INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES

Tsotsi Soundtrack

2006 proved to be an outstanding year for South African cinema, with films with strong musical themes or connections performing especially well. Featured MOFFOM film A Lion's Trail was awarded an Emmy in the News and Documentary category, and perhaps the most international attention was raised by the astonishing success of the feature film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

A large measure of this success can be traced to the film's innovative use of South African township music and street culture to help build the atmosphere and mood of the film. Central to this aspect of the film is its supporting actor, Zola, a leading star of the local kwaito scene - a form based around elements of the beats and production values of house music, linear rapping and indigenous African elements. Aside from acting, Zola is a best-selling recording artist for leading Johannesburg independent label Ghetto Ruff, whose founder and director, Lance Stehr (formerly the manager of legendary South African hip-hop crew Prophets of Da City) also served as a music consultant on the high-energy soundtrack of Tsotsi. Several music videos from this project were screened at MOFFOM 2006.

MOFFOM program director Keith Jones recently spoke with Lance Stehr about the music for Tsotsi and forthcoming documentary projects from the Ghetto Ruff stable.

KJ What exactly was the genesis of Tsotsi as a film project?

Lance: I think we've had a couple of directors in South Africa who have been trying to do a kind of Tsotsi movie, especially after the success of various similar things on a smaller scale. Especially after Yizo Yizo, a television program that happened around 2001-2002, and I was involved in that project. Ghetto Ruff handled all the soundtrack work for Yizo Yizo, and Zola was one of the actors who participated. He played a character named Papa Action. Yizo Yizo was a sort of scripted reality-type program about the youth of South Africa growing in the townships after 1994, the street culture but also in the schools, and also about how the youth sort of interacted with the criminals of the time, the tsotsis or street criminals of that era. It is really interesting to look back on that now because when we did the casting, when we held the casting for Yizo Yizo, I said "Let's just get all the cast into the studio and try to see which one of them can actually rap. Because from this kind of media exposure across the country, the leverage is so big that if they have talent, they can easily become huge." Just as an idea, you know. Well, they sent all the actors in and when Zola hit the mic, the first track that he did was "Ghetto Fabulous" and you just knew that this guy was going to hit it, big-time. And when you saw him, the clips of him in that TV series, everyone could see that he was also a brilliant, intuitive kind of actor. That was happening in 2001. At that time, there were a lot of directors trying to get together scripts that depicted life in the townships, what the youth experienced daily, which centered around kwaito in some way. At that time, kwaito was really starting to become this massive phenomenon, breaking out of the underground and just taking over the music scene. So kwaito was always sort of the driving force in those various projects. Then something happened in the middle of this which was very weird - it took some older guy, a 56 year old, Polish-born Englishman, to actually come to South Africa to start the real process.

KJ Yes, the main producer of the film, Peter Fudakowski. What brought him to Johannesburg in the first place?

Lance: Well, he had met somebody or other in New York who had turned him on to Athol Fugard's novel Tsotsi, which itself has an entire complicated history surrounding it. He read it and acquired the rights for a film version, and then he contacted Gavin Hood, who adapted it as a screenplay. He said even at that point, when he was telling me later how he got to that process that he wasn't 100% sure about getting into it, because he had never had a comfortable feeling about South Africa. Especially seeing that he was originally from Poland, and his parents had gone through the whole Communism thing.

KJ So he probably had negative associations with the ANC's history in that region.

Lance: Well, he had negative associations with the ANC's link to Communism, especially because the Communists in power in Europe at that point had the support of the ANC, and vice-versa.

KJ In the Czech Republic the attitude is very similar. The longer history of the ANC in the South African context is virtually unknown. People know about Winnie Mandela or Joe Slovo in the 1980s but nothing about John Dube in 1912 . Even those associations have more or less faded away by now, but in the mid-90's there was still this really strong distrust and bad feeling about the ANC's past links to Communism, that Joe Slovo, who was very publicly known as having been in the pocket of the Communist regimes was now in the government. Czechs would understand that feeling immediately.

Lance: That was basically how he read the situation, too. Eventually he had to make his first trip here with Gavin Hood, who had brought him over, and he wasn't even sure what to expect when he arrived in South Africa. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly what he expected, but he still wasn't entirely sold on doing the movie. Anyway, one day he was in the Rosebank Mall and went into the CD store and saw Zola's CD everywhere, all these images of that cover with the black and white trucks. He noticed it immediately and just thought the shot was brilliant, because he's also a photographer himself. So he took the CD to the listening station, and 30 seconds into the second track he already knew that at that moment he made up his mind. He decided right there that he had to do the movie, because he felt that this music was what had been missing. So in fact what is really strange is that here was this 56 year old Polish guy from England, and what finally really turned him on to the project was this hardcore urban kwaito coming out of South Africa.

KJ So he already tried to make contact with Zola at that point because of the music?

