Detail of the cover of Kippie Moeketsi’s solo album Hard Top (1976), with artwork by Mafa Ngwenya. (Image courtesy of As-Shams Archive)

Gwen Ansell • 31 July 2025

It’s a century since the birth of reedman Jeremiah Morolong “Kippie” Moeketsi on 27 July 1925. He was one of the most influential saxophonists shaping South Africa’s modern jazz style.

Kippie Moeketsi’s short-run recordings are now being reissued. (Image: Ian Bruce Huntley/Africa Media Online)

He died in poverty aged 57, in 1983, when black jazz in South Africa remained undervalued outside its community. His cultural legacy is only just coming into the light and there is still no definitive biography. As a researcher and commentator on South African jazz history, I’ve written about the biographical landmarks of his life.

A hundred years ago, South Africa was a British-ruled colonial state. Many of the race-based socioeconomic inequalities, and prejudices against and restrictions on the free movement of people of colour, were already in place.

It was apartheid, imposed by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party in 1948, that formalised them into a punitive legal framework. This was just as just as Moeketsi was beginning his career as a freelance musician.

Many of Moeketsi’s recordings, as was usual for black jazz at the time, were published only in short-run releases. But thanks to a wave of reissues from independent labels – the most recent, Hard Top from As-Shams this year – it is newly accessible.

The playing will knock your socks off.

Reedmen I’ve talked to say they can still hear the clarinet – his first instrument – in his sax sound: fluid, gravity-defying runs, mastery of space and dynamics, and plaintive, soul-stirring sustains – one of the characteristics that gives him a unique voice.

A musical family

Tshona! by Pat Matshikiza and Kippie Moketsi was reissued in 2022, nearly half a century after its 1975 release. (Image courtesy of As-Shams Archive)

Although his exact birthplace in Johannesburg isn’t recorded, when he was a child Moeketsi’s family settled in George Goch location, a rundown “African township” in the era before Soweto was established. He was the youngest of a musical family: his father, a municipal clerk, was also a church organist, his mother sang, and all four of his older brothers played an instrument.

Unlike his studious brothers, school bored Moeketsi. He would regularly truant, caddying for local golfers and getting up to all kinds of minor mischief. His mother, determined to return him to class, hunted among the mine dumps, calling “kippie, kippie, kippie” to locate her wayward chick. The nickname stuck.

Moeketsi left after junior school and did a variety of casual jobs: cleaner, delivery boy and others. His brother Lapis had gifted him a clarinet; on that he discovered how much music fascinated him. He had occasional lessons from his brothers Jacob — who had played piano for the pioneering Jazz Maniacs — and Andrew, both of whom played classical music and jazz.

But there were plenty of music books in the Moeketsi home and from those he mainly taught himself, after finishing his boring day jobs. Sometimes he would practice through the night, provoking angry complaints from neighbours. He learned to read music, and switched from clarinet to saxophone.

“Once you know a clarinet,” he said, “the saxophone is a boy.”

Recordings: from Clarinet Kwela to King Kong

Not much of Moeketsi’s early clarinet playing is currently available. There’s the 1958 Clarinet Kwela with the Marabi Kings, which demonstrates his interesting ideas about ornament and timing, even on an opportunistic pop single. And then there’s the heartbreaking Sad Times, Bad Times from the recording of the 1959 all-black jazz opera King Kong, filled with dark foreboding up to its wailing, beautifully sustained final note.

Moeketsi recorded prolifically in the fifties, with big-name local bands such as the Harlem Swingsters, the Jazz Maniacs and the Jazz Dazzlers, leading various small groups of his own, playing support for the likes of Manhattan Brothers, Dolly Rathebe and Dorothy Masuka and in multiple formations from trio to septet with the band name Shanty Town. He featured on visiting US pianist John Mehegan’s two Jazz in Africa albums and as part of the legendary Jazz Epistles Verse One.

Kippie Moeketsi at piano with, from left, musicians Basil Coetzee, Pat Matshikiza, Selby Ntuli, producer Rashid Vally, Sipho Mabuse and Alec Khaoli. (Image courtesy As-Shams Archive)

Tragedy in London

In 1961 King Kong secured a short London run. For many cast members such as Hugh Masekela this provided the opportunity to escape into exile. Moeketsi was also part of the cast, but what happened to him in London is more tragic.

He’d been mugged and beaten during a Johannesburg robbery, which delayed his arrival in London, and was still taking medication (probably for concussion) when he arrived. Fellow cast members remember him disagreeing violently with the London producer about changes to the score and arrangements and what he considered exploitative treatment of musicians.

