October 1 in Bryanston kicked off with the undeniably timeless and transcendental hues of the blues – played sensationally by blues and jazz musician Smoke J Lawrence.
Lawrence said the opportunity to launch the festival in Sandton made sense in terms of attracting as many lovers of the genre as the event possibly could.
Lawrence is the CEO of the Motherland International Blues and Jazz Festival which will be hosted in Soweto through November.
“Musicians lament over recording songs nobody plays, so they move on to other genres. We’re losing blues musicians – musicians who couldn’t be in the blues because of a lack of platforms,” said Lawrence, pointing out the scarcity of resources supporting the blues genre in South Africa.
“For us, one of the biggest celebrations of this day is the blues going to the township as a festival – that’s history-making. Jazz and most all other genres have been there but the blues are yet to be in the kasi as a festival.”
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Lawrence’s journey as a musician began in 2014 shortly after his recycling business in KZN burned down. He relocated to Gauteng, where he began rebuilding a career for himself by selling sweets and chips outside a public swimming pool.
“That was a tough time, battling with remorse over not insuring my business. The things we learn from,” Lawrence reflected. “But eight months later, I took my guitar and fiddled with it to get people out of the [pool]. I made R1 000 that day. One day, I took a chance and sang, having not even sung in the shower and when I sang, I made R2 000, and that’s where my music career started in 2016.”
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In 2018, Lawrence founded the Smoke Train Blues movement, the vehicle through which he seeks to return the blues to the communities whose struggles inspired the very genre. Both the movement and festival are Lawrence’s contributions towards the development of grassroots structures supporting the blues genre in South Africa.
“Where do the blues fit in as an African, right? When you Google the blues, the farthest back you’ll go is slavery. Unfortunately, the history is a bit glorified. [When African] people were forced into slavery, what did we take along [with us] for the blues to be born as an American baby?” said Lawrence, referencing the chapters of African history which led to the development of the blues as a language for call and response.
“That’s what we have in our genetics as Africans, call and response. When we push a car in KZN, we don’t say 1,2,3, we say qubula (spoken in isiZulu by a group lifting something heavy) – that’s call and response. The strength of this can make you chuck a car over the fence.”
Lawrence can mostly be found filling the air with blues at the Protea Marriot Wanderers.
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