Lance: When he spoke to the person at the counter, the guy had told him already that Zola was an actor as well. That was when Peter really said "Wow!" and when everything sort of clicked and came together for him. So he first got my number from the CD and called me up at home, and we had a meeting. From the beginning I said to him, "Where are you going to go with this movie, where are you going to take it?" I was thinking mostly of South Africa. But he was adamant already at that point that he was going to get an Oscar for it, and that was what he wanted from the start. Quite obviously, I told him, "Listen, if you are that sure, then we'll all be there. Ghetto Ruff will give you the right sound to make sure that this movie has the right feel, all the way." So we started working together really early on. That was one year and four months before shooting started, and at that point he wanted Zola to play the lead role. As things developed, Zola wasn't suited commercially for that, the way they saw it working, and Peter was very worried that Zola wouldn't want to play the secondary role he was eventually offered. While for me, it was the opposite. I thought that he had to play the second role, because from the beginning we had both said we would support him and do the project in whatever way.

KJ What was the nature of the concern about Zola being non-commercial from their side? Obviously Zola was a major star already at that time.

Lance: Well Zola is 28 years old, and the main actor, Presley Cweneyagae was around 20 then. Moreover, Presley's got a kind of a baby face, so he looks much younger than Zola to begin with. The instinctive feeling in doing the casting was that a woman looking at those two might forgive Presley for committing this crime or for being a tsotsi, but Zola's a bit of a harder type and much older, so they felt that women would find it more difficult to forgive him.

KJ Well, he does look pretty hard. Zola definitely doesn't have a baby face.

Lance: Definitely. He's got the scars and everything. He's got the sort of standard-issue, approved Soweto style for a rough character like that. It's true.

KJ The music was sort of developed in tandem with the script throughout the entire process. At what point did you start working with them directly in terms of fitting the music to the picture track during editing?

Lance: What happened was that I worked really closely from the beginning with Peter, because he was the main musical driving force all along. He could see from the start that we knew more than anyone else around about the vibe he wanted. He knew I was the person who agreed with him about wanting to make sure the music was used to help sell the movie. So I was brought in as a sort of primary music consultant, to put forward different tracks that I thought would suit the different scenes. Then they also had two different South Africans living in Los Angeles doing music for the original score. It was interesting work for me, because we were trying at that stage not only to break this kwaito hip-hop hybrid through the vehicle of the film, but there were also certain other sounds I wanted to get in there, over which we clashed quite a bit. We had huge arguments, because for me South Africa is not only about kwaito and hip-hop, as there are also other genres of music that people can get into, to get really excited about, from jazz to maskanda, all kinds of township styles. But they didn't buy that. For me, one of the tracks of that nature was "Behind the Curtain" by Crazy Lou, which for me was the perfect track for the end credits, where people would have just finished checking out the movie and still be thinking it over, and then this killer track would come on, something you could identify with in that mood.

KJ In any case, it seems to have been a major success. The music is strong throughout the film, and the soundtrack is in the window in every shop in the country right now.

Lance: Yeah, I think the soundtrack itself has been really well received. We've just issued a DVD version, featuring the videos for the various songs from the film.

KJ At what stage did you put the soundtrack together, with this larger concept of including music from and inspired by the film? Was that just something to coincide with the domestic release, or did you build a whole international campaign around that?

Lance: What happened was that right from the beginning I tried to motivate them that we should have a double CD release, also internationally. That was always my take on it, to take the music from the soundtrack and then add additional South African music of the moment and put that on there as well to make up a double CD release that would really show the best of what was happening here in South Africa. But how they fought me! And the bastards won in the end, too. The international record company said, "Do you know how much a double CD costs? And blah blah, this and that, and the margins?" And you know, fuck them and shit. In the end that kind of instrumental score doesn't really sell. They included a lot of score music on the international CD, which nobody knows, and here in South Africa the full double soundtrack on Ghetto Ruff is a bestseller.

KJ The international version includes a lot of the original score. So how much of the kwaito and hip hop from the film

Lance: Was included on the international CD? Maybe seventy percent of it. Is the film even out in the Czech Republic? How does the film scene even compare there?

KJ South Africa is obviously a bigger country and a bigger market, but the Czech Republic has a stronger film culture, at least historically. Hopefully, South African film will find a place there, maybe through this film, as happened elsewhere in Europe with the success of things like Sophiatown a few years back and uCarmen iKhayelitsha at Berlin in 2005. Tsotsi will be released later this year, a distribution company has already bought the rights. But audiences at the festivals where it was shown really related to the music. What about this new music and film project you have going on?

Lance: That's quite interesting, isn't it? These guys from prison doing music. Unusual, eh? First interview, straight from prison to CNN.

KJ Tell us something about that, the next big Ghetto Ruff media project. Because you're planning to do a whole television show around it. What's the backstory? Some guy just called you from prison and said, "I'm in jail, but..." or what exactly happened?