There was heavy drinking behind the scenes and, despite his medication, Moeketsi joined in. Eventually, theatre management had him committed to a psychiatric hospital where he was given electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT.

The 2025 rerelease of Hard Top. (Image courtesy of As-Shams Archive)

The British doctors believed his obsession with music was unbalancing him. They’d never seen creative Africans trying to survive under apartheid. Every black musician of that era I’ve interviewed names music-making as the only thing keeping them sane; it was life offstage (plus too often getting paid in alcohol) that was maddening.

The ECT left a lifelong legacy of intermittent depression, crippling brain fog and memory lapses.

Back in South Africa, when many of his peers were settling down and reining in the habits of their shared wild youth, those frustrations drove Moeketsi to drink harder. He continued to play, but the depression dogged him. Eventually, after customs officers confiscated his sax following a gig in then-Rhodesia, and he couldn’t afford to replace it, he stopped playing altogether for a while.

Artist and rebel – not ‘sad man of jazz’

These frustrations were the origin of Moeketsi’s soubriquet “sad man of jazz”. But, like much written about the jazz life of black musicians, it embodies a pervasive racist stereotype that both exoticises and diminishes the truth about creative black musicianship.

Photos of Moeketsi on the stand show an artist caught in the intensity of making music. (Image courtesy of As-Shams Archive)

Moeketsi was no unschooled, mad, untameable “natural” genius sprung from squalor. He came from a home filled with music books. He studied and practiced devotedly to master his craft. His irresponsible youth had been no different from many of his peers’. It was having been, in his words, “made stupid” by ECT that fuelled his subsequent despair and alcoholism.

That, plus the chilling frustrations of daring to be an artist and rebel under apartheid.

Fans know the story of Scullery Department, his composition protesting that black musicians were good enough to entertain white club patrons, but not to eat in the same room. Less well-known is that at the venue provoking that anger, Moeketsi declared the band would strike unless the manager served them at a club dining table. They were the top jazz outfit of their time, and the manager eventually gave in, apartheid rules or not.

Look at photos of Moeketsi on the stand, caught in the intensity of making music: he was by no means always sad.

Dismissing the caricature

South African musicians I have interviewed all dismissed the caricature of a sad and occasionally mean drunk as irrelevant to the Moeketsi they’d known. They remembered him as a proud nationalist, a brilliant player, and a stern but empathetic mentor.

Bassist Victor Ntoni recalled:

He defied all the rules of apartheid, because he was a son of the soil.

Singer Sophie Mngcina:

Wherever he played, he was a wonder to listen to.

Vocalist Thandi Klaasen:

He was my brother. He taught me … he was really concerned for me to do my best.

And pianist Pat Matshikiza:

He was a perfectionist … you had to learn at a high level working with him.

And from 1971, when he got a new instrument, Moeketsi played triumphantly and beautifully again for another seven years, as a peer of the country’s other jazz legends, including Dollar Brand (later Abdullah Ibrahim, whom Moeketsi had mentored), Allen Kwela, Dennis Mpale, Matshikiza, Mike Makhalemele and visiting US star Hal Singer.

Rest in power and music, Morolong. I hope your prayer for a better world has been answered.

Gwen Ansell is an associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science at the University of Pretoria.
This article was originally published by The Conversation on 28 July 2025 under a Creative Commons licence.

The post Kippie Moeketsi at 100: the soul-stirring story of a South African jazz legend appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

Discover the history, people and geography of the Eastern Cape, South Africa’s second-largest province, with a selection of Creative Commons images of the region.

Graaff-Reinet in the Valley of Desolation

The town of Graaff-Reinet lies in the Valley of Desolation in the northeast Karoo region of the Eastern Cape. Founded in 1786, exactly a century before Johannesburg, Graaff-Reinet is the fourth-oldest colonially established settlement in South Africa after Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Swellendam. Notable South Africans born here include anti-apartheid activists Robert Sobukwe, Matthew Goniwe and Beyers Naude, artist Helen Martins, 19th-century road builders Andrew Geddes Bain and Thomas Charles John Bain, palaeontologist James Kitching, and business mogul Anton Rupert. (South African Tourism, CC BY-2.0)

Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) harbour from the air

A plane passenger’s view of Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) harbour on the western curve of Algoa Bay. The port was established in 1825, five years after the first wave of British settlers into the Eastern Cape region in 1820. Today South African exports from the port include farming produce, manganese ore mined in the Northern Cape, and vehicles produced by the Eastern Cape’s large automotive manufacturing industry. Gqeberha also handles overflow sea traffic from the larger ports at Durban and Cape Town. (I Went Left, CC BY-NC 2.0)

