn Hill when she performed at the TicketPro Dome in Johannesburg in 2019, Makhene feels it is important to nurture world-class music within his own context.
Music, for Makhene, is a generative and expansive space. This has been manifested in the last few days as his artistic community galvanised around him to clothe and feed him and to donate equipment and money to his efforts to rebuild his life.
A notable contribution came from the jazz musician and songwriter Don Laka, who gave him some conga drums.
Fellow drummers Leagan Breda and Bafana Nhlapo are digging deep into the coffers of various sponsorships and brands to help him rebuild his musical artillery.
As we start to wind down our conversation, Siyabonga Mthembu of the band The Brother Moves On reminds Makhene that a number of musicians who know and love him will be playing at an event in his honour, called Tuesday Funk, this week at Untitled Basement.
All the proceeds of that evening will go towards helping him recover from the fire.
“This morning, I was shaking in disbelief,” he tells me. “Everyone has been so generous — but I guess when you are good to people, they will be good to you.”
Fortunately, Makhene’s upcoming debut project was unaffected by the fire as it was locked away in his producer’s home.
“I have been writing about everything that has happened since the fire in my notebook,” he reflects, “perhaps the fire will find its way into the music when I have healed from this.”