Lance: He phoned me from this hardcore prison with maybe nine or ten months to go on his sentence, and then every month he phoned me again. 8 months, 7 months, 6 months, and for me it was always, "Look, when you get out, give me a call." Because you know, I felt really sorry for this guy, who was stuck in prison and had wasted his money on these phone calls, because I wasn't about to go over there. Then eventually, when he would get out, I hoped he would be so busy he would forget about phoning me, because at 5 months I finally said, "No, seriously. Stop this, but when you get out, then phone me." But you know, in that situation, of course you subconsciously hope that he doesn't phone, because you don't really want to deal with the guy. You have over 200 demos a week, you get a certain amount of people phoning you every day, and you've already decided by March what we're going to be doing the rest of the year. It's very seldom that something slips through. It's got to be really fucking incredible. You've got to be really blown away for it to even make any impact. But that's what happened. One day he phoned and said, "I'm out, when can we meet?" I agreed to some random meeting he proposed, in the Carlton Centre shopping mall. And I can promise you, no meetings take place there. The last time he was out, Carlton Centre was maybe still a happening place, but that was before he went down for a long time. And of course I forgot all about it, and he called again later that night and said "Hey, you coming or what?" There was no way to avoid it then, so I drove over there, and my expectations could not have been lower. I found him, and we went and we had a meeting at a fast food court, of all places. It turned out he had spent six years in prison, went in when he was 15 years old. So he and his cell mate, well—they gave a performance in the Wimpy and it was amazing, they had this acoustic guitar—

KJ They just auditioned right there in the Wimpy itself?

Lance: Sure, right there on the forecourt of the Wimpy, and people were stopping as they walked by, like, "Damn, who's this? Who are these guys?" They were that impressed. And the guys had a really cool little band even on these cheap instruments and just drumming on the plastic table. So the next day the guy moved in to my house, and I started working with the band. I think it's been quite amazing for them. They've been on quite an incredible trip lately. You can imagine, this guy gets out of jail, and 3 days later phones me, and then all of a sudden he meets everybody in the industry, from DJ Cleo to Zola, anybody that he's ever seen on TV, he meets them in the space of a day. A week later, he's hanging backstage with Snoop. Then he does a workshop with the Black Eyed Peas, and then his first interview happens on CNN.

KJ But you said earlier that some of the band is still in prison...

Lance: Yes, most of them. We're going to visit them inside, do a jam session with them. It's a serious place. This girl who wants to shoot the documentary said, "I don't care, I want to shoot there!" Can you imagine these young types from the SABC going into a fucking prison? Jesus Christ, guys would be breaking the bars down.

KJ So you're going to shoot something with these guys in prison?

Lance: We're going to do a whole documentary around them. We decided to do the CD around a kind of movie theme as well, a sort of movie score thing, with the CD telling their story as if it was a cinematic narrative. So it's going to take you all the way from the parties and the streets through this whole epic sweep to the downfall. His girlfriend at the time was a prostitute, so she's got a cool track on there. Starting out in the townships to doing the actual crimes, over several tracks. The planning of the hit, the actual hit itself which goes wrong, then the getaway, the police chase by car, the chase by helicopter, everything. In the end they rolled the stolen car, and were caught. Then comes the prison side. The sentencing, the magistrate at the trial, and then the rappers in prison, even solitary confinement, the works. Then rehabilitation, whatever that is. So, that's how we see this, and of course they can perform it all live, which will be very cool for them.

KJ So they're basically a live hip-hop band? Live bass and drums?

Lance: Live hip-hop, with a South African kwaito feeling. Entirely all the way live. According to my sources, the lyricist's amazing, too. This guy who called me, the main rapper, whatever he's writing, what he's saying, is apparently great. I can't understand it. But you can feel that it's right.

KJ That's an incredible story. When do you plan to release the record?

Lance: I would really like him to open for Jay-Z, that would be cool. I think we need some time to work on the album. They would like to see a break this week, but I want to give it time it so that media interest will develop. They're great guys, so I wish them well.

KJ When do you think the documentary of all this will be ready?

Lance: We'll be shooting the documentary all the time as this group plays out. I think it will be several months of work. By then we'll have enough footage to start cutting and seeing how we want to do the story. They're very into doing a lot of community work now, and going back to prison to perform. It's really difficult - here you have these guys who ended up in prison for doing serious hardcore things, and then they come out and become these huge stars by talking about it. So what are they going to say to these prisoners in the audiences, that crime doesn't pay? That's what the problem is going to be. "What exactly are you trying to tell us? That this didn't work for you? Man, look where you are now..."

KJ Opening for Jay-Z with a television crew doing a movie about you.

Lance: So how do you get across the message that these guys who by the end of the year will have made a lot of money by renouncing crime, but still...Anyway, Gumshev is their name and "Straight Out of Prison" is the album title.

KJ So what's going on with Zola now? What's happened to him as a result of Tsotsi blowing up internationally and his headlining the big South African show in Brooklyn and touring Germany?

Lance: He's just gotten even bigger. He's become like an ambassador to the world, traveling all over Africa and now Europe and New York. Before, he was just the biggest music act in the country. Now he's almost at the same level of celebrity as Nelson Mandela. Seriously, a recent poll had him second to Mandela in terms of national recognition. That's the power of film hooking up with music, and that's an amazing dream for kids in this country.

Tsotsi is part of the ongoing Projekt 100 series and is in Czech cinemas this Spring. The DVD "Tsotsi: Music Video From and Inspired by the Motion Picture" and the CD by Gumshev, "Straight Out of Prison" are out now on Ghetto Ruff Records.

www.projekt100.cz
www.ghettoruff.co.za