New cars line up outside East London factory

Cars ready for export on the loading dock below the Mercedes-Benz factory in East London. Although it’s the second-largest city in the Eastern Cape, East London – founded by 1820 settlers from Britain in 1836 – is a small city with an economy largely sustained by the factory. (Rodger Bosch, Media Club South Africa)

Homesteads and cattle on the Qolora Mouth road

With the Indian Ocean just over the next hill, the road into the coastal village of Qolora Mouth curves past homesteads and grazing cattle in the Wild Coast region of the Eastern Cape. (Rodger Bosch, Media Club South Africa)

Golfing on the Wild Coast

Avid golfers Welcome Tolbadi (18 handicap) and Dickson Mboyi (10 handicap) head off for a round at the nine-hole golf course in the Wild Coast village of Qolora Mouth in the Eastern Cape. (Rodger Bosch, Media Club South Africa)

The Owl House in Nieu-Bethesda

Fantastical concrete sculptures in the Camel Yard of the Owl House in Nieu-Bethesda, a small farming town in the northwest of the Eastern Cape. Created by artist Helen Martins from 1945 to 1976, in collaboration with Koos Malgas from 1964 onwards, the Owl House is a masterwork of visionary outsider art. The life of Helen Martins inspired “The Road to Mecca” by South African playwright Athol Fugard, which was later made as a film. Tourists drawn to Nieu-Bethesda to see the Owl House have revived the fortunes of the town. (South African Tourism, CC BY 2.0)

Hole in the Wall

Hole in the Wall, a rock formation in the shallow waters of Coffee Bay beach on the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape. The hole in this intertidal island, made of layers of sandstone and shale, was broken through by the force of waves over millennia. In isiXhosa, Hole in the Wall is called esiKhaleni, “place of noise”, from the reverberating of waves crashing between its rock walls. (Pieter Edelman, CC BY NC-ND)

Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) Public Library

The Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) Public Library was opened in 1902. The building is a lovely example of Victorian Gothic architecture, with its terracotta facade manufactured in England. The statue of Britain’s Queen Victoria out front was made from Sicilian marble. (South African Tourism, CC BY 2.0)

Qunu, birthplace of Nelson Mandela

Rolling grasslands in the central Transkei, near the village of Qunu in the eastern region of the Eastern Cape. Qunu is the birthplace of South African statesman Nelson Mandela. (Rodger Bosch, Media Club South Africa)

Sir Rufane Donkin’s reserve in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth)

The lighthouse, pyramid and mosaic in the Donkin Reserve in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth). The reserve is four hectares of green space off Belmont Terrace overlooking the city. It was set aside for the people of Gqeberha in perpetuity by Sir Rufane Donkin, acting governor of the Cape Colony from 1820 to 1821.
Donkin named the city after his wife Elizabeth, who had died in Meerut, India in 1818. The stone pyramid bears an inscription to her: “In memory of one of the most perfect of human beings, who has given her name to the Town below.”
While the pyramid and lighthouse were built in the 1800s, the mosaic was created in the 1990s. It visually tells the history of the people of Gqeberha and the Eastern Cape. (6000.co.za, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Bridge over the Storms River

The Storms River Bridge in the Tsitsikamma region of the Eastern Cape, with the Baviaanskloof Mountains in the distance. (Graeme Williams, Media Club South Africa)

Read more: Gallery: Free State province

Researched and written by Mary Alexander.

The post Gallery: Eastern Cape province, South Africa appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

Waterberg star trails

Star trails curve over the massif of the Waterberg Mountains in a time-lapse night shot taken from the Tlopi Tented Camp in Marakele National Park, Limpopo province. The surface of Tlopi Dam can be seen in the foreground. (Martin Heigan, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Street art on the mountain

Graffiti captured by a trail runner on Table Mountain’s Tafelberg Road near Cape Town. (JB Dodane, CC BY-NC 2.0)

The Grootdraai Dam in torrent

Water floods through the opened sluice gates of the Grootdraai Dam near Standerton in Mpumalanga. (Jan Truter, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

21 March: From Sharpeville to Langa to Human Rights Day

The coffins of those slain in the Langa Massacre of 21 March 1985. Twenty-five years to the day after the infamous Sharpeville Massacre, in which 69 people were killed, police opened fire on a crowd of people on their way to attend a funeral in Langa, Uitenhage, in the Eastern Cape. At least 20 people were killed. Today the 21st of March is commemorated as Human Rights Day, a public holiday. The United Nations marks 21 March as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In Namibia, South Africa’s northern neighbour, it’s Independence Day.   (UN Photo, CC BY-NC-ND)

