Joy of Jazz: The ‘Black Jew’ driving force behind music festival

They may appear different in looks, but Gareth Ackerman, Nicky Oppenheimer, Ivan Glasenberg and businesswoman Mantwa Chinoamadi, have one thing in common.

Hailing from Limpopo’s Venda, Chinoamadi – producer of the annual, multimillion-rand Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Festival – is known as “a black Jew – a Venda who does not eat pork”.

Ackerman, Oppenheimer and Glasenberg are all Jewish – billionaires who have made it in the realm of business.

The ‘Black Jew’

With her descendants coming elsewhere in Africa, Chinoamadi says most black Jews in South Africa come from Ethiopia.

“They settled in Venda and all around Limpopo,” she says.

“My father always referred to me as ‘the tall one’ – the one who can take food out of the rafters of the house without moving a ladder.”

She adds: “Black Jews like myself are called Bashabi, who have their own religion – an exciting piece of history.”

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Breaking boundaries

As producer of Africa’s most popular jazz gathering, which has for years attracted some of the big local and international artists, Chinoamadi cracked it in what has historically been regarded as a male-dominated terrain.

“All our shows have been sold out since we started and I credit our marketing team for all the hard work,” she says.

With the annual jazz festival this year returning to the Sandton International Convention Centre, the event will not only serve as a special treat for local and foreign music enthusiasts, it will stimulate a tourism boom for Johannesburg.

With financial spinoffs to be accrued by the City of Joburg, Chinoamadi said her team work with travel agencies from the US, Kenya and other countries around the world – providing packages to tourists wishing to travel to South Africa for the jazz festival, she says.

“Once you have announced the line-up of artists, what is left is the marketing and selling of tickets. “We start planning the festival a year in advance.

“After every Joy of Jazz festival taking in September, we take an October-November break, to write reports and in December we are out with new ideas for the following festival.

“What we want to give is an experience – from the artists, advertising, to a moment you walk into that space – a journey to the grand finale that is very pleasant,” she explains.

“We are heartened and energised by the milestone of the Joy of Jazz turning 26 this year.

“We have been blessed to consistently showcase the bestin-class jazz and lifestyle from South Africa and the world.

“It underscores the festival – not only as a premier jazz event on the African continent – but as a destination event that also drives economic and cultural development in the city and the region.

“This is an important contribution we wish to grow and deepen into the future.”

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What a job

As producer, her job entails designing the festival, theme and selecting artists to be featured – a job she has been doing for over a decade, thanking founder and brother-in-law Peter Tladi for support.

From being a receptionist and travelling with artists at T-Musicman – Chinoamadi has come through the ranks of the music industry.

Her dream of going to Wits University Medical School were thwarted when she took a gap year to study artist management.

Introduced to music management by Queen Radebe, who worked for T-Musicman, she fell in love with the industry.

Reading books on music and empowering with experience of working at T-Musicman, propelled her to success.

“When I started in this industry, I knew it was male-dominated,” she says. “Had I come with a mentality of being a woman, people would have walked all over me.

“Some of them would bypass me and go to Bra Peter and he would send them back to me.”

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On the mechanics of putting the big show together, she says: “When you understand the music, it is easy.

“We start by putting a list together of possible artists and we look at the new trends and who are the artists who are dominating the performance space.

“We check artists’ availability and start booking them.

“Artists then sign contracts and we start to understand what kind of concepts they are going to present on stage.

“If they are going to need a certain type of instrument, we need to know early so that we outsource it,” she says.

Remaining strong in a male-dominated domain and staying her ground, has kept her earning respect of her peers in the industry.

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