Money Miss Road is an In Conversation that sees award-winning Nigerian journalist and author Dele Olojede enter into a sonic a sonic call-and-response with South African vinyl selector, Nombuso Mathibela, around the theme of Money Miss Road, a Nigerian phrase that means money is wasted, thrown away, or spent on frivolous things. 

Moderated by The Centre for the Less Good Idea’s Impresario, Neo Muyanga, the conversation begins with a reflection on music as a powerful form of cultural production, and the various forms of oppression that have attempted to silence this production. “That’s why they banned things like the drum, the percussive, the choral, because it’s unifying, it’s powerful,” says Muyanga. 

This sets the tone for a conversation that rises and swells, ranging from anecdotes around the arrest of Fela Kuti to the musical legacy of Miriam Makeba. At key moments, Mathibela leaves her seat and takes her place behind the decks, selecting and mixing South African songs and sound-bites that speak to the conversation. Spikiri’s Money Talks mixed with a Free State parliamentary inquiry is one such example, while a live recording of Miriam Makeba’s Tula Dubula with Abdullah Ibrahim is another.  

Further discussion between the three touches on the idea of music as narrative, and journalism as the keeper of this narrative, as well as seeing sound bites as fragments or pieces of history that we collect and collage with. 

— David Mann

CREDITS

DISCUSSANTS | Dele Olojede & Nombuso Mathibela
MODERATOR | Neo Muyanga