Regina Mundi Church in Soweto

Stained glass in the famous Regina Mundi Church in Soweto shows scenes from the township’s – and South Africa’s – liberation history. (Willem van Valkenburg, CC BY 2.0)

The Cosmopolitan in Maboneng

The Cosmopolitan building and a mural of Jan van Riebeeck in the Maboneng inner-city regeneration precinct in downtown Johannesburg. The Cosmopolitan was built in 1899, when the mining town was just 13 years old. (Adamina, CC BY 2.0)

Nguni cow on the Wild Coast

An Nguni cow on the beach at Morgan’s Bay in the Wild Coast region of the Eastern Cape. Ngunis, a breed of Zebu cattle, are famous for their uniquely patterned colourful hides. (Gareth Photo, CC BY-NC-ND)

Quiver trees at sunrise

Quiver trees – “kokerboom” in Afrikaans – at sunrise in the Richtersveld National Park, in the far north of the Northern Cape. The Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape is one of South Africa’s nine Unesco World Heritage Sites. (Appalachian Dreamer, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Eastern Free State farmland

An aerial view of circular crop fields watered by centre-pivot irrigation systems near the small farming town of Jacobsdal in the western Free State, near the Northern Cape border. (Jean Boris Hamon, CC BY-NC-ND)

The San Bushman masterpiece

A section of the Linton Panel, one of the richest examples of Stone Age San Bushman rock art, in South Africa’s Iziko National Museum in Cape Town. (H Bechen, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Big kittens in Bloemfontein

Big cat kittens but heads over a toy at the Cheetah Experience carnivore sanctuary near Bloemfontein in the Free State. At left is a caracal kitten, and at right a leopard kitten. Things will change. Grown caracals weigh, at the most, 18 kilograms. Adult male leopards can be as large as 60 kilograms. Adult domestic cats are only four to five kilograms. (Chris Parker, CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Cradle of Humankind

A replica of a human skull on display at the Sterkfontein Museum in northeastern Gauteng, in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. Important fossils of hominin species going back millions of years – the relatives and possible ancestors of modern humans – have been found in the nearby Sterkfontein Caves and other sites in the region. (Andrew Moore, CC BY-SA 2.0)

Summer clouds and lightning over Joburg

The clouds and lightning of a summertime thunderstorm over Johannesburg. The Brixton Tower is at right, and the buildings of the city’s old central business district towards the left. (Derek Keats, CC BY 2.0)

Cape Town’s Theewaterskloof dries out

A satellite image of Cape Town’s Theewaterskloof Dam in early February 2018 shows the seriousness of the city’s drought. After three successive dry years, the dam, which supplies half of Cape Town’s water, was at only 13% capacity. (Antti Lipponen, CC BY 2.0)

Young Vaal Eagles

The Young Vaal Eagles under-14 football team train on a field near Deneysville, a town on the banks of the Vaal Dam in the Free State. (John Hogg, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Off to the beach in Strand

Holidaymakers on the way to the beach in the seaside resort of Strand (Afrikaans for “beach”) on the eastern shore of False Bay in the Western Cape in December 2018. (Steve Crane, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Children work the mines in 1988

A 1988 image of young South African coal miners, little more than children, taken by legendary photographer Peter Magubane for the United Nations. (Peter Magubane, CC BY-NC-ND)

A sky view of South Africa

South Africa and the island of Madagascar are the only landmasses visible on the planet in this composite image captured by six orbits of the Nasa-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership spacecraft on 9 April 2015. Tropical cyclone Joalane can be seen over the Indian Ocean. (Nasa, CC BY 2.0)

Read more: Gallery: Africa from space

Pieces of beauty

Beauty Maswanganyi is the shop manager and a contributing artist at Piece, an enterprise in Johannesburg specialising in indigenous art and craft objects from around southern Africa. (John Hogg, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Honey badger and pup

A lucky shot of a honey badger carrying her pup, in the Kgalagadi Tranfrontier Park region of the Northern Cape. The honey badger is one of the most fearless and intelligent carnivores on the planet. They live in fiercely defended underground burrows, so their young are rarely seen. (Derek Keats, CC BY 2.0)

Saldanha Bay fisherman in 1960

Snapped in 1960 and rare in its record of black people’s daily lives during apartheid, this archive photo shows a fisherman in Saldanha Bay on the west coast moving his sun-dried snoek indoors as rain approaches. (Dr Mary Gillham Archive Project, CC BY 2.0)

Power stations against the sky

Coal-fired power stations outside Emalahleni, a town previously known as Witbank, in Mpumalanga. Emalahleni means “place of coal” in South Africa’s Nguni languages. According to European Union research, the Emalahleni region has some of the most polluted air in the world, with chromium and barium levels higher than instruments could record. (Jane Flowers, CC BY 2.0)

