“I desire a world in which Black people are free to live as they wish without the gaze of racist whiteness. This is a world in which a rural Black woman has a decent life with a good education and ample opportunities for her self-development, in which she has land and full rights to that land, and is an autonomous human being.”

Xhopera, bow music, a musical journey: this is Mthwakazi. Hailing from the Eastern Cape, South Africa, Mthwakazi is a Xhosa Opera singer-songwriter and performer. Mthwakazi has pioneered the new Xhopera music genre which synthesises African bow music, classical music, opera, choral music and African dance rhythms. At the heart of this genre is the continent-wide calabash bow, iselwa. Iselwa is a whole product: it is a food, a musical instrument and can be used for jewellery. It represents unity among Africans—elders and the youth, different genders and different races—as everyone who listens to bow music feels a sense of ownership and belonging to the music and message. Mthwakazi is also a healer and jewellery designer. Mthwakazi joined the Ntinga Ntaba kaNdoda rural movement in March 2018 in order to establish a Creative Academy to promote popular education, compositions and performances of African bow music as well as arts, crafts, dance, poetry, creative writing and other creative activities. This work is part of a progressive people’s heritage movement built from below as a contribution to post-apartheid social cohesion, Black identity and decolonisation. In its first months of existence, the Academy has offered training to high school learners in bow music and instrument making, voice training, basic music education and performance and choreography. It has also offered collaborations that interpret the 19th-century history of resistance to colonial invasion.