Aerial view of Kleinmond

Houses and gardens in Kleinmond, a small town in the Kogelberg Nature Reserve on the Atlantic coast some 90 kilometres east of Cape Town. (Kevin Rechts, CC BY-NC 2.0)

More Sweetly Play the Dance

A still from More Sweetly Play the Dance, a large-scale 14-minute video projection by acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge, at the Zeitz Mocca museum of contemporary African art in Cape Town. (Hans Olofsson, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Written, researched and compiled by Mary Alexander.
Comments? Email info@southafrica-info.com

The post Creative Commons images of South Africa appeared first on South Africa Gateway.

MARY ALEXANDER • 8 APRIL 2024

Russian president Vladimir Putin recently “opened an ancient box revealing that Jesus was black”.

At least, that’s the claim circulating on social media in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and elsewhere since just before the Easter holidays of late March 2024.*

The claim includes a video divided into three frames. At top is footage of Putin at a table with uniformed men, opening an ornate golden box. Inside we briefly see a Russian Orthodox religious artwork known as an icon.

The frame at bottom left shows a similar artwork, of a dark-skinned Jesus, and at bottom right is a photo of Putin pointing his finger.

The video starts with a machine-generated voice: “Putin reveals to the world a secret that European has been hiding from African for millennium, that Jesus was black.” A millennium is 1,000 years.

The clip then cuts to a second section headed with the text “Russia says Jesus was black with proof.” A more human voice says Russia has “opened its cellars” to “reveal biblical icons featuring darker-skinned figures”. The footage shows paintings in what seems to be a museum.

Then, one by one, nine artworks of people from Christian tradition are flashed on screen. All are darker than the common western image of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus.

The voice adds that “Americans turned the bible white”, but “Russians didn’t get the message”.

The claim can also be seen here, here and here.

It’s worth noting that a month ago the US-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies said it had found, since 2022, a fourfold increase in false information spread across online networks in Africa. Most of the disinformation was from Russia.

Is the video really evidence that Putin has “opened an ancient box revealing Jesus was black” and that Russia “says Jesus was black with proof”?

Putin gives icon copies to military in occupied Ukraine

The footage of Putin includes the logo of the Daily Mail, a UK-based tabloid. So we searched the Daily Mail’s YouTube channel using the keywords “Putin icon”. This led us to the original video, posted a year ago in April 2023.

Its description reads: “Vladimir Putin visits illegally annexed Kherson, Ukraine”.

According to several news reports based on a Kremlin press release, Putin made a surprise visit to the Russia-occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine on 18 April 2023.

There he held a meeting with Russian military commanders and presented them with copies of Russian religious icons.

Russia’s state-owned Tass news service reports that the copies were bought from a private collector in the USA. The original icons had belonged to Pyotr Vannovsky, Russia’s minister of war in the late 1800s.

There are no reports that Putin “revealed that Jesus was black” during his Kherson visit. And the “ancient box” he is seen opening in the viral video is actually the covering of a relatively new icon replica, bought from the USA.

The icon image below the footage of Putin is unrelated to his gifts. A reverse image search shows it is a 17th-century artwork in the permanent collection of the Tomsk Regional Art Museum in central Russia.

Video of 2011 exhibition

The footage in the second part of the viral video is not “proof” that Russia “recently” opened its “cellars” to reveal that Jesus was black.

The footage is more than 12 years old. It’s not recent. It shows an exhibition of 40 Russian icons from the 1400s to the 1900s held at the Castel Sant’Angelo museum in Rome, Italy in September 2011. One report has it that the works were hidden during the 1917 Russian Revolution to “protect them from anti-religious destruction”.

Recent art claimed to be ‘ancient’

And while the nine artworks flashed across the screen are in an icon style, not all of them are Russian or particularly old.

One (here) is by contemporary Norwegian artist Ove Svele, two (here and here) by contemporary US artist Robert Lentz, and another (here) celebrates the Sudan-born Catholic saint Josephine Bakhita, who died in 1947 and was canonised in 2000. The rest – here, here, here, here, here and here – have been online for years.

The idea that Jesus and other biblical figures were black isn’t new. And the claim ignores the rich artistic traditions of Christianity’s many branches. These include the art of the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which tradition holds was established in the first century of the common era and has been a formal church for 1,700 years.

Edited version published by Africa Check on 12 April 2024.

* Some claims posted on Facebook and Instagram may have been deleted by users after being rated via Meta